An Israeli competitor poses for a picture during the “Truck Pull”, a test of endurance in which the challenger pulls a 7.5 tone truck over a 30 meters course, on June 8, 2010 in the coastal city of Tel Aviv. (Jack Guez, AFP / Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese shrine of Samkong, pierces his cheeks with wrenchs during a procession of Vegetarian Festival on October 11, 2010 in Phuket, Thailand. Ritual Vegetarianism in Phuket Island traces it roots back to the early 1800’s. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days. Participants in the festival perform acts of body piercing as a means of shifting evil spirits from individuals onto themselves and bring the community good luck. (Athit Perawongmetha, Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese Bang Neow Shrine parades with two small guitars piercing his cheeks during a street procession to mark the annual Vegetarian Festival in the southern Thai town of Phuket on October 2, 2011. During the festival, which begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts nine days, religious devotees slash themselves with swords, pierce their cheeks with sharp objects and commit other painful acts to purify themselves, taking on the sins of the community. (Christophe Archambault, AFP / Getty Images)
Tattoo artist Antonio Carmona is suspended in the air from hooks put in his back and arms 13 December, 2006 in Mexico City. Carmona did his performance as a protest against the social discrimination suffered by people who use tattos and piercings. (Luis Acosta, AFP / Getty Images)
Elaine Davidson, the most pierced woman in the world, shows off some of her 2,520 piercings at the 50th anniversary of the Guiness World Records in London 16 November, 2004. (Nicolas Asfouri, AFP / Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese shrine of Jui Tui, pierces his cheeks with skewers during a procession of Vegetarian Festival on October 14, 2010 in Phuket, Thailand. Ritual Vegetarianism in Phuket Island traces it roots back to the early 1800’s. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days. Participants in the festival perform acts of body piercing as a means of shifting evil spirits from individuals onto themselves and bring the community good luck. (Athit Perawongmetha, Getty Images)
British tattoo artist Karma Webb poses during the Nepal Tattoo Convention in Kathmandu on April 22, 2011. Some 57 tattoo artist from 10 different countries participated in the convention. (Prakash Mathema, AFP / Getty Images)
A man hangs from hooks put in his back and arms during the First International Tattoo Convention in Medellin, Antioquia department, Colombia on October 31, 2010. (Raul Arboleda, AFP / Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese Bang Neow Shrine parades with a gun piercing his cheek during a street procession to mark the annual Vegetarian Festival in the southern Thai town of Phuket on October 2, 2011. During the festival, which begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts nine days, religious devotees slash themselves with swords, pierce their cheeks with sharp objects and commit other painful acts to purify themselves, taking on the sins of the community. (Christophe Archambault, AFP / Getty Images)
Bulgarian Genislav Naidenov shows his piercings during an annual international tattoo contest in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, Sunday, May 4, 2008. Over the past few years tattoos have become popular among teenagers and there are many new tattoo studios around the country. (Petar Petrov, AP)
A devotee of the Chinese Jui Tui Shrine parades with a sword piercing his cheek during a street procession marking the annual Vegetarian Festival in the southern Thai town of Phuket on October 3, 2011. During the festival, which begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts nine days, religious devotees slash themselves with swords, pierce their cheeks with sharp objects and commit other painful acts to purify themselves, taking on the sins of the community. (Christophe Archambault, AFP / Getty Images)
Maria Jose Cristerna poses for pictures during a press conference at a tattoo shop in Bogota, Colombia, Friday, June 3, 2011. The Mexican tattoo artist said she started to cover her body in tattoos, piercings, titanium implants and dental fangs to re-invent herself as a vampire, her reaction after suffering domestic violence. Cristerna is in Colombia to attend a tattooing international convention. (William Fernando Martinez, AP)
A devotee of the Chinese shrine of Kathu Shrine, pieaces his cheeks with swords during during a procession of Vegetarian Festival on October 4, 2011 in Phuket, Thailand.Ritual Vegetarianism in Phuket Island traces it roots back to the early 1800’s. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days. Participants in the festival perform acts of body piercing as a means of shifting evil spirits from individuals onto themselves and bring the community good luck. (Athit Perawongmetha, Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese shrine of Kathu Shrine, pierces his cheeks with power drills during a procession at the Vegetarian Festival on October 4, 2011 in Phuket, Thailand. Ritual Vegetarianism in Phuket Island traces it roots back to the early 1800’s. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days. Participants in the festival perform acts of body piercing as a means of shifting evil spirits from individuals onto themselves and bring the community good luck. (Athit Perawongmetha, Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese shrine of Kathu Shrine, pierces his body with needles during a procession at the Vegetarian Festival on October 4, 2011 in Phuket, Thailand. Ritual Vegetarianism in Phuket Island traces it roots back to the early 1800’s. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days. Participants in the festival perform acts of body piercing as a means of shifting evil spirits from individuals onto themselves and bring the community good luck. (Athit Perawongmetha, Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese shrine of Sui Boon Tong Shrine, pierces his cheeks with skewers during a procession of Vegetarian Festival on October 5, 2011 in Phuket, Thailand. Ritual Vegetarianism in Phuket Island traces it roots back to the early 1800’s. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days. Participants in the festival perform acts of body piercing as a means of shifting evil spirits from individuals onto themselves and bring the community good luck. (Athit Perawongmetha, Getty Images)
A devotee pulls his procession burden connected by hooks pierced in his back during the Thaipusam procession at Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple on February 7, 2012 in Singapore. Thaipusam is a Hindu festival celebrated on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai. Devotees pray and make vows, when the prayers are answered they fulfill the vows by piercing parts of their body such as their cheeks, tongues, and backs before carrying a ‘Kavadi’ along a four kilometre route. (Chris McGrath, Getty Images)
A devotee has his body pierced with hooks before taking part in the Thaipusam procession at Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple on February 7, 2012 in Singapore. Thaipusam is a Hindu festival celebrated on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai. Devotees pray and make vows, when the prayers are answered they fulfill the vows by piercing parts of their body such as their cheeks, tongues, and backs before carrying a ‘Kavadi’ along a four kilometre route. (Chris McGrath, Getty Images)
A Hindu devotee gets pierced with spikes, flowers, milk, lime and fruits sewed to his body during the annual Hindu Thaipusam Kavady festival held at Shree Emperumal Hindu Temple in Mount Edgecombe township, some 42 kms north of Durban on February 11, 2012. The festival is a purification ritual offering prayers, penance, observing a strict month long vegetarian diet and celebrating the birth of Hindu god, Muruga. (Rajesh Jantilal, AFP / Getty Images)
A young Kosovo dervish, adept of Sufism, a mystical form of Islam that preaches tolerance and a search for understanding, takes part in a ceremony in the prayer room in the town of Prizren on March 22, 2012. The Kosovo dervish community carries on centuries-old mystical practices, such as self-piercing with needles and knives as a way to earn salvation and find the path to God. (Armend Nimani, AFP / Getty Images)
An Indian Hindu devotee with his tongue pierced with a metal rod looks on, during the ritual of Shiva Gajan at a village in Bainan, some 80 kms south of Kolkata, on April 13, 2012. Devotees believe that by enduring the pain, Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction, will grant their prayers. Thousands took part in the month-long festival which culminates with the worship of Shiva on the auspicious day of Chaitra Sankranti, the last day of the Bengali calendar year. (Dibyangshu Sarkar, AFP / Getty Images)
Eddie Sinclair, a telephone operator by day, performs an act of Yogic endurance as ‘Kahbulah, the English Fakir’ at the Big Drum in Nottinghamshire. With numerous nails and pins sticking into his bare flesh, he hammers a six-inch nail through his tongue and into a table June 5, 1959. (John Pratt, Keystone Features / Getty Images)
A woman is suspended in the air from hooks attached to body piercings put on her back, during the annual “Virada Cultural” event, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on May 6, 2012. The Virada Cultural is a cultural party which offers 24 hours of uninterrupted attractions in stages around the city, such as music, dance, cooking, theatre, exhibitions of art and history and other forms of expression. (Nelson Almeida, AFP / Getty Images)
An Indian Hindu devotee walks with a trident rod piercing in her tongue known as Trishula during a procession to honour the Hindu goddess Maha Mariamman in Amritsar on May 13, 2012. Devotees believe that the goddess protects whoever worships her. (Narinder Nanu, AFP / Getty Images)
Circus performer Lucky Rich, age 28, shows his stainless steel teeth at the preview of the controversial exhibition of tattooing, piercing and body painting at The Australian Museum in Sydney 10 February 2000. Lucky, who also sports titanium implants in his penis, will feature in the show “Body Art” which runs until 18 June 2000. (Torsten Blackwood, AFP / Getty Imagess)
An Iraqi Sufi with metal pins piercing close to his eye and through his tongue during a ritual at a mosque in the Iraqi capital Baghdad 16 February 2002. Sufism, or tasawwuf, is generally understood by scholars and Sufis to be the inner, mystical, or psycho-spiritual dimension of Islam. (Ramzi Haidar, AFP / Getty Images)
Street entertainers perform on the Royal Mile Edinburgh as part of the Fringe during the Edinburgh Festival on August 23, 2006 in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images)
Deborah Boer has a check up on a recent cosmetic enhancement to her eyeball, a platinum heart on April 27, 2004 at Briebergen in the Netherlands. Eyeball jewellery has become the latest extreme fashion trend in the Netherlands with tiny gems placed surgically under the mucous membrane of the eye. (Michel Porro, Getty Images)
A woman with her back pierced forming a tantra, takes part 13 December, 2006 in Mexico City, of a protest against the social discrimination suffered by people who have tattos and piercings. (Luis Acosta, AFP / Getty Images)
A Hindu devotee (R) is restrained with hooks pierced through his back as he makes his way towards the Batu Caves temple during Thaipusam near Kuala Lumpur, 01 February 2007. Thaipusam, a festival commemorating the day when Goddess Pavarthi gave her son Lord Muruga an invincible lance with which he destroyed evil demons, is celebrated by some two million ethnic Indians in Malaysia. The centerpiece of the celebration is held at the Batu Caves, where worshippers pierced with hooks and skewers in their tongues, cheeks, chests and backs shoulder heavy structures called kavadis as they walk barefoot up the temple’s 272 steps in a form of penance. (Tengku Bahar, AFP / Getty Images)
A lady with facial piercings poses for a photograph at the International Tattoo Convention at the Truman Brewary on October 6, 2007 in London, England. (Chris Jackson, Getty Images)
Paraguayan Miriam Lopez shows the palms of her hands pierced with nails during a homeless’ protest march May 12, 2009 toward the Congress in Asuncion demanding the dismissal of SAS (Secretaria de Accion Social) director Pablino Caceres. (Norberto Duarte, AFP / Getty Images)
Tattoo artist Jorge Castro is hung from piercing hooks on his back on August 15, 2009, in an attempt to set a Guinness record of a 3-hour suspension, during the International Convention of Tattoo at the World Trade Center in Mexico City. (Ronaldo Schemidt, AFP / Getty Images)
A Hindu devotee, restrained with hooks pierced through his back, makes his way towards the Batu Caves temple at sunrise during the Thaipusam festival in Kuala Lumpur on January 30, 2010. The Hindu festival of Thaipusam, which commemorates the day when Goddess Pavarthi gave her son Lord Muruga an invincible lance with which he destroyed evil demons, is celebrated by some two million ethnic Indians in Malaysia. (Saeed Khan, AFP / Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese shrine of Samkong, pierces his cheeks with axes during a procession of Vegetarian Festival on October 11, 2010 in Phuket, Thailand. Ritual Vegetarianism in Phuket Island traces it roots back to the early 1800’s. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days. Participants in the festival perform acts of body piercing as a means of shifting evil spirits from individuals onto themselves and bring the community good luck. (Athit Perawongmetha, Getty Images)
The leader of the “Coorong Mob”” performers wears feathers, painted face stripes and a quill piercing his nose during the opening of the Yeperenye Federation Festival September 8, 2001 in Alice Springs, Central Australia. The Yeperenye Festival involves traditional elders with thousands of dancers, artists, singers, musicians and spectators who gather at Blatherskite Park on the traditional lands of the Arrernte people. During a year that Australia marks its first hundred years of Federation, this event celebrated the ”First Federation” and was one of the largest cultural gatherings of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people since colonization. (Matt Turner, Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese shrine of Samkong, pierces his cheeks with swords during a procession of Vegetarian Festival on October 11, 2010 in Phuket, Thailand. Ritual Vegetarianism in Phuket Island traces it roots back to the early 1800’s. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days. Participants in the festival perform acts of body piercing as a means of shifting evil spirits from individuals onto themselves and bring the community good luck. (Athit Perawongmetha, Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese Bank Neow Shrine with his cheeks pierced with a toy gun takes part in a procession through the streets to mark the annual Vegetarian Festival in southern Thailand’s town of Phuket on October 13, 2010. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days, with many religious devotees slashing themselves with swords, piercing their cheeks with sharp objects and committing other painful acts to purify themselves, taking on the sins of the community. (Nicolas Asfouri, AFP / Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese shrine of Jui Tui, pierces his cheeks with spike during a procession of Vegetarian Festival on October 14, 2010 in Phuket, Thailand. Ritual Vegetarianism in Phuket Island traces it roots back to the early 1800’s. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days. Participants in the festival perform acts of body piercing as a means of shifting evil spirits from individuals onto themselves and bring the community good luck. (Athit Perawongmetha, Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese shrine of Jui Tui has his cheeks pierced with umbrellas as he takes part in a procession to mark the annual Vegetarian Festival in southern Thailand’s town of Phuket on October 14, 2010. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days, with many religious devotees slashing themselves with swords, piercing their cheeks with sharp objects and committing other painful acts to purify themselves, taking on the sins of the community. (Nicolas Asfouri, AFP / Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese shrine of Jui Tui, his cheeks and tongue pierced with an umbrella and skewers, takes part in a procession to mark the annual Vegetarian Festival in southern Thailand’s town of Phuket on October 14, 2010. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days, with many religious devotees slashing themselves with swords, piercing their cheeks with sharp objects and committing other painful acts to purify themselves, taking on the sins of the community. (Nicolas Asfouri, AFP / Getty Images)
A Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu devotee hangs from hooks inserted into his skin during a ceremony at a Hindu temple in Colombo on April 10, 2011. Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils are mainly followers of Hinduism in a country torn by ethnic strife. (Lakruwan Wanniarachchi, AFP / Getty Images)
Performance artist Alice Newstead is suspended by fish hooks at a local arts centre in Hong Kong on June 14, 2011. Lush employee Newstead was illustrating how sharks are caught on longlines to be killed for their fins. The company were urging customers to take personal action in the fight to save sharks by pledging not to eat shark fin soup. (Mike Clarke, AFP / Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese Bang Neow Shrine sits with a shock absorber and an exhaust pipe piercing his cheeks during a street procession to mark the annual Vegetarian Festival in the southern Thai town of Phuket on October 2, 2011. During the festival, which begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts nine days, religious devotees slash themselves with swords, pierce their cheeks with sharp objects and commit other painful acts to purify themselves, taking on the sins of the community. (Christophe Archambault, AFP / Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese shrine of Kathu Shrine, pierces his cheeks with skewers during the Vegetarian Festival on October 4, 2011 in Phuket, Thailand. Ritual Vegetarianism in Phuket Island traces it roots back to the early 1800’s. The festival begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts for nine days. Participants in the festival perform acts of body piercing as a means of shifting evil spirits from individuals onto themselves and bring the community good luck. (Athit Perawongmetha, Getty Images)
A devotee of the Chinese Jui Tui Shrine with needles piercing his cheeks takes part in a street procession marking the annual Vegetarian Festival in the southern Thai town of Phuket on October 3, 2011. During the festival, which begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts nine days, religious devotees slash themselves with swords, pierce their cheeks with sharp objects and commit other painful acts to purify themselves, taking on the sins of the community. (Christophe Archambault, AFP / Getty Images)
An ethnic Chinese Indonesian uses blood from a self inflicted wound on his tongue to write a spell on ritual papers during a Chap Goh Meh celebration on February 24, 2013 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Today locals are celebratinh the Chap Goh Meh, which is the 15th day of Chinese New Year and represents the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Traditionally,people visit temples and offer prayers in order to receive blessings and good fortune from the God of Prosperity. (Syamsul Bahri Muhammad / Getty Images)
An ethnic Chinese Indonesian with his cheeks pierced stands on top of a chariot while in a trance during a Chap Goh Meh ritual parade on February 24, 2013 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Today locals are celebratinh the Chap Goh Meh, which is the 15th day of Chinese New Year and represents the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Traditionally,people visit temples and offer prayers in order to receive blessings and good fortune from the God of Prosperity. (Syamsul Bahri Muhammad / Getty Images)
GRAPHIC IMAGES: Guy Gets Stretched Earlobes Sewn Up In Gruesome Surgery
