Mess with the Bull and You get the Horns: Male Septum Piercings

“Oh what a cute piercing, I love how it shines on you!”

Just about one of the last things that a guy wants to hear someone say to him about the new piece of metal that he’s displaying proudly.  Today I’m going to talk about one of the piercings that I think changes the most from gender to gender: The Septum.  Depending on the jewelry, the piercing can go from a small and slight accessory that’s barely noticeable to a thick and stand out piece of ornamentation.

Men’s Septum Piercing (source: WGSN.com)

One of the most common ways that guys wear a septum piercing (and the namesake of this article) is referred to as a Bull Ring.  This is the use of a Ball Captive Ring being placed in the septum to hang out, the same way that bull rings are placed.  More often than not, this has become a common way to keep the septum open and healthy while in between sizes and stretching to a thicker gauge.  Tossing a plain steel BCR into your septum is easy to maintain, very visible, and it’s a reliable piece of jewelry for what can be a very temperamental area.

Now you’re far from limited to a bull ring for your sniffer.  Taking it back to the earliest influences, barbells can be a popular and fun way to switch up from the expected.  Since people figured out how to pierce without having part of your body rot and fall off, a horizontal septum piercing with a long bar in it has been a standard for the tribesman on the go.  Today things are a bit more refined than a long piece of bone just shoved through (not hating on you if that’s your particular style) and with the wide variety of barbells designed for general use there’s quite a few to choose from.

I don’t personally have my septum done, but from those I know that have gone the route of bars and horseshoes there are two words that I’ve been told will make life very different and much easier: Internally Threaded.  Internally threaded items have the screw part of the assembly on the ball, screwing into a hole in the horseshoe or the bar.  This means that when you’re fitting the actual bar through the hole the edges are completely smooth, preventing what can be the very painful moment of feeling metal threading try to work it’s way through a still tender opening.

If you’re looking for a more extreme body mod style, stretching the septum can offer you a whole new world of options.  Having personally seen up to a 0 gauge septum, it’s the same process essentially as with any other stretchable piercing, and in the end it opens up the world of plugs as fillers.  The combination of a wood or steel tunnel with a steel BCR can give an incredibly unique and personal look to an otherwise overlooked part of the body.

So rock out with your ring out, get a bit tribal with a straight bar, or stretch and sniff to your hearts content.  No matter what the piercing, there’s a way to make it just your style and fit it to your personality just right.