Richard Simonton - Body Piercing Innovator and Promoter

Body Piercing Innovator and Promoter

Richard Simonton is best known in certain communities for his interest in alternative lifestyles. In 1932, he met and became inspired by Ernest Holmes, the author of The Science of Mind and founder of Religious Science, a metaphysical movement. Throughout his life Simonton was interested in similar topics, travelling to India and the Philippines to explore non-Western ideas. His interest in body piercing would also have been considered shocking at the time, and as he explored these interests later in life he adopted the name Doug Malloy to preserve his privacy. His family was largely sheltered from his involvement in the piercing movement and in aspects of the gay or bisexual lifestyle newly emerging in the 1970s.

As Doug Malloy, he was an instrumental supporter and patron of the early body modification scene. By 1975, he had published a short, largely fictional autobiography entitled Diary of a Piercing Freak under his assumed name, which was sold to a fetish publisher and released in softback under the title The Art of Pierced Penises and Decorative Tattoos. He had also established contacts amongst body piercing enthusiasts both in Los Angeles and on a global scale, including London tattooist Alan Oversby (also known as Mr. Sebastian), Roland Loomis (also known as Fakir Musafar) and Jim Ward. He and Ward started what they called the T&P Group—short for tattooing and piercing—an association of tattoo and piercing enthusiasts based primarily in Los Angeles.

The upsurge in interest in body piercing had created enough interest that Simonton advised Jim Ward, who was working as a picture framer at the time, that he should start a body piercing business. In 1975, Simonton advanced Ward the money to start Gauntlet, originally a home based business, and Jim began to produce body piercing jewelry and learn how to pierce. Simonton's experience as an amateur piercer formed the basis of the primitive techniques used at the time and his network of contacts was instrumental in spreading the popularity of body piercing. Ward perfected these techniques which have become industry standard the world over. By 1978, Gauntlet had a retail location and the world's first body piercing studio was established. Doug also provided extensive notes that were ghostwritten by Ward into full articles for Piercing Fans International Quarterly (PFIQ), the first magazine devoted to the subject of body piercing, a Gauntlet publication.

One of Simonton's other notable contributions to the development of body piercing in contemporary society was his pamphlet Body & Genital Piercing in Brief, which is responsible for a large portion of the myths surrounding the origins of many piercings, most notably genital ones. Simonton's personal enthusiasm for body piercing as an erotic practice and his love of the fantastic came together in this document, which contains some fictional and/or speculative information. Many of the theories regarding the practice and origins of various piercings historically have been distorted by the widespread circulation of this document or later documents which quote it.