The practice of piercing the foreskin for the insertion of jewellery [or Christmas baubles if preferred] is as old as circumcision and goes back beyond recorded history. The Romans pierced foreskins, not as a fashion statement or for pleasure, but as an attempt to ensure slaves and athletes concentrated on their duties and remained celibate. Called infibulation, the foreskin would be pierced in two places, and some sort of metal locking device, a fibula, would be inserted through the holes and secured. If it didn't work as a deterrent, it would at least result in some interestingly kinky sex, which could make up for what were undoubtedly very messy pees.

It is said that ancient Polynesian mariners used to navigate by judging the movement of the waves. The best way for them to do this was to squat in their boats, and feel the movement through the swaying of their balls. The ridge of skin that runs between the base of the scrotum and the anus contains a large group of sensitive nerves, and the theory is that the Polynesian mariners pierced this ridge and had a weight hanging from the piercing as an aid to navigation.

Called a guiche [to rhyme with quiche], it is used for purposes other than navigation today. Pressure there stimulates the prostate gland, and all sorts of delightful erotic sensations can result when a guiche is tugged and toyed with.

The rhinoceros has rigid protrusions on either side of its penis, a feature that gave the rhino's penis a special place in the fertility rituals of the tribes in Borneo. The men of Borneo copied the rhino penis by inserting a rod horizontally through the head of their own penises. More than twenty different tribal groups in South East Asia followed suit, piercing their dicks, with what has become known as a palang, or ampallang, as a badge of courage, status and virility. Smooth rounded balls at the ends of the ampallang increase the width of the penis creating an extra stimulating fuck. The women considered sex with a man without an ampallang to be somewhat humdrum, a little like eating a meal of plain rice. With a palang the sex is spiced up, like eating rice with salt. One anthropologist in the 1800's reported meeting a chief wearing three palangs through his penis. Sex with him must have been like eating salty rice with gravy.

Other Indonesian tribes opted for less radical modifications such as small bells, onomatopoeically called kaling-kaling, sewn under the skin of the penis, which gives 'going for a tinkle' a whole new meaning.

Back in the late twentieth century that busty babe, Pamela Anderson described her kind of guy as tall and dark, with long hair, a good body, tattoos and some 'body hardware'. Ms Anderson's husband at the time, Tommy Lee, must have fitted the bill, as he reckoned that 'unless you've got a bolt through your genitals, you're not making it in the nineties'.

If you didn't make it in the nineties, don't despair; treat your dick to a Christmas bauble or two this year. Better late than never?