When a woman tells you she’s got a new stud, she’s not referring to her boyfriend

“Have you got a stud yet?” My twice-divorced girlfriend leant in conspiratorially, eyebrows waggling. “You just have to get one!”

I glanced over at her latest dating-app beau who was busily flipping snags on the barbecue. A nice enough bloke, but “stud muffin”? Nope. Well, the muffin bit, maybe, I thought, eyeballing his paunch.

Surely the best way to stay relevant and attractive is a piercing wit instead. Credit: ISTOCK

My pal suddenly whipped up her shirt. It was then I finally realised that when a middle-aged woman tells you she’s just got a “stud”, she’s not referring to the bit of beefcake she picked up at Pilates. No, she’s referring to a gold nipple ring or diamond-encrusted bellybutton bar.

Forget hipster jeans or high-heeled Birkenstocks – apparently the new look at the office party or school reunion is a midlife piercing, with jewellery brand Mejuri saying its main customers these days are middle-aged women wanting body piercings. And they ain’t cheap. Mejuri’s most popular stud retails for up to $640, while another jewellery firm, Maria Tash, has a diamond-encrusted navel barbell that is yours for a mere $17,000.

My pal’s bellybutton adornment wasn’t expensive, but I examined it with the fascinated awe I’d lavish on the Hope Diamond. Apparently, she and her daughter had opted for the same ornament because identical mother/daughter piercings are “the definitive bonding experience”.

Really? My mum/daughter bonding involves watching a Friends re-run or having a mani at a day spa. But it would seem that these harmless pastimes are now passé.

My chum then suggested I join her at a piercing party the following weekend, so we could get identical ear decorations as the “ultimate sign of our friendship”.

“Does a woman really need any more holes in her body than are strictly necessary?” I replied. The answer is yes, apparently.

I looked at her, bewildered. I thought the ultimate sign of our friendship was the fact that we’d met on the kindergarten mat. I thought the ultimate sign of our friendship was that I’d held her hand during childbirth after first husband ran off with his tennis instructor. (It was a 15-hour labour and I still have the fingernail scars to prove it.) I thought the ultimate sign of our friendship was wearing a miner’s light to check her nether regions for ticks after an ill-advised pee in the paspalum.

“Does a woman really need any more holes in her body than are strictly necessary?” I replied.

The answer is yes, apparently, because piercings are the new tattoo, the new vajazzle, the new all-over spray tan.

Intrigued, the next weekend I gathered with a group of mums in a suburban living room to pore over trays of trinkets and baubles. Chantelle, the jeweller, wanted to know which bit of my body I was going to pierce – “nose, nipples, navel, tongue, lips, eyebrow, septum, clitoris…” Yep, for the truly adventurous that is also an option. Surely childbirth was enough pain for that part of my anatomy?

The same with nipple piercing. You’re looking at a woman who had mastitis. Twice. A helpful midwife suggested I wear cabbage leaves in my bra to reduce the swelling. My inflamed breasts were so hot the cabbage cooked, which has to be the ultimate in maternal multitasking: I may be busy breastfeeding, but dinner is served!

A whiff of hydrogen peroxide suddenly flashed me back to my teenage ear-piercing ordeal. One of my surfie girlfriends numbed my earlobe with ice before another skewered it with a sewing needle. The ensuing infection took months to heal. My only perfume? Eau de disinfectant. Needless to say, I did not feel an urgent need for any more “holesome” fun.

My pal, meanwhile, had made her jewellery selections; six studs for her upper ears. As she offered her cartilage to the needle, I asked why she was turning herself into a human colander.

She explained that a big part of the attraction for middle-aged women is that it stops you feeling invisible. “In fact, piercings make men think you’re subversive, and therefore more interesting.”

But surely, I rationalised, give a bloke the impression that you’re wild and untamed and you have to keep up the act. And who wants to swing naked from the Hills Hoist, yodelling while covered in custard, at our age?

I watched as another middle-aged mum got a nose ring, ear-stud and eyebrow bar. Would that really get her noticed? Yes, by metal detectors. The only thing attracted to that face would be a magnet.

Not keen to spend my life being strip-searched at airports, I politely declined. Yes, I want to push boundaries. Yes, I want to stay visible. Yes, I want to keep my edge. Yes, I want to look rebellious, dangerous, interesting, subversive… But, well, what would my 92-year-old mum say? I’d probably be grounded!

Besides, surely the best way to stay relevant and attractive is a piercing wit. Oh, and a dirty mind – which definitely doesn’t require a daily dose of disinfectant.

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