James Goss holds the record for most face flesh tunnels with 17.
Nowadays, body piercing is fashionable, but face piercing is less prevalent. However, one man's obsession with body piercing led him to break the world record for creating flesh tunnels.
According to Guinness World Records, James Goss (UK) holds the record for most face flesh tunnels with 17. He has them in his lips, nose, and cheeks and says they make him who he is.
And while he may sometimes get curious looks from passersby, James says he's come to realise that his own opinion is what matters most.
"I used to feel that quite a lot of people were very judgmental towards me based on the way I look, and I do still feel that to an extent," Goss told Guinness World Records.
"But I feel like a lot of that was more down to my own mental health and the sort of relationship I had with myself and how that affected the way I interpreted other people's behaviour towards me."
"Because I assumed people would be judgmental towards me, then it was kind of... if you're looking for something, then you're going to see it more."
He added, "Everybody who I stop and talk to for any reason seems to treat me just as they would anybody else."
"Something quite important that I've learned recently is that it makes a lot more sense to get your self-esteem from an internal locus of evaluation instead of how other people interpret you because, at the end of the day, the most important thing is the relationship you have with yourself," he said.
"For me, expressing myself regardless of what other people think has made me feel a lot more fulfilled. I don't want to change myself to fit in with other people; it's better to just be myself and spend my energy finding where I fit in anyway."