[madison10]

Remember reading a story as a kid about something similar, but the “hookers” were Native American (not recent) males in some sort of manhood rite-of-passage thing and the hooks were in their chests.

This person is just wacko.

[ClearCase_guy]

Native American rite of passage is called the Sun Dance.

[miss marmelstein]

Richard Harris did it once.

[AnAmericanMother]

You're thinking of the Mandan O-Kee-Pa rites, recorded by painter George Catlin in the 1830s.

At least they had religious and practical reasons to undergo this rite (they believed it "made the buffalo come".)