Paul R. King has been a professional body piercer since 1991 and has lectured on body modification since 1993. In 1991, he began a 1½-year apprenticeship under Elayne Angel, author of The Piercing Bible, and went on to work in all three former Gauntlet locations, managing two of them. In 1996, Gauntlet founder Jim Ward awarded him the honorary title of Master Piercer. King holds a B.A. in Anthropology, with highest honors, from the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1999, he co-founded Cold Steel America, a piercing and tattooing shop in San Francisco, and is now its sole owner. He received the Association of Professional Piercers (APP) President's Award in 2007 and has served as the APP's board-appointed Treasurer since 2008. In 2026, he was appointed to the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institut für deutsche Tätowier-Geschichte e.V. (IDTG). In 2014, with the support of the APP board, he founded the Body Piercing Archive, which creates annual exhibits on body modification.

King is the author of Alan Oversby: Documentary Evidence (2022) and Shaping Desire: Ethel and William Granger's Astonishing Tale of Corseting & Piercing (2024), and he co-authored two chapters in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Body Modification. His research draws on archives and on fieldwork in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, India, and Iran, and his documentary films explore ritual and traditional practices. He has lectured at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and the Bishopsgate Institute in London, and at conferences across Europe, Latin America, and Asia.