Was a bit disappointed we couldn't have ear gauges, but idk how they would've implemented that.
Spike, the goblin, has a version of a guage in his left ear, with another hoop going through the guage. I think it's very good and very appropriate for his character. Would be interesting to see if modders could do this for custom Tavs. There is already a mod that gives piercing edits, along with instructions on how to customize it yourself, such as adding a nose stud to the bard rings. I've done it for my characters. It's pretty easy and you don't even need a mod for that, just the file to overwrite in your data folder. Here is a picture of my edited Bard Rings: