Jim Ward is an American body piercer.

Ward was born in 1941 in Western Oklahoma and moved to Colorado when he was eleven. In 1967, New York jewelry maker he joined the New York Motorbike Club, a gay S&M group, and experimented with nipple piercing. Ward then moved to Colorado, where he and other members of the gay Rocky Mountaineer Motorcycle Club experimented more broadly, with genital piercing in particular. In 1973, Ward moved to West Hollywood (a gay village of Los Angeles) where he met Doug Malloy and Fakir Musafar. Together these men developed the basic techniques and equipment of modern body piercing. Malloy introduced the use of the autoclave and hypodermic needle; Ward developed the fixed bead ring and internally threaded barbells. With funding from Malloy (derived from his work with the Muzak corporation), Ward began using his home as a private piercing studio in 1975. Dubbing his studio the Gauntlet, he drew an initial clientèle by running classified ads in local gay and fetish publications. After three years of continued refinement with techniques and equipment, Ward opened the Gauntlet as a commercial storefront operation in West Hollywood on November 17th, 1978. The establishment of this business — considered the first of its type in the United States — was the beginning of the body piercing industry.

In 1977, Ward started the piercing magazine Piercing Fans International Quarterly (PFIQ).

In a 2004 documentary entitled The Social History of Piercing, MTV called him "the granddaddy of the modern body piercing movement."

James David Ward (born September 19, 1976 in El Paso, Texas) is the lead vocalist, guitarist and leader of the band Sparta. A self-taught guitarist and pianist, he was also the co-founder of the seminal (and now defunct) post-hardcore band At the Drive-In.

James (Jim) Kevin Ward (born May 19, 1959 in New York, New York) is a voice actor who has contributed to a large number of video games and movies. He co-hosts The Stephanie Miller Show, a nationally-syndicated liberal radio talk show which features a number of his impersonations of political figures and other celebrities and newsmakers. On the show, it was revealed that Jim went to the University of California, Los Angeles, where his father, Don Ward, was a professor of German and folklore.

James M. Ward (born May 23, 1951), is an American game designer and fantasy author. He is most famous for his game development and writing work for TSR, Inc., where he worked for more than 20 years. In 1989 he was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design Hall of Fame. From 2000 - 2005, he was President of Fast Forward Entertainment, an independent game development company.

Jim Ward is a member of the town council in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He is currently serving in his third term. This year, he was elected to his third term which will begin in January. His son, Sam (also known as Wentworth), attends the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Jim Ward, known to his friends as the "Ruler of the Free World," is a UNC employee, working as a curator at the North Carolina Botanical Garden for the past 29 years.