I didn't want to write up my experience right away, in case I decided to take them out or they rejected, but since it's been six months and they're still going strong (mostly--read on), I decided now's as good a time as any.
At A Glance Author Banzai Girl When Six months ago Studio House Of Tattoo Location Tacoma, WA In my first couple sexual experiences, as well as playing alone, I had noticed I had barely any feeling in my nipples. This was unacceptable. Here I had a perfectly good erogenous zone, going entirely to waste. I had to do something.
For a month or so, I read up on the up and downsides of nipple piercings: I would probably have increased sensation, unless I lost all sensation. Well, nothing to lose there, frankly. On the flipside, I would have to take them out to nurse a child. Ha! The day I put a squalling infant to my tit is the day Uncle Satan's Down Under Brand Sno-Cones puts out an IPO. So all was go.
I announced my intentions to a heavily-pierced friend and asked if he could recommend a studio. He had gotten his at Tacoma's House Of Tattoo, a fine, clean, well-lit studio which was happily walking distance from my house. I called them for a price check ($90 for both, including jewelry, if I recall) and walked in early that Saturday.
The piercer was young and female, and directed me to a chair behind a curtain. I was nervous and excited as she explained the procedure, put on gloves, and drew Sharpie dots on my nipples. She cracked open a new, sterile needle, and quickly pushed it through my nipple. It hurt much less than I had expected, and she marveled that it wasn't bleeding even after she put the 12-gauge ring through. (Since this was my first piercing, she used a larger gauge than normal to guard against rejection.) The other went similarly, and I left adrenaline-woozy and took the bus home.
After that, there was only the healing. As aftercare I had been instructed to wash up with Dial soap, which dried my skin out and hurt. Both rings itched like mad, and were amazingly painful if jostled. I had trouble sleeping on my stomach or my side, and wore a sports bra to bed. For the first couple weeks I kept up a brave front, but in the third I whined piteously to anyone who would listen and seriously considered taking them out. In the end, it was the price that made me keep them. I mean--$90? For putting some shrapnel in my body? Hell, there's places I can go where not only is that done for free, but I get college money out of it!
After the pain stopped being an issue, I started noticing that my left piercing was seemingly closer to the surface and healing less well. To this day I'm not quite sure if it had migrated or if it was just pierced like that, but if it was migrating it stopped the day I noticed it. So there was paranoia for a while that my body would reject the piercing.
Oh, and then there was the sex. I suppose I could have told my boyfriend, who lived in another state and hadn't seen me for three months, to keep his hands off my tits, but, um, no. WOWZA. It was like having three clits. The touching, however, precipitated another cycle of irritated, painful piercings gushing gunk. I briefly tried switching my own rings (dumb) to a smaller gauge of ring (dumb) that I had bought at the mall (/so/ dumb), but reconsidered after a few minutes and hastily switched back to the huge CBRs. So there was more healing time.
This summer, when I felt my nipples were pretty well-healed and unlikely to get better or worse, I switched the giant CBRs I had in for two titanium barbells I bought in Scotland. Oh, that was the most heavenly couple of months. Around the same time I stopped using Dial after reading a warning against antibacterial soaps on healing piercings, and I guess the combination of that and the less mobile barbells led to pain-free, happy nipples (if somewhat tackily colored in rainbow titanium).
Of late, I was looking at Suicide Girls and became jealous of the tiny, cute CBRs all those girls seemed to have in their perfectly-airbrushed nipples. When the chance came to buy and switch out the titanium wonders for those, I jumped at it, forgetting the whole thing where if you move a crusty CBR it hurts like the devil. I guess I jostled my left one somehow (and how I don't know, it's not like I have tits that would be in the way, or indeed visible without heavy padding), because yesterday it was BLEEDING BLOOD, something which had never happened before even in the earliest stages of healing. I washed them both carefully and they seem to have reverted to a baseline state of non-irritation, a blessing in these dark times.
I love my nipple rings for their functionality, but I will take them out when their one-year anniversary rolls around. I hope the sensitivity stays, but if not, it'll be down to the piercing parlor again. The next time, they'll be diagonal bars.