Firstly, before I go into the details let me explain a few things so as to not offend anyone or give them the wrong ideas. I have been a body piercer for 7 years and am currently retired. The story that is about to be told occured 5 years ago, so I considered myself fairly green. I had no "formal training", instead I did what most piercers should do (opinion), which is study anatomy and dermatology and pay attention when work is being done.
At A Glance Author Ocean Contact ocean@ritualculture.com Artist self Studio High Priestess Piercing Location Eugene, OR I just got off my shift and had been thinking about ampallangs all day long. I'd never done one and wanted one myself. I have a personal policy in that I will not perform a piercing on someone unless I've done it myself on myself (where anatomically appropriate). So the answer was fairly obvious. Tonight I'm getting an ampallang. I started with the usual prep, smoking cigarettes like a chimney, trying to relax, etc. I washed my hands and set up my station. I was going to do this piercing freehand. I feel more in control not having a bunch of tools in the way. I decided to go with a 10 gauge intitial. 14 gauge is too thin and whoever wears one should have his head examined. 12 gauge didn't strike my fancy. I moved my chair closer to my work bench and started what was to be the wierdest and longest hour of my life.
I spent a good while marking the area to get the piercing straight. When I felt comfortable with the marks I proceeded to prepare my needle and jewelry. Time for the fun to begin! I lined up the needle on the left side and started to push. I'm odd in the sence that when I pierce myself I always go slow. I've never and will never do that to a client. So slowly the needle is moving through my wee-wee (professional term) and I feel it break through one side of the urethra (finally!). I released my grip on the needle so I could see the angle of travel. Everything looked good, so I started to push again. Nobody I talked to up to this point ever mentioned just exactly how thick the urethral tissue is. It will dull a needle faster than rubbing it on conrete. I had to apply twice as much pressure to get it to exit.
Everything was fine to this point. I was too busy concentrating on the sensations I was feeling and didn't relize that I had shifted my angle, resulting in a crooked piercing. Fuck that! I pulled the needle half way back out and did it again. This time just going for broke. I got my angle and pushed like a motherfucker. Mind you, I would never do this to a client. This is my Jimmy I'm working on so any problems during healing were my own damn fault.
Time for the jewelry insertion. I decided to use a taper in the end of the needle then insert the jewelry off that. The reson being the jewelry wasn't as convexed as I was used to and didn't want to risk losing the insert. HA! I was so pumped on endorphines that my hands were shaking. I got the tapering part fine but then the jewelry went one way and my taper went the other. Ouch. Not that things couldn't get worse, but the taper decided it wanted to exit my body due to slippery gloves. I know what you're thinking and yes, it did end up on the floor. Luckily my ex-wife was there to assist me. She ran and grabbed another taper out of the equipment room and I sat there bleeding. I was able to establish the hole and insert the jewelry.
The healing went fine even though my wee-wee looked a little deflated(?). I was worried that a small absess would occur from fliud draining into the hole next to the piercing, but that wasn't the case. For the first couple of days I wore a glove over the piercing so that I didn't stain my cloths. After that it was fine. I think the worst thing about the entire ordeal is that I removed the piercing about 4 weeks after I did it. Mostly for practicality. It was uncomfortable during sex. Not just for me, but for my partner as well. Visually who could ask for a sillier looking piercing. Don't get me wrong, they look great when you got wood, but other than that they look like mouse ears. It got referd to by my partner as Mickey! Who wants to have thier Johnson compared to a rodent? Anyway, a few years later I went for the appadravya at an 8 gauge initial. Everything went smooth until I got it hooked on a pool table.....don't ask.
That was an incredible learning experiance and it helped me do the next one and everyone after perfectly. I really hope no one was offended by this recollection. Every piercer makes mistakes and every piercer (hopefully) learns from them. I know some of the best piercers on the west coast and almost all of them have had dificulties at one time or another. A good piercer learns from mistakes. A bad piercer denies them.