The very first time I even thought about getting a piercing was when a friend from high school had me go with him to a piercing shop. He wanted an ampallang, but the guy we went to didn't know how to do it, so we both walked out with an earring.
At A Glance Author Zoroaster Contact Zoroaster@bme.anon IAM Zoroaster When Three months ago Artist Jaime Studio Underground Ink Location Lexington, KY The thought of an ampallang stuck in my head ever since. I always thought they were super nifty and such, but the first time I asked my piercer about it he was reluctant, and neither of us were too sure how it would work with my rather long foreskin.
Recently he had done more of them and gained some confidence, and after my PA I was confident that it should work out okay. My foreskin is pretty stretchy, so I was pretty sure it would go over the barbell for a while and didn't expect it to cause a problem. I decided to go ahead and go for it, measured everything that needed to be and ordered the jewelry.
I'd never even seen a 1.5 inch barbell before, so will admit was a bit intimidated by it. He asked if I minded his wife watching, and I didn't. She seemed more frightened the whole time than I did; the only times I get really tense before a piercing is when I can't see what's going on (the eyebrow sucked...). We made sure the dots were good, and he poked it in.
The pain was about what you'd expect from having a spike shoved through the head of your dick. I did pretty well; no crying for mother or reflexive urination or anything.
After we did it I kept the foreskin pulled back and had a rubber glove tied over my penis to keep from leaking blood. There wasn't a whole lot - a few drops, but then I never bleed much from piercings. It ached that night pretty bad, but some ibuprofen helped. Sleeping wasn't tough, but waking up with morning wood sure sucked. It was a hurt that felt like an unscratchable itch.
I was able to walk as long as I padded my groin well enough; I went through toilet paper pretty fast as I kept wrapping my dick up in it every time I pissed. The third day I had it I actually took my dog for a three hour long walk and felt fine, except for the problems described below.
I ended up taking it out after about a week after agonizing over it for two days. It healed up quickly - didn't hurt anymore after about two days.
Now, why it failed: first, I'm a grower, not a shower. Flaccid, my penis is very small. Erect, it's approximately three times as thick horizontally - the 1.5 inch barbell only barely fit, and had I kept it in it would have needed to be larger. Now, on a cut guy that would be okay, but on me the problem was that the foreskin wouldn't stay over the barbell - the tension was such that it caused it to retract very easily. The amount of tension on it was also very uncomfortable; that's sensitive tissue and the constant pressure grew more and more annoying and painful as it rubbed against the balls.
Second, what with the foreskin retracted all the time, the head of my penis began to dry out. The foreskin in an uncut male keeps the head moisturized at all times (which is why uncut guys' heads are smoother and shinier than cut guys). Upon circumcision, the tissue dries out and becomes much less sensitive. With the skin retracted, my head got really itchy (and it was the outside, not the beginning of an infection or anything) and scratching it wasn't something I was about to do.
This was my twelfth piercing and I deal with pain well - just the pain of the piercing would not have been enough to cause me to take it out. However, the constant irritating itching was something I positively couldn't handle - like Chinese water torture, it just wouldn't go away and eventually I couldn't concentrate on anything else. I tried moisturizer but that didn't really work for very long, and I couldn't keep it covered with anything well without constantly moving the barbell around, which wasn't fun either.
It's been out for about a month now. Healing was fine, no problems whatsoever. The amusing thing is that now when I'm very hard, there are two little divots right where the balls were on either side of my cockhead. I don't know if this was due to the barbell being about two millimeters too short or what, but they're pretty funny.
In closing, I would say that if you are uncut and considering an ampallang, think about a few things first: is there much difference is there between your erect size and your flaccid size, is your foreskin stretchy, and finally, can you deal with your head drying out? If the answer to these is probably no, you may want to reconsider an ampallang.