Years ago, having read the book Virtual Light by William Gibson I was intrigued by a reference he made to the genital piercing one of the characters had. It was called an ampallang. I'd never heard of such a thing. At the time the only male genital piercing I had any experience with was the frenum a kid at school had (and showed me) and the PA one of my ex's had. So I looked up ampallang on google and discovered BME for the first time. I thought it looked great and all but at the time I was only 16 and hadn't had any piercings at all.
At A Glance Author jeffthree Contact jeffthree@bme.anon When A year ago Artist Jason Morningstar Studio Primitive Impressions Location Rochester, NY About five years after that I came across the book on my shelf read it and again marveled at how they could put a bolt through the head of a penis. This time though it was different, I actually had some piercings of my own, even had a PA (which a partner had convinced me to remove) and I decided to seriously look into getting my very own ampallang. I looked at all kinds of pictures and read countless experiences (here on BME and also at some gay community web sites) and generally learned as much as I could about the piercing.
I found out that there was more to it than just a bar through the glans. It could be narrow or wide gauge, transurethral or above, or below, the urethra. That there could be health risks associated with it from improper healing to infection to rejection. Not to mention a couple sites that were kind enough to remind me a bleeding penis is not a turn on for most people. Which I only mention because I was in a relation ship at the time and didn't really think we could go a week or two without sex without going out of our minds... But I talked it over with my partner and he was very supportive, so he helped me get some measurements and the next day, April 4th 2006, (while he was at work) I set off to the city.
Primitive Impressions is a rather well known piercing shop in the Rochester, NY area and I remembered seeing a commercial for it on local TV some time back. I'd had a peek at their website to find out hours of operation and such but really wasn't sure what to expect. I got to the shop a bit after 1:00 pm and was very excited to see Jason (the guy I remembered from the commercial) behind the counter (he's such a cutie). He was great very friendly and cheerful and as I was to find out extreamly knowledgeable. I said I was interested in getting an ampallang and he was a bit shocked (didn't expect to have one first thing after opening for the day) but said he had some 10 gauge PTFE he could cut to size for me and some beads to thread onto it. After I asked some questions about transurethral versus non-transureathral, I decided to trust his expierence and go for trans.
Filled out all the forms and showed my ID and all while he prepared the equipment and everything. Got up on the table and he marked me and made sure I was comfortable with the placement and such. He told me to have a couple deep breaths then "deep breath in and exhale slowly." All in that particularly soothing voice he has. It was wonderfully really, I'm not a masochist by any means but it was more of a pleasant sensation than anything I would have expected. The shock of seeing the bar through me there, and the release of excitement after reaching my goal was the biggest rush I'd ever had from a piercing. He had me lie back, relax, drink some water, and just chill. Later glove firmly tied around me I walked, bowlegged, out and drove home.
It only bleed heavy the first two nights (nocturnal erections and all) but I put on some old sheets and washed them every day. Peeing was a fun new expierence and being very careful not to catch it on anything. It was rather sensitive for a few weeks but it wasn't painful, more like the expierence of having sex with someone who's really tight. After four days my partner and I had to test it out. Everything worked just fine, we had to be more gentle than normal but for me it was like recapturing the joy and newness of sex, and my partner said it made him more aware of what sex felt like.
Six months down the line (and tragically single) I ordered an 8 gauge internally threaded titanium barbell from Jason. I wrapped the PTFE 10 gauge I had in in a few layers of Teflon tape, till it went in real snugly, and left that in a two days. Then in the shower one morning I lubed the new 8 gauge with KY and slid that in place, it was tight but not too bad. Now here I am almost a full year later and I'm thinking I need to order a 6 gauge. (This is the first one of these I've written sorry for my poor writing ability.)