This whole thing started way back in '95, when I was a junior in college. I was studying (smoking out was more like it!) at USC in Los Angeles, the Armpit Of America, as I used to say. I was having uncontrollable thoughts about breasts and breast implants, among other things. Mind you that I am genetically male, although at that time I was having a hard time realizing that fact.I had gotten my PA done the year before in Seattle, at Fantasy Unlimited on 2nd Ave I think, and was now in the mode of getting my nipples done. To make an otherwise longer story shorter, I got my nipples pierced at The Gauntlet in LA., and thus introduced myself to the non-mainstream piercing population. I figured the PA wasn't "official" enough since the piercer used lydocaine or something, and so I didn't feel anything. But THIS, this was my nipples! Pain enough to send any "real man" to the ground. I felt like I was part of the crowd now.At any rate, this isn't a nipple-piercing story, this is about My Apradavya. So here I am, I graduated from school finally in the Spring of '96, and I'm having these urges to get something else pierced. The PA was pretty boring and didn't make enough of a "statement", whatever that is. I had taken a few walks down Venice Beach and talked to the piercers there to see what sort of pain would be involved in either an ampalang or apradavya.
After seeing pictures I initially thought the ampalang looked nicer than the apradavya, as those were basically my only two options, But the piercers were also saying that the ampalang was more "intense" (I guess the word pain isn't allowed?? ?). I mulled over it for weeks. On the one hand, I thought the ampalang looked nicer, but on the other hand, I'd heard that women really like the apradavya inside them, and had even read that "there are some cultures" whose women won't have sex with a man unless he's got one. Also, the apradavya was already half- done, considering my PA was still hanging out there, and even if it hadn't already been half-done, the total amount of tissue to go through would have been less than the ampalang. Pretty soon, the apradavya started to look better too, and that's what I ultimately decided on.
So one fine morning I made an appointment at the Gauntlet (again - this place is really cool. I had first gone there a few years earlier when a friend of mine got her nose pierced there) and prepared for the next few days. Note that this is of course in additions to many months of mental preparation. Looking back now, I find it hard to imagine that I had that kind of determination. I was 20 or 21 years old at the time.
Finally the day came. I don't remember what day of the week it was, although I have a feeling it was a Friday. I also don't remember my piercer's name, but he was very friendly as well as professional. We (I drove there alone) picked out a 12-gauge barbell, about 1-3/4 inches long (from memory), stainless. It was the cheapest they had that would fit the bill. I thought it looked awfully long, but then he reminded me that I needed to clean it, and so I agreed. In fact, he may have taken a set of calipers and measured my penis first, but I don't remember exactly.
We went up to the room, and my heart started pumping harder and harder. Fortunately, that's all that was getting hard. There wasn't an inkling of an erection anywhere, which is just how I wanted it. I had experimented with penis-piercings even before the PA, and found out what it looks like when blood is release under pressure!
The piercer asked me if he could get me anything, and I said no thanks. Then I asked if I could put in the tape I had brought to help me get in the flow. He said sure, and so I put in Iron Maiden's Live After Death album from their World Slavery Tour, and that helped me relax a lot.
I was feeling VERY "myself" at that moment. I had come here alone, I had decided alone, and I was doing something very private that no one except my (future) lover and I would have to see/deal with. It was one of the most anticipatory as well as prideful moments that I've had. I kept asking myself how many of my friends would do this, or even be able to look at the photos on BME (which I had already discovered at the time), and the answer always came back none. I also kept wondering if this was an offshoot of my "gender confusion" or something that was an interest unto itself? In recent weeks, I think I've decided that both of these things are in fact results of some other psychological underpinnings, with which I am currently seeking "help". At any rate, I was already getting a rush.
The guy asked me to pull my pants down and lie down on the table. Already, this was the first time another male had seen my genitals since the PA, and before that was probably several years, at my last doctor's visit. This was a weird feeling in itself, considering my "normal" heterosexuality, even despite the so-called gender confusion. He pulled out a green surgical paper-thing and cut a hole in it. He placed it over my genitals and said in a kind voice, "Ok, now I'm gonna pull your wiener through." I thought it was so funny that in this otherwise "serious" moment, of unwavering professionalism and potential medical complications, that the piercer would use such vernacular, instead of "penis" or "lingum" or something. He then took a swap of brownish-purple tincture of something (betadine?) and covered my glans and shaft with it. Fortunately it didn't sting. Somewhere along this time I saw the needle. It was really long, or so it seemed, and looked just as thick as the barbell, which I thought at the time was quite thick, almost too much. But I didn't want to wimp-out at this point and go for a narrower barbell, so I just stuck it out, no pun intended. Ha ha.
He told me that he was first going to place the needle inside the hole that was already there from the PA. The hole was on the left side of the center-seam of the underside of the glans. He would then slide the needle from the hole to the top of the urethra. At that point when we was ready, he was going to ask me to hold my breath, and then when he told me to let go of my breath, he would push it through. At this point I realized that I had already handed him control of the situation and that there was no going back. This feeling increased the farther along we got.
So he did what he said. He inserted the needle into the hole, and I started getting really anxious, wondering what the hell was I doing? Am I crazy? Is this "normal"? No matter, I told myself. Too late. You'll be glad you did. I felt the needle slide its way up to the top of the urethra. Wow. This is it, isn't it? When he finally told me to hold my breath, I realized I REALLY was out of the loop and that my entire pain/pleasure was up to him. He told me to let go of my breath, and then it's like there was some time-warp or something. I could feel the needle, I could feel the pain, I could feel the pride, the months of waiting, the "shackles of society" all coming together into a big frothy pow-wow in my head.
When the needle was through he told me to keep breathing deeply and to keep lied down. At this point the pain was not so much a sharp pain, but a dull one that went through my groin. I peeked my head up and looked at the shaft going through the head. It was such a declaration of SOMETHING which I couldn't quite figure out what it was. There was defiance and rebellion in there, as well as something privately and sweetly sickeningly sexual and primitive about it. It was one of the weirdest rushes I've ever had, and it didn't go away for at least 10 minutes. I'd never felt this kind of pain before, but GOD it felt good! I thought of my family and how they would "disapprove" if they knew, but no matter. I figured my family needs a dissenter. Muahahahahaha..
It was also bleeding quite a bit, something that I wasn't expecting. I figured there would be blood after the needle was removed, but not immediately after the needle was inserted. The guy offered me a glass of water and I accepted. In the background was still playing Iron Maiden, probably Flight of Icarus or something. Shit that's a good album.
He came by and said that now it was time to insert the barbell, and so I lied down again. I had been hunched up on my elbows and so it was kind of relaxing to lie down again. He pushed the barbell up against the back of the needle and it went through pretty easily. There was a more pain that point, but orders of magnitude less than the original, obviously. There was now an oversized (lengthwise) barbell sticking through my dick. Cahool! Huh huh.
I lied there for a few minutes more. He took a paper towel and wrapped it up in that. Then he took a latex glove and put that over the package as well, sealing it up from blood and stuff. I put my pants on, (I wore boxers that day, something I never do) thanked him, and left. He had given me his email address and the store's web site so I could come back and get some shorter jewelry when it healed. As I was leaving I realized I had forgotten the Iron Maiden tape, and so I went back and got it.
My friends were all impressed, to say the least ? I also realized the next day what it's like to have a period, since I woke up and the sheets were covered in blood! That was a good laugh for all of us. I also discovered the joys of not having a foreskin, since the foreskin basically had to be pulled back for pretty much the whole time it was healing. I never got a shorter barbell, even though I had wanted both a shorter one and I also wanted to move up to 10 gauge. I also never had sex between the piercing and the next paragraph.
One night about a year later, while in the shower, I removed it so I could feel what it was like not to have it again. I had done this a few times before, and so I knew that I could put the barbell back in if I did it soon enough. However, this time I COMPLETELY forgot to put it back in until about two hours later!! DOH!! What frustration. I tried for about an hour or so to put it back in, but it had closed up too much already. I didn't have a taper or anything else I could use to open it up again, and certainly there was no place open at the time. Also, I had moved from LA to Portland, OR., and even if it were daytime hours, there's no place that I knew of to go get a taper. So at the end of everything, I have no more apradavya (wimp!), no nipple rings (different story), no PA (although it still leaks urine). Who knows, maybe all this was a "stage", although talking about it gets me excited again, sort of.