Apadravya History

At A Glance Author Chas Mo Contact Chas Mo@bme.anon Artist Jim Ward Studio Gauntlet LA Location LA California

My experience covers several years. I had read of the apadravya pierce in PFIQ magazine around issue number 7. The year had to be sometime around 1980. It covered the history and the procedure as it did so many other pierces. The PFIQ "Pierce with a Pro" articles gave the reader the step-by-step for all kinds of pierces. It was a great service because professional piercers were rare. The prospect of having a bar of steel placed in such a spot made such an impression that I knew that it was something I wanted to have. While I had no Idea who or when, I knew it was important to me.

Piercing in the 1980s was about as far from the mainstream as things could get. Finding a piercer was especially difficult. Tattoo artists felt that piercing was not acceptable. There was a bad case of "my kink is better than your kink" at that time. The only common elements, it seemed, was the need for an autoclave and a customer who wanted ink and jewelry. As we know today, that problem has resolved itself quite nicely. It's the rare piercer who works far from a tattoo shop and the rare tattoo shop that doesn't offer piercing as well!

I was pierced in 1988 at Gauntlet on Santa Monica Blvd in LA. I wanted an apadravya pierce for years and opportunity presented itself while vacationing in California. I called and Jim Ward himself was available. At the time, there were no more than a dozen apadravyas in the world outside of the South Pacific. Jim told me that he knew of none who had kept one for any length of time. Most would keep a ring in the bottom (PA) and let the upper part grow back. Few piercers knew what an apadravya was and even fewer had done one at all. I'm glad to have met Jim Ward and believe that, at the time, he was the most skilled person to do that pierce available.

The procedure was completely free-hand. Jim had a plastic sphere with holes drilled for various gages of needles. While this may be common today. This was revolutionary technique in the 1980s. The ball enabled him to push and guide the needle accurately through the inch of flesh that was ahead of it. The needle was followed by a #14 barbell in stainless steel that was 1 1/2 inches long. The location was exactly where I wanted it. Aftercare was rather anticlimatic. A wrap of tissue and covered by a sandwich bag was the bandage for the ride home. I must say it did the job but it was not what I had expected from the "greatest piercing shop in the world (at the time)"!

Initial healing took months. While that was long ago, I recall a year of unpleasant surprises when the barbell would become entangled in underwear. Rising from a sitting position was always something that brought uncertainties. Would it hurt? Not this time? It's something one must be prepared for! Larger pieces with their additional weight had special thrills. Walking down stairs was sometimes interesting until the weight became familiar.

As time went along, I purchased larger barbells to replace the #14 gage original. After the #6 had been in place for a while, I decided to give it a rest and left jewelry out for over a year. I had some medical problems that eventually resulted in back surgery. I didn't want to deal with explaining it to every person who did X-ray or other examination. So simply leaving jewelry out was the easy solution. However this brought another set of challenges. It was a problem keeping the holes covered during urination. That became annoying enough that I reinserted a #12 and then went for #10 soon afterward. That time convinced me that the apadravya was here to stay!

The larger pieces are the ones I find more comfortable. While it's unpleasant during the stretch, it's much better afterward. The heavier barbell seems to get tangled less often and it's just a better feeling. I eventually worked to #4 and kept that for some time.

However, in 1997 the stretching bug bit me once again. I bought a #2 barbell and had it installed by professional piercer. Within a week, I had to take it out for cleaning and just couldn't get it back in. Fortunately, I was in San Francisco on business at the time and was able to buy an insertion taper at the Gauntlet store there.

The Gauntlet chain folded sometime after that. Some will not miss it in the least. However I have a certain attachment in that it was the first in an industry that flourishes today.

I did find, and do to this day, that the pierce will close up in a matter of hours if I leave the barbell out. Even though this has been healed for over ten years and stretched to the same size for three, reinstallation can be quite unpleasant if a taper isn't used. Most of the pain is located at the upper side of the urethra. I believe that somewhere along the line, I did some damage there that has resulted in scarring that is resistant to further stretching. So I patiently insert the #0 gage taper daily and measure the progress slowly.

Hoping this will show others that, with patience and time, one can stretch an apadravya to new dimensions. This is a deep pierce and one that is in a particularly tender area. However, I feel fortunate to have reached this size and hope to take it even farther. It's been a part of me for over ten years now. When I first got it, it was rare. Today, it is still uncommon.