At A Glance
Author	jordan ginsberg
Contact	damaged@sympatico.ca
When	Three months ago
Artist	Blair
Studio	Passage
Location	Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I never thought I'd actually get a genital piercing.

I mean, the idea always sort of interested me. And I always thought that if I did get one, it'd be an apadravya. I'm not sure why exactly, it just always appealed to me more than, say, a prince albert or a scrotal piercing or what have you. But me? Pierce my dick?! You'd have to be a fool and a communist to think I'd even consider doing such a thing!

So about three and a half months ago I decided I wanted an apadravya. It just seemed.. like it was time. So, I went into Passage - far and away one of, if not THE best bodmod shop in Toronto - and had a chat with Blair regarding the matter. He took me into his studio area upstairs, had me drop my drawers, and proceeded to locate the corpus cavernosum, after which he placed two purple placement dots on me. This is where the piercing would be, and he told me that when at home and in the "appropriate state", I should measure the distance and phone in the measurement so he could place a jewellery order. So naturally as soon as I got home, I ran to grab a measuring instrument, and found myself to be in need of something about 1.5" long, and I called back immediately. I placed an order for a 1.5", 8 gauge internally threaded barbell, which they expected would get there in about 1.5-2 weeks. I could handle that. Whew. So I've decided to pierce my penis.

A week and a half goes by, still no word. That's okay though, I'm a little anxious but no big deal. Two weeks.. nothing. At this point I'm calling nearly every day and likely gaining a reputation as "that fuckin guy" over at Passage. Finally, after three weeks... it's there. Oh shit. I made an appointment with Blair for the next day, a Saturday, and braced myself.

I met up with my friend Emily at the subway station at 2:00. The entire ride up to Passage, she just laughs and shakes her head at me in a disbelieving way. See, most - if not all - of my friends are supportive and approving of body modification, most even participate themselves. My core group of friends, however, was divided on the subject of my apadravya. Some of them thought I was totally fuckin nuts, while others thought that I was out of my goddamn mind. That's okay though, I enjoy the fact that I'm able to bring a little excitement into their meager little lives. Yeah modesty. But I digress! So we get to Wellesley station, and I buy a pack of cigarettes. There's no way in hell that I'm going to put a brand new hole in my penis and not have a cigarette afterwards. We walk out to Church St. and go into Pizza Pizza so I can grab some lunch. Then it was the long walk over to Passage. Well, it's not actually so long, but I was getting increasingly nervous over w hat was about to take place. Oy vey. So after a few minutes, we get there, and go up the stairs.

As I said earlier, Passage is without a doubt one of the best studios in Toronto, and my personal favourite. The entire staff is extremely knowledgeable and friendly, and it makes for the perfect atmosphere for any sort of body modification. I got my first (and so far, only) tattoo done here by Pete a month prior to my piercing, and he did a fantastic job as well. I can't recommend this place enough. But yeah.. so Blair took me upstairs, and Emily hung out in the reception area.

Blair's studio area is a very inviting place. It's all very clean, he has a nice patio out there, it's just a great great environment. Now, instead of just having me strip and jabbing my precious manhood with that intimidating looking needle, we just sat there and talked for quite some time. We went over cleaning procedures, aftercare, and then basically just chatted about different mod topics, which continued even after I de-pantsed. I was quite nervous beforehand, but Blair just calmed me down incredibly, he just has somewhat of an ethereal presence to him, I don't know really, but whatever the case may be, he made the whole ordeal much less frightening than I could have ever imagined.

So then it was time. I laid down on his little table-dealy, and he re-marked the piercing spots. He told me he was going to pierce it with a needle that was slightly thinner than the barbell, and then taper it up to 8 gauge right away, making the piercing tighter and restricting the blood flow. This seemed like it would drag out an already intense experience, but I trusted him that he knew what he was doing. So the spots were marked. I tried to relax. He had me breathing deeply, in and out, and he said that he was going to start counting my breaths and then on the third breath out, he was going to pierce me.

In, out..

Hey, it's alright, I can handle this, whatever, no big deal..

In, out..

FUCK FUCK FUCK, what am I doing??

In..

OH

Out..

SHIT.

WOW. That was.. different. It was the most intense pain I'd ever felt in my life. It felt like my entire body was being sucked into this vortex of blinding white pain, pain that spread to every inch of me...

But then it was over! I looked down and laughed at the sight of my terrified penis with a needle right through the head because, well, it seemed pretty funny at the time. Blair asked me if I was okay, and said we could wait a minute before tapering; I thought that was a good idea. The tapering was a breeze though, and then the barbell went in, and it was done! I had an apadravya! Blair asked how it felt, and all I could muster was that it was.. different.

"Yeah," he said, "but it looks pretty fuckin cool, eh?"

And oh mama, did it ever. Blair took a few pictures, and I just sat there admiring myself for a minute or two before putting my pants back on, giving Blair a tip for making the experience such a pleasant one, and headed back downstairs, albeit walking very carefully. Emily couldn't stop smiling, she thought it was hilarious. So I paid for everything, plus a bag of sea salt, thanked Blair again, and said I'd be back soon just to check in.

It was a very interesting feeling walking around. It didn't really hurt all that much afterwards, it was just a bit of a dull pain which was to be expected. I was starving. We went to McDonald's, which ended up being an exercise in gluttony, but then... I had to pee. I'd heard all the horror stories about the first pee after an apadravya - Blair actually told me to call him after the first pee and let him know how it went - but regardless, I went to the McDonald's bathroom, unzipped, and braced myself for the worst... but it was fine! No congealed blood, no painful stinging, just a little more pressure than usual, but nothing bothersome at all. I walked out of the bathroom invigorated, quite pleased that pain-free urination was on the horizon. I was also flying high on the best friggin endorphin rush of my entire life.

We went to go see Spiderman that night though, and I just CRASHED. The endorphins wore off, and I missed the last half of the movie. I couldn't have cared less though, I eventually woke up, went home, and stared at myself in the mirror for a bit longer, cleaned the piercing, and went to bed. Initially, I was using Spectrogel to clean it, but found that you can't really get it to foam very well, so I just switched to a generic glycerin soap, which worked great. I was also doing nightly sea salt soaks, which helped matters a whole lot as well.

Three months later, it's doing PERFECTLY. It's easily my favourite piercing, it feels great, looks great, it's just a great piercing in general. There was hardly any post-piercing bleeding - unlike some stories I've heard of people waking up in pools of blood and whatnot - likely due to Blair's method of piercing and tapering. Whatever the case may be, it was actually one of the easiest piercings to heal that I've dealt with, which surprised me.

So in closing, a huge thanks to Blair for doing such a great job, and to everyone else, I highly highly HIGHLY recommend Passage in Toronto, located at Church and Wellesley. As for the apadravya, it's a great piercing, it looks cool as all hell, and is absolutely worth the few seconds of blinding white pain. If anyone has any questions about anything, please feel free to email me, I'd be glad to help you out as best I can.