At A Glance
Author	Slowpoke
Contact	Slowpoke@bme.anon
When	A year ago
Artist	me
Studio	my bathroom
Location	D.C.

PREFACE

First off, let me just state for the record that no, I am not a doctor, and yes I am an idiot to even consider doing this piercing on my own. I justify part of the risk by actually planning out step by step how I would do the procedures properly, I invested a significant amount of time and effort to learn the generally anatomy of the area, what vassals and areas to avoid, and was as clean as possible (washing the area and my hands with Satin antibiotic soap, using sterile needles, etc.). I know for a fact that my apartment isn't nearly as sterile as a piercing studio and that I am not nearly as skilled as someone who makes their living preventing people like me from doing it themselves and causing serious injury and/or death.

I greatly admire professional piercers and feel that they are greatly under paid and generally unappreciated by the public for the service they provide. If at all possible, I beg you to go to a piercing studio and have this stuff done by a professional; it's just not worth the risk. Also, I did not save any money by doing this on my own, especially after buying all of the disinfectants and multiple sets of jewelry. I was lucky and want to thank BME for providing such excellent resources that allowed me to at least be aware of just how lucky I am.

This is not, and was never meant to be a "how to" guide but more of a detailed experience to be used as a resource for others contemplating this piercing. Read the conclusions for just how much I strongly encourage you to not try this at home.

SUPPLIES

1 and 1/4 inch 10ga stainless steal barbell (BAD: should have started off with 1 and 1/2 inch for swelling and then reduced the size if it was too long for comfortable sex.)

three 10 gauge needle (because of bleeding I didn't want to over stretch the piercing using an 8ga needle, and it's always good to have extras just in case)

Surgical lube for the needle and barbell

Povidone Iodine (Betadine, the skin is too sensitive for rubbing alcohol)

Circular clamp with rubber band to hold closed (very, very, important)

Dark towel and boxers...

Sterile gauze (get a big box as you'll use lots of it; this thing oozed forever!)

Non-lubricated condoms (I'd recommend the family pack)

Satin antibiotic soap

The more I browse, the more I am convinced that you can buy just about everything on the internet if you're willing to spend the time and effort needed to track it down, are willing to pay a premium, and don't mind the substantial shipping charges. Make sure to carefully investigate exactly what is and is not legal to buy where you live as most states let you pierce yourself but not others and some of the supplies, especially injectables, may be illegal. NOTE: There is a reason piercers charge $100+ for genital piercing and I did not save any money by doing this piercing on my own and that's before you factor in the risk premium I paid.

NUMBING/ PENIS ANATOMY

Because the piercing itself is more important to me then the initial pain of the piercing I decided to thoroughly numb the area. As this isn't a how-to guide my only suggestion on this topic is to do a search for "dorsal penile nerve block procedure" and search medscape for a fantastic article called "A pictorial and video guide to circumcision without pain." While the later obviously focuses on the use of anesthetic for circumcisions it includes detailed drawings of the shaft of the penis indicating the injection sites for both the dorsal penile nerve block and penile ring block procedures. NOTE: While most sites claim that the numbing lasts 2-3 hours, what I consider to be total numbing effect only lasted about 50 minutes after which I started to regain some, but no where near all, of the sensation.

Gary's anatomy has some useful drawings of the veins and arteries of the penis. If you want to pierce along the midline of the shaft you are just about guaranteed to hit the dorsal vein and possibly artery as well. This means that not only will you have a lot of initial bleeding (we're talking possible spurts here) but that it will ooze for several days.

FIRST ATTEMPT

My first attempt at using a hollow piercing needle was a disaster but the numbing went great and I learned tons about the piercing and my anatomy. First, 10 gauge needles are rather large and require a significant amount of force to pierce with, something I wasn't planning on. Basically I naively thought that I could just line the needle up and push it through... without any sort of backing cork or clamps. Needless to say, I started push, the needle barely went in, I pushed harder, and the needle wanted to go in crooked (since I didn't have anything to really push against and was just holding my penis in place), managed to pierce the dorsal vein and possibly artery so that when I got worried and took my thumb off the end of the needle to check placement blood literally started spurting out. Yeah, totally freaked, gave up, pulled the needle out (the tip of which was less than halfway through) and began to wonder if I'd caused any real damage. Note to self: do not try to pierce anything in a carpeted room, it gets messy and is a real hassle to clean up later.

There was a lot of initial bruising as when blood gets caught under the skin of the penis it turns a nasty shade of purple and just looks like it's waiting to fall off. Don't worry this is normal and everything looked fine within a 5-7 days.

Unfortunately, my girlfriend was still a little uncomfortable with my tongue piercing, and the idea of body piercings in general, and basically said that piercing my penis would really bother her. However, I was still a little shaken from this first failed attempt and greatly enjoyed our relationship so waiting wasn't a big deal. However, after a few more months the scar tissue to almost completely go away and I realized that if there was anything that I really wanted she wouldn't say no so I started to plan out the ideal time to do it.

ACTUAL PIERCING

Basically that time was the night before Veteran's day so that I would have Thursday off and could move my flex day to Friday and have 5 nights and 4 days to recover. While this piercing was for me, I made a point to discuss it with my girlfriend before hand. I had to empathize with her as her main concern was: What if this piercing makes sex uncomfortable for you and/or me? Unfortunately I didn't have a definitive answer for her but we decided to take the "just wait and see" approach.

>From my first attempt I still had a 1 and 1/4 in barbell but to allow for swelling and such I hoped to initially use a 1 and 1/2 in barbell and then switch it to the smaller size after a few weeks of heeling. Unfortunately this intuition was correct but even though I ordered the barbell 6 weeks in advanced I tried to save a few bucks and didn't order online from BME, Unimax, or through my local piercing studio and thus it never arrived. Moral of the story next time order through your local studio or if you're going to buy jewelry online go to a site you can trust: www.bmeshop.com.

Not to be deterred I decided that 1 and 1/4 in was long enough and decided to go ahead with the piercing as planning (BAD: starting with a 1 and 1/2 in barbell would have made the recovery time significantly less painful). I have to say that this is really the first piercing I actually planned before and had a hard time concentrating at work that day. The numbing went great. I used a clamp this time and since it was numb was able to quickly get it tight and play with the position quite a bit. I spent a lot of time trying to stretch out the skin and stretching out my penis in the hopes that the piercing would be in more of the position it would take when I got an erection. Additionally, I wanted the piercing to go vertically through the center of the shaft and ideally the center of the urethra as well. This means that I was just about guaranteed to once again pierce the dorsal vein and possibly artery but this time the clamp prevented the bleeding from starting till after I'd pierced it, put the new jewelry and was standing over the sink where it continued to drip for 20 minutes or so.

If I could add one thing to my list of supplies it would be a rubber thimble because pushing 10ga needle through the shaft of the penis takes an amazing amount of force and even while the tip of the needle was all the way through almost instantly getting the rest of the needle through caused the base of the needle to actually dig into my thumb (there was a circular white spot that formed a blister that eventually peeled off). The surgical lube was awesome! The needle seemed to be getting stuck but covering the base of the needle and the barbell in lube made putting the jewelry in very easy.

HEALING NOTES

Regardless of what you plan to pierce, "rec.arts.bodyart: Piercing FAQ 5--Care of New Piercings" is an excellent resource available online with a ton of really good advice. I highly recommend doing a web search and reading as much of their suggestions as possible. Their tips on choosing an antibiotic soap and soaking in mild saltwater were particularly useful.

Really get to know what your penis looks like in most situations. Key things to look consider are, are there any normal splotchy places? When it's cold do certain spots change color? Examine the head of your penis, what color is the skin? Is it redder towards the top than bottom? Trust me, when you've just stuck a barbell through the shaft of your penis mentally you just know something's going to go wrong and the more you know about what your penis used to look like, the faster you can react if you actual do have a problem. Regardless, just knowing with certainty that everything looks normal will provide priceless piece of mind.

I've been taking Ibuprofen to keep the swelling down. Note: even though things may look relatively fine or there wasn't any pain that meant the medicine was working, not that I should stop using it. Probably because of the medicine I have almost no swelling and have had very little pain during day (except for erections which can be really bad).

Sneezing is bad as it spikes your blood pressure and causes the piercing to start oozing again.

Peeing seems to have a similar effect during the first 24 hours or so as when I pee the penis starts to elongate and the piercing will ooze for several minutes afterwards (we're talking red spots on a tissue from the underside of the shaft, not drips or any real heavy bleeding). Also since I wanted the placement to go right through the center of my penis the urethra is usually partially or fully clotted with blood and the first few drops of piss can be rather disconcerting to see. There was some stinging sensation but much less than after an intense sounding session. I recommend sitting down, going slow, and for the first couple of days not really looking at what's coming out till you're finished. Physically it didn't hurt but mentally my mind kept trying to tell me that it should hurt.

Occasionally I'd start walking funny for the same reason: not because it actually hurt to walk but because I thought it should hurt to walk.

Showers: This piercing really doesn't mind getting wet, it just doesn't like water falling on it (i.e., direct spray or even water dripping off your hair or fingers). Cleaning it can be a bit of a challenge as rubbing Satin soap around feels strikingly familiar to other activities and quickly causes an erection. I've found q-tips to be slightly more abrasive and make the cleaning process slightly painful if you press too hard or go too fast but do not cause erections nearly as easily.

Pants and underwear: it's the zipper and stiffness of the material that irritate this piercing. Pajama pants rock! Surprisingly most dress slacks are comfortable, it really varies by style and brand, kakis are pretty good, but most jeans hurt. I haven't worn briefs since before puberty but I figured, hey if you keep everything all restrained in one place then it can't randomly rub against something and hurt. Yeah, no. It prevents it from rubbing occasionally by pretty much guaranteeing it rubs constantly. Boxer's rock! Regardless, I recommend taking shorter steps than normal and not walking bow legged as it just causes stuff to swing around and rub more. Ideally you should feel the top of your thighs slightly rubbing as you walk.

I've found that cranking up the heat in my room, sitting on a dark towel in my office chair, and covering myself in a dark, washable, blanket to be ideal. It's definitely a good idea to avoid tight clothing and do as little activity that would cause your penis to move around as possible (i.e., walking, stairs...). I don't know if this is a fact or not because before I cranked up the heat to 79-82 degrees Fahrenheit and wrapped up in a blanket my penis felt rather cold and was oozing almost continuously. Now that I'm feeling nice and toasty it hasn't oozed in the last 3 hours. At the same time it was oozing just after I'd gotten back from lunch (couple blocks of walking) and stopped oozing after I got grossed out and soaked the piercing in mild salt water. Whether staying warm actually helps reduce the bleeding or not it's definitely more comfortable and I can't see how it could hurt.

Cleaning: obviously oils are bad as most of them will actually irritate the skin. Instead I put about 1/4 teaspoon table salt in a small 8 ounces glass of warm/hot water, sitting on a towel on the edge of my desk chair and just submerging my penis in the glass for about 15 minutes. Once everything was sufficiently loosened I used a q-tip soaked in fresh mild salt water to remove most of the crusties.

CONCLUSION

This is a very extreme piercing and should not be rushed in any way. I've heard that only 50% of the people that get this piercing actually keep it. If you or your piercer does not have the proper supplies it worth it to wait. I'll be posting a play by play journal of my healing process in a few months.