Where to start, how did I get round to this? I've always been a little scared by piercing, ever since my first (gun done) piercing went so horribly wrong (which can be read about here www.bmezine.com/pierce/01-ear/A40510/earwhyoh.html). Its been a fear I knew I would have to face, ever since I'd discovered all the wonderful things you could do to the male genitals. Reading BME, Modern Primitives, the Mod-Con book and lots of Charles Gatewood stuff had shown how much fun you can have, how something that can best be described as having "the last chicken in the shop look" can be improved upon so much.
At A Glance Author Ashapola IAM ashapola When Six months ago Artist Leigh Studio Kingsway custom tattoo Location Bath, UK >From this research I decided upon a getting an apadrayva. This appealed to me greatly and I became fascinated by this piercing. But with my fear I knew I wouldn't be able to dive into this. I thought long and hard about it and then put it off for a few years. I finally decided that I would have to get a Prince Albert first. This way I would divide the pain into two smaller experiences (what a silly idea) and it would help reduce the scaring that could be caused.
After a little hunting around, finding out good pierces in the local area I was feeling ready to go for it. Never did though. Just kept finding more and more excuses. Then one day I got an email from a friend of mine asking me if I'd been in the studio that had opened just round the corner from me. Out of the blue Kingsway custom tattoo had opened just a minute's walk from my house. Well I wandered round there that day after work and managed to end up booked in for the following day. Leigh who does the piercing there has pierced a few of my friends at her other studio and I had heard good things so I thought, why the hell not!
Well the next day every thing went I expected. I went round to the studio with my lady. Went through to the back room with Leigh. Sat down on the dentist chair and dropped my pants as requested. Then was quizzed for ten minutes about my flames.
Once she had well and truly established I was nuts (nice to hear from someone who was about to stab me!) she gave me a quick clean with alcohol (I did do the decent thing and had a gentlemen's wash just before leaving home). She took hold of my penis with horribly cold-gloved hands, put the needle down my urethra and pushed it out through the underside of my penis.
I will confess to screaming and some rather un-gentlemanly language.
I had a look at it, no blood (good), shiny metal through my penis (good), lunch still in stomach (good). Well this seemed to have gone better than expected.
After a cup of water and a brief chat about self-tattooing I waddled out to my lady who was surprised I had gone through with it. A few people looked at me rather strangely, not being able to get their head round what I had just done and then I was on my way home.
This is where things got interesting. To ease the pressure on the jewellery I kept my foreskin back, put a glove over it to catch the blood and went about the rest of the day as usual. By that evening I had noticed it was starting to swell. Nothing wrong with that I thought, I did have a bloody big needle stuck through it after all. Went to bed that night and slept well.
Till about four in the morning at which point I was awoken in rather a lot of pain with and erection. Bugger. I've not wanted an erection to go away so bad since being on a school bus when I was a kid.
Soon it passed and I managed to get back to sleep. When I awoke the next morning I found my foreskin to be huge. It was soft and painless to the touch but understandably I was more than a little worried. In the back of my mind this rang bells with and experience I had read a long time ago, but I couldn't remember the details at all.
So I hunted for the cause of my problem. For a change BME was of no help, I couldn't find any thing about it there. So then I tried www.perforations.com, a very good piercing studio in Brighton. I quickly found this www.perforations.com/educate1/Paraphimosis.asp and the source of my problem was found.
For those that don't want to read all that Paraphimosis is caused by the fluid in the shaft and foreskin get trapped in a one-way flow by the foreskin where it pulls tight behind the glands. This can be set off by most glands piercing on un-cut men.
Now find a fix to the problem. I wanted to get this sorted before having to go to my doctor (I've been there for more than enough embarrassing things) so yet again the Internet helped me out.
And scared the crap out of me. All the information I found stated that unless the foreskin moves back of the glands with just a little pressure surgery would be essential. Eep!
As far as I could see there was no way my foreskin (now a good twice the size of my glands, boy do I wish I had taken some pictures) would ever go back in place.
During this all I had been at work, not the best place to be when you have problems with your genitals, so I had to bite the bullet and try getting it back over.
So I wandered to the toilet. Took off my glove. Put a pair of gloves on my hands and tried to roll it back over the head. The big spongy things started to move, and then *pop* it slid back over. There was a little discomfort from how it pressed on the ring but otherwise was fine. Well it looked horribly deformed but it was a step in the right direction.
As the day went on it started to go back to its normal shape. This was one of the most relieving things I have ever experienced. By that evening when I got in from work you would have never be able to tell all the problems I went through with it.
Over the next few weeks I found the healing time a pain. The ring was a little too small and caused me discomfort and slowed the healing process. I test fired it probably a little too early and went back to having sex before I should have done. I highly recommend using a condom for a while when first having sex with a new PA, not just for the obvious contamination and infection possibilities, but for the fact it held the ring in a lot more comfortable position for both myself and my partner. This gave us a good opportunity to get used to the new sensations and problems associated with it.
But I must say that now I'm used to it and have tried sex without it once, I much prefer it with the PA. The benefits for me are fantastic and I hope with slow stretching to just make it better and better. The larger the ring the more comfortable it is with out a doubt.
So if you ever suffer this, it isn't half as scary as you may at first think. It's something quite common and easy to deal with as long as you deal with it quickly. I hope this can be of help to people in the future and everyone who goes through this has the same fantastic outcome.