Well there I was listening to my favourite punk rock radio show at 2am one friday morning with guest stars Dave and Quill from Absolution piercing. Dave offered a free "stapling" to anyone who could name a member of the Buzzcocks. Onto the trusty internet I went and lo and behold the stapling was mine. I was told to come in the next day.
At A Glance Author analog soul Contact analogsoul_@hotmail.com Artist Daivd Studio Absolution Location Christchurch, New Zealand It was a nice sunny day and I took the bus into town and visited said piercing boutique. As I was yet undecided on which surface to pierce, I was shown photographs of other piercings performed at said boutique. After viewing surfaces such as neck, chest, arms etc, Dave informed me that nape piercings were quite popular. Although I did not want to have the most common piercing, I decided it would be the least uncomfortable. I was told that this piercing had a 50% rejection rate, but this did not phase me as I had already had an industrial piercing in one ear and an antitragus in the other, as well as a nose piercing and had not experienced any suffering, apart from the tendency to grow polyps on my ears (which really suck arse big time). So off to the piercing table it was where I was instructed to sit and Dave drew a nice entry and exit wound with a marker which then met my approval.
The piercing itself was predictably painful and was performed freehand without a clamp. The most painful part was when the needle was passing through my skin. Dave then gave me a bag of sea salt for saline solution, and a cake of antibacterial soap to clean with in the shower. I was told that cleaning would be easy as you just had to feel around the balls with the cotton bud.
After the piercing I went to visit my girlfriend with news of my new piercing. She was quite taken aback at first, as she had no prior knowledge of this occuring, but soon told me that I suited it and that it looked very healthy and "damn sexy"; as it did.
I experienced no residual pain I can remember and even when my girlfriend would rub her hand on it by mistake, I did not even feel it, and often asked why she had apologised for touching my neck. I slept comfortably that night with no pain whatsoever. It did not bleed, nor bruise and I could bend the plastic bar inside without the slightest pain. This could be due to the fact that I have very stretchy skin that I can pull out really far on any part of my body.
I thought that maybe this skin condition might make the piercings I have heal faster as my skin is more mobile and less connected to the underlying flesh of my neck.
Cleaning has been easy, and really there has been no discharge to speak of.
I have now had it for about two weeks and the only suffering I have endured is the occasional itching, but no pain. I am vigilant to see that no polyps form.
A week after I had it pierced my flatmate who had long had an obsession with having her nape pierced, strolled down to Absolution herself and paid the $50 dollar fee for bodily mutilation. She had the same experience with a freehand piercing and neither of us seemed to have been fitted for individual staples. In my experience however, piercing establishments tend to have very different ideas on how to do pierings and have even told me that my piercings have been performed wrongly, hence the polyp growths on my ears. However I think this is more due to my individual skin tone. Another piercer down the street will not perform staple piercings and has a stict age limit code for piercings. This however did not seem to apply at the piercer to whom I give my patronage.
I have since decided that in the future I may indeed choose to have more nape piercings done. I was origanlly thinking of something like a cross shape but have sice found that there may not be a way to do one without significant burrowing under the skin, into the flesh. I have also thought that having one in the small of my back could be quite nice, but I would have to ensure that my pants did not interfere with the healing process.
I can recommmend surface piercing to anyone as I have had a very easy experience. I must say however that people have a tendency to stare and stare and stare at this piercing as it may appear quite shocking to the easily shocked. I haven't shown it to my dad yet. He found it hard enough to cope with the mohawk and ear piercings. :)