I don't know why, but for years, I had wanted to get my nape pierced. While I'm a fan of body modification, I don't have a lot of piercings myself - in fact, I only had one hole in each ear. "So why the nape?" My piercer asked me. "It's kind of an unusual first piercing." Well, yes, but I enjoy being unusual. Truthfully, I saw it on someone once upon a time and just thought it looked cool. Plus, it WAS unusual, plus, it was easily hidden (for those times I might have to appear respectable). I thought about it and threatened my parents with it for many months before I finally got the guts, but one sunny Saturday afternoon my sophomore year in college, I was courageous enough to take the plunge.
At A Glance Author Blargfest Contact Blargfest@bme.anon When A year ago Artist Ron Garza Studio Body Rites Location Austin, TX I decided to go to Body Rites after reading good things about them here on BME. So I went in, went up to the piercing desk, and talked to the piercer on duty about what I wanted. He explained to me about healing times and how I can't take the jewelry out and how he pierces with tygon, and I decided to do it, but first he had to pierce a girl's nipple, so I had to wait a few minutes. I paced around the lobby, nervous as all get-out.
Eventually I sign the release, show him my ID, and am led into the back room. He sterilizes his equipment as I watch, and we chit chat a bit. He's really nice. Then I sit on the piercing bed and he asks me if I have anything to put my hair up with. Well, d'oh, I didn't think about that. So he snaps the ends off of a pair of gloves, and I put my hair up in two extremely uneven, extremely silly ponytails. He then marks out where he's gonna put the jewelry. Now, I can't exactly see what's drawn on the back of my neck, so he takes me out and asks a couple people who are getting tattooed if it looks straight to them. They say yes, followed by "What are you going to do to her?"
So we go back in and I sit there while he cleans off my neck. I'm starting to get really nervous, because I know what's coming. I grip the edge of the bed tightly. He says, "Okay, deep breath, and exhale," and in goes the needle. It only hurt a little at first, but then it continued to hurt, and hurt quite a bit more as he threaded the Tygon through. It was a sharp, intense pain, quite unlike anything I've felt before. I was very thankful when it was over. He cleaned the markings off my neck and gave me a moment to recover (although I didn't feel faint or anything, I was kinda shaky from all my nervousness). I noticed that along my neck still stung a little, I couldn't feel the jewelry in it at all. I took my hair out of the ponytails and walked out front to pay him. Some girls were sitting out front and asked me what I'd gotten done. I showed them, and they kind of freaked out. Apparently they'd never seen one of these before. One of the girls told me it was th e weirdest piercing she'd seen.
The area was sore for about a week after I got it done, but I never had any trouble sleeping on it. It took me 3 days to be able to touch the thing to clean it without being weirded out. Feeling a bump in the back of your neck where there's not supposed to be one takes some getting used to! I cleaned it with the medical soap they gave me (the name of it now escapes me) every other day or so in the shower, and soaked it in water once or twice a day for awhile. On the 4th or 5th day, I snagged my shirt collar on the bar when I was changing clothes, and the resulting pain drove me to my knees. But, as I often say to people, "It doesn't hurt NOW!"
Many months after the initial piercing I had the tygon bar trimmed to a better fit. (They give extra length initially to compensate for the swelling.) It was quick, painless, and free (that was nice of them).
It's been more than a year and a half since I got my nape pierced, and I still have it. Going in, I was worried that it would get infected or would reject or who knows what else, but I've never had any problems with it. I love it, and have no plans to take it out. Since I wear my hair down most of the time, people are always caught off-guard when I show it to them. I just wish I could see their faces!
Course, the thing hurt so much I haven't pierced anything since.