About a year ago I found out what play piercing was, at the time I thought it was pointless. What a waste of needles, what a waste of time. Just a few little holes here and there, but nobody would ever know. I declined my friend Bens offer of a play piercing session, because I thought it would be a night of senseless pain id gain nothing from.
At A Glance Author Jem Contact Jem@bme.anon IAM Jemma.m When A week ago Artist Me Studio Bedroom Location Kent Then I bought my IAM membership. I spent many a lonely evening browsing people's user pages and looking at work they'd had done. I saw many pictures of play piercing on those pages. And it was more than just rows of needles. Shapes and spirals made from the needles, some people weaved ribbon through the needles so they looked like a corset. Just as I had fallen in love with stretched earlobes, I had fallen in love with Play piercing.
I didn't get round to doing it myself for at least a year. The first reason was having a very anti-mod partner at the time, he would not have liked it at all. The second reason was that I had nobody to share the experience with. Play piercing seemed to be a bonding experience between friends. Nobody seemed interested. So I kept my play piercing desires under wraps.
January comes around and I am free of anti-mod boyfriend and my birthday is coming up. Last year for my birthday I got myself my first tattoo, a lily. This year it seemed only right that my birthday present to myself would be a box of play piercing needles. I purchased a box of 100: 25ga 1 ½ inch needles from BME (as well as a scalpel and sticker for good measure) and waited for the beauties to arrive. Two weeks later, I was sitting watching television when my sister came in and threw a package at me. My booty had arrived. I excitably took the package upstairs and unwrapped it. My scalpel, my sticker and also, my box of needles. A little battered from the journey over but the needles were there and that was what mattered. I put the needles under my bed until I was ready to use them (to stop my mother going apeshit) and contently carried on about my business.
My birthday came and went, with a week of almost continuous partying, drinking and burning the candle at both ends. Once things had started to slow down I started to plan my Play piercing session. By now my friend Merrill had decided she wanted to join me in it. I was okay with that we were good friends after all. The date was set for January 29th, a Saturday, during the evening. I got myself a box of latex gloves from work (the joy of hospital work) and prepared everything I needed. About an hour before we were due to meet, Merrill bailed on me. I was disappointed, because I had really wanted to do it that night. After a bit of moping, I realized if I wanted to do it that night, then by god I would!
I went to my room and gave my left forearm a wipe down with some alcohol gel (also "borrowed" from work). I didn't bother marking up my arm; I just got the first needle out of its little packet and took the needle cover off, this was a bit stiff and I was worried I was going to yank it out and end up stabbing myself. Which is ironic really. I yanked a bit of skin up and slowly pierced it. The entry wasn't bad at all; just a little prick (haha), there was a little resistance coming out. And I braced myself for some kind of terrible pop and blood all over my nice cream carpet. It didn't happen, just a little pop on the way out and I was done. It was easy peasy. I had a sip of coke and got needle number two out of the packet. I did not foresee the difficulty in doing this with a needle in my arm. And decided to take out another 6 or 7 just so I wouldn't be fighting with packets with a million needles in my arms. I inserted the needles slowly one by one until I had ten needles in my arm. I looked at the blue canulars sticking out of my arm and thought, man that looks a bit odd. It was really nice and relaxing, not like the adrenaline rush I usually get when I have a straight forward piercing. I took some photos and sat with my arm for about twenty minutes. Then decided the time was right to take them out. I took the first one out and I could feel the needle sliding under my skin very smoothly. Then it slid out of the end. There was nothing for a second or two, and then a small dot of blood began to appear at the entry and exit holes. I slowly took each needle out and watched the blood appear for a bit. Just nice little dots sitting on my arm. I gave them all a wipe down with an antibacterial baby wipe and then just let them be.
I went to bed soon after that, relaxed from what I had just done and pleased with myself that I had done it all on my lonesome. Nobody ever needed to know.