Piercings have always interested me in some way, ever since I was little, whether to look at them and think "Cool!" or shudder and be grossed out. Unfortunately, one thing stood in the way of my love of perforations. Well, two things. My Mum and my Dad. However, when I hit eighteen, I thought "Ah, I'm old enough now, they won't mind".
At A Glance Author El Jaynus Contact el_jaynus@hotmail.com When A year ago Studio Gaia Location Torquay Harbourside A few months earlier, I'd had my nipple pierced for a dare (yes, kids in my town get incredibly bored, and no, my parents don't know even now), and I decided I liked the studio, simply because they managed to shove a barbell through my right nipple with little to no pain. They were also hygienic and pretty much everything came out of sterile packets.
My main problem was "What should I get pierced?" I wanted something that not everyone and their friend had, but nothing hugely extreme, considering I was still living under the same roof as my parents. Facial piercings were out of the question, considering my workplace had "issues" with a tiny nose stud I had. In the end, I went for the tragus. Not everyone has it, it looks cool, and I doubted either work or my parents would be hugely bothered.
So, a few days after my birthday, my friend Shevaun and I went into Torquay, to Gaia, the piercing studio of my choice. Shevaun paid for it as my birthday present, and they asked if I wanted to be pierced with a stud or a CBR. I decided on the CBR, as not only does it show up more, but I figured it would be easier to clean.
I sat on the bench in the piercing room feeling nervous. I kept pinching my tragus to see how much it hurt, and wondered how much pain I could tolerate. I looked at the woman taking out her "instruments", looked at the CBR pliers and the needle and thought "This is going to hurt a lot...."
The lady then marked up my ear with the purple pen. I kept asking, on a scale of one to ten, how much this was going to hurt compared to my other piercings, and felt my heart sink when she said "Oh, you'll definitely feel it, it's pretty painful." She then sprayed my ear with copious amounts of cold spray to numb it, although I felt like it was making my ear more sensitive. She scrubbed it with an alcoholic swab, and then I felt the clamps and knew that this was it. In a few seconds I'd have an extra hole in me. The woman said 'Right, I'm going to push the needle through now....."
I felt a sort of pressure on one side of my tragus. As it increased, a searing pain shot through it that seemed to travel down the entire right hand side of my face. I could feel the needle going through my tragus, then it came out the other side. I heard (and felt) a small, but distinct "Pop!" as it went through. There was a brief period of my knowing I had a needle through my tragus, then the next thing I knew, the piercer stepped back and said "All done."
She showed me in the mirror, and I saw a small ring in it, with a trickle of blood running down from it. I said "Oh. I'm bleeding". The piercer said "You know, I'm always amazed when people say that like they weren't expecting it, just because the earlobes don't bleed". I clamped a tissue to it, and she told me about aftercare. She said to bathe it in salt water twice a day, and warned me that it would be sore for a while to sleep on.
Stupidly, I went to the Fair later that day, and my head and ears getting bumped around didn't help the piercing, which started bleeding again. However, it wasn't too sore after about a week, and healed with no problems. The only problem as far as I was concerned was my Mum's reaction. She did not react as well as I foolishly thought she would. She took one look at it and slammed the door in my face. We spoke about it properly later, and she grudgingly accepted it. Considering my total of piercings is now 16, she's had a lot to get used to!
Lying on the side of the piercing when sleeping was painful for a while afterwards, and it felt horrible if I caught it on a hairbrush or knocked it with a phone. However, after a few weeks, it only hurt if I tugged on it. After four months, when I was 100% sure it had healed, I changed the little CBR for a small "horseshoe" style ring with purple screw-on balls. Now, it looks so pretty and I'd recommend it. It does hurt getting it done, but nothing unbearable, and it looks great on both males and females.