"Why do you get pierced?"
At A Glance Author Gwenn Contact Gwenn@bme.anon IAM mythernal When A year ago Artist Rich Fisher Studio Division Tattoo Location Madison Heights, MI Er, well, it's my body, and, I ...
"Well, what do you get out of it?"
It's something that's me, I mean, well, it's ...
"But how did you get into it?"
Aha. That, I can answer. Like many of us, I'm sure, I feel that I can just never come up with satisfactory answers to some of the questions people ask me. My reasons behind getting modified are personal, enigmatic, and sometimes unknown even to me. Even if the words are perfectly formed in my mind, not everyone will understand them. But as far as tracing my increasing interest, I can do that easily, with one piercing. Hopefully, you can learn along with me, without actually making my mistakes.
After feeling hardcore about my new tongue piercing for a sufficient length of time, I decided that I wanted a set of two cartilage piercings. After all, if thousands of 14-year-old cheerleaders had them, shouldn't I? Since then, of course, I've come to realize exactly how many 14-year-old cheerleaders have tongue piercings, as well, but like I say, this journey is about acquiring knowledge.
Keep in mind that at this point, I had pretty much zero knowledge about body modification. I had tagged along with some friends to get my tongue pierced without doing any research whatsoever. I doubt I could have told you what gauge the jewelry was. So once I decided that I wanted my cartilage pierced, I set off back to the shop I'd gotten my tongue pierced at, with one thought in mind: a gun. I didn't know guns were bad for piercings. I logically understood that a gun couldn't be used on my tongue, but for my ear I didn't see a problem. I went in and asked. The piercer told me that they didn't use guns for any piercing and explained some of the risks. I still wasn't convinced, and asked him about jewelry, since in my youth I'd had some allergic reactions to cheap stuff. He assured me that the metal they used was surgical-grade steel, the same kind, he explained, "That they would use to put a pin in your leg if you ever needed one". Although I had no idea, I insisted I'd be allergic anyway and he told me that he could pierce them with titanium for ... a lot of money.
I hadn't expected that, and my friend and I scurried out of that shop like we'd been burned. I'm not sure why I didn't think of going to Claire's at this point. But for some reason, I had already associated piercing with studios, not the mall. My friend told me about a tattoo shop by her house where "a really hot guy" worked, so we went there. Again, I asked if I could get pierced with a gun, and Rich told me "Noooo way, guns bad. Everything's done with a needle here." After receiving this second opinion, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to be pierced with a needle. To my mind, it seemed like a gun would be over quickly. A needle, forced in by someone's hand, would have to be a slow and infinitely more painful method, which is why I was wary. He would only charge me $25 per hole, and at that time I didn't particularly associate cost with quality. Glad of a deal, I consented. I signed my form and went into the back room, where I had the cartilage of my right ear pierced twice with 14 gauge CBRs (not a term I would have known at the time). It hurt, but considerably less than I thought the big scary needle would have. I didn't know enough to tip, either, and went back home to get ready for a concert that night, where, of course, my fresh piercings got knocked around and irritated.
When I got home, my mom immediately hated my "huge ugly rings". She was probably expecting fake diamond studs. After only two or three days of her nagging, I decided to change them for something cuter. I had bought oodles of cheap jewelry from the mall in anticipation of the change. Some of the CBRs had rings that were jagged, didn't fit well together with the bead, and the paint chipped off. Others were made of a cheap plastic that bent too much and allowed the bead to slip off and get lost all the time. But lo and behold, I couldn't get my original jewelry out! Of course Rich had closed them tightly at the shop, and finally I resorted to using pliers to twist them apart (and completely irritate my poor ears). I was disappointed when I realized that I had completely ruined my jewelry. Then again, these rings were "ugly" right? I didn't know that most piercers will be happy to change your jewelry for you. The pain of clumsily inserting my own jewelry into my fresh piercings almost made me pass out. Then I couldn't get the beads to clip in. My brother got them for me, finally, hurting me a lot more in the process.
Meanwhile, I religiously cleaned my piercings 2-3 times a day. With hydrogen peroxide. Rich hadn't been specific as to how I should take care of my piercings. No aftercare sheet, no suggestions, nothing. I'm not saying that it's a bad shop, as I got a daith done there that turned out perfectly. However, in general they're more a tattoo shop than a piercing shop, and it shows. When I put two regular silver studs in, I noticed that the bottom piercing was a bit crooked and was disappointed. The peroxide was irritating the hell out of my ear. It was constantly red and throbbing. If I even touched it lightly by accident, the pain was intense. I didn't understand why. It seemed like every day I was bleeding and having to pick off newly formed scabs at the back of my jewelry when cleaning. It seemed to be getting worse instead of better. Finally, a friend that knew a bit more about piercing than I did told me that peroxide is too harsh and kills the new flesh as well as bacteria, not allowing my piercings to heal. I was skeptical, but decided to see if her advice was worth anything, and thank god I did. I started using Bactine (still not the best, but a WORLD of difference) and within a few weeks my ear had finally settled down and was beginning to heal. I tried to put some of the 14 gauge plastic rings back in and was horrified to realize that my ears had already closed down to the stud size, maybe an 18 gauge. I had wasted a lot of money on this cheap jewelry.
Not changing the jewelry as much and gentler cleaning finally allowed my ears to heal. A few months later I wanted hoops again, so I found some that have the wire at the top that fits into the hollow of the larger hoop, again, at the mall. These seemed to work for a while, but eventually began to irritate my piercing again. I didn't know what to do about it until I got my tragus pierced over Spring Break. Since I hadn't seen many people with it done, I decided to research it on the internet a little bit. Yes, after I got it done. I was still learning! It was then that I found BME and began to understand that modification was more than a trend, it was a community. This was empowering, and I began to read voraciously about the subject, trying to learn everything I could. A few weeks later I decided that my jewelry was inappropriate and went to Need A New Hole in Windsor, ON to get Chris to change them out.
Here I encountered the dreaded stretching. I didn't want to stretch my lobes. At that point it just wasn't too appealing to me. But Chris and I knew that appropriate jewelry for my cartilage piercings would be 14 gauge CBRs. I asked for something smaller, fearing the taper, but eventually he had me convinced. I sat still, breathing deeply as instructed, and he lubed the taper and slid it through the top piercing. Then Chris quickly followed it with the CBR. I sat still for a moment, considering the pain. I had been expecting something excruciating, but in reality it was like a dulled piercing. The sensation was similar, but the pain was less, deadened. If the original piercing had been a 10, stretching from 18/20 gauge to 14 was a 6. As I was still thinking, Chris slid the taper into the lower hole without warning. That wasn't bad either. As he cleaned up and pulled away, my ear suddenly felt hot, very hot! All the blood rushing to the area had me furiously fanning the area with my hand (as if it would do any good). It went away after half an hour or so, and I was very happy with my cartilage piercings for the first time in a long time. I left them this way for a couple months.
Recently I had Chris take them back out, just short of their first birthday, when I got my ear tattooed. Now that I see the placement of my tattoo, I don't think they'll be coming back, sadly. I have two small white scars that I'm massaging regularly with vitamin E oil in hopes to minimize them. But my cartilage piercings served their purpose. They encouraged me to learn all I could about body modification, and now I'm completely in love with it. While I still don't pretend to know everything, I'm light years beyond where I was. If you're just starting out getting piercing, I hope that you might come across my story and learn a little bit, too, without making your own mistakes.