Contrary to the desires of many of my friends at the time, when I was sixteen I had no particular desire to get my tongue pierced whatsoever. Back in the early to mid Nineties body piercing was only just starting to take off and London boasted just a handful of really good studios (compared to the hundred - both good and quite dreadful - that it has now) and it seemed that the piercings most popular (as they more or less still are to this day) amongst the girls my age were ears and navel, with the very daring working all hours to persuade their parents to also permit a tongue piercing. Most said no - piercing was, as I said, a relatively new phenomenon then and a tongue piercing seemed to be the most exotic, extreme thing you could do to your body and permission was withheld accordingly. My parents, however, were quite relaxed about the new piercing hobby I had taken up. I was a fairly intelligent teenager and while they couldn't say they liked the metal additions that would every so often pop up somewhere upon my person they were fairly rational about it, figuring I would imagine that it was a harmless pastime compared to all the horrendous, harmful things a teenager could be spending her money on. This made me a mysterious frustration to my piercing loving friends - someone who had the permission but wasn't interested in the piercing.
At A Glance Author Ribibe Contact Ribibe@bme.anon IAM Ribibe When Ten years ago or more Artist Rob Studio Perforations Location Brighton, UK Three or four years went by and I was living away from home at university. I had by this time collected and retired many different piercings and my attitude towards the tongue piercing (as well as very many others) had mellowed with experience and the explosion in the popularity of piercing. No longer thought of as particularly extreme, I still had no desire to acquire one for myself until one day, ludicrously bored in a lecture and having played and fiddled with everything around me to keep from falling asleep I noticed a girl a couple of rows in front of me looking equally bored, playing with her tongue piercing. At that instant I wanted one for the first time - not for aesthetic reasons, or for the supposed sexual benefits I had heard a lot of speculation about, but simply to have something new and interesting to play about with. The very next day I had commandeered a friend and his car to drive me to Perforations, the best piercing studio near to my small university town.
When I walked into the Perforations, I had no idea what to expect. The internet had only just arrived at my university and I knew no-one personally to ask what the experience had been like for them, so details of how I would find the piercing were impossible to come by. I walked up to Warren, the owner of the studio, behind the counter and told him what I wanted. He game me a permission form to sign and said that as I was the first customer of the day Rob the piercer would be up straight away to take me down to the piercing room. Sure enough, thirty seconds later I was heading down the stairs, getting increasingly nervous about the fate that awaited me. Rob invited me to pick some music to listen to when he set up his equipment so I plucked my favourite Radiohead CD from the pile and set it to play before hopping up on the bench.
As Rob laid out each new piece of equipment he showed me that it was new or straight from the autoclave, then he opened a brand new needle from the packet and set it next to the rest of the stuff. When he was ready he got me to stick my tongue out so he could check it was a good length to pierce and as it turned out to be so, picked up a disposable marker pen and, studying my tongue for a while, placed two dots on the top and underside spots he thought would be best. I checked the placement in the mirror and it was perfect, so Rob opened the clamps and placed them squarely over the places he had market. This was to date the only piercing I have ever had performed with a clamp and I didn't find them painful at all; the only uncomfortable part was simultaneously trying to hold my tongue out as far as possible whilst attempting not to dribble.
I have never quite believed that people could have piercings and never feel them - mine have always hurt, and while some hurt more than others all have definitely been noticed. This one was a partial break from form; Rob pierced from the underside of my tongue to the top, and all the time it travelled through my tongue I didn't feel a thing, until the needle 'burst' out of the upper side with a little ripping and made me jump with the sudden surprise and burst of pain. Once that brief burst was over however the pain ended instantly, and the beginning of my healing troubles began.
Instantly, I felt like there was something huge in my mouth, and I had difficulty just pulling my tongue back inside. The 1.6mm barbell felt so huge I couldn't speak, which I hadn't been expecting at all, and though Rob had previously explained that the initial barbell would be oversized to accommodate swelling (and that I should come back in a fortnight to have the barbell changed for a smaller one), I couldn't believe that I'd be able to cope with this huge thing in my mouth for two weeks. I thanked Rob with some difficulty and climbed upstairs again, paying Warren the £20 price and making my way out into the street with my friend for something to sip very slowly through a straw.
The next two weeks were deeply unpleasant. I had been warned by Rob not to try and talk too much, try soft foods for the first few days and suck on crushed ice to bring the swelling down. Though while I followed all his advice to the letter, to the point of being almost completely silent for the first week, my tongue remained very swollen and eating was extremely difficult. Eating even the softest, most liquid foods hurt my tongue, and speaking even a little caused a straining pain in my whole mouth. This did get better over the fortnight, and by the time I went back to get the bar changed for a smaller one (what a relief that was, to have tiny almost unnoticeable thing in my mouth instead of that seemingly enormous barbell!) I could eat almost normally again, but during those two weeks I had been tempted to take it out many many times.
After about a month it was healed completely and I could fiddle around with it to my heart's content, and at that point I was pleased I had stuck it out. I kept the piercing for about five years until I had to have all my wisdom teeth out under general anaesthetic and during the fairly long operation it healed over. I liked my tongue piercing and missed it when it was gone, and have thought several times about getting it done in the year since but alas, I remain forever put off my the remembrance of that horrible healing period.