I've had a nasty experience piercing, having my ears pierced twice, in the same place, by a couple incompetent mall gun-piercers, then finally done well (but extremely painfully, due to the scarring from the failed piercings) at Body Exotic.
At A Glance Author Honora Contact Honora@bme.anon When Six months ago Artist Chris (Last name unknown) Studio Body Exotic Location San Jose, CA
That was a couple years ago, and I've lived rather in dread of the place since then, and the piercing experience in general. Thus, I've remained with just standard ear-piercings, though at a rather higher gauge than is usual for those. Recently, however, I found myself liking more and more the look and style of the piercings I was seeing, and decided that I would get over the paranoia, especially since I've developed a much higher pain tolerance in the meantime, due to my accident-prone nature.
A good friend of mine, six years older than me, and thoroughly pierced and tattooed, frequently hangs out here on BME. I noticed her browsing the tongue-piercing section for ideas on her own next piercing, and she suggested the site if I wanted to look for a good piercing to get.
Looking through and talking to her, I finally decided on the eyebrow. Uncommon enough around here that I wouldn't seem to be just another the trend-whores that abound in the wake of all modding fashions, and I figured it'd be nice on me, since many people have commented that I have very distinctive and expressive eyebrows. And it sounded minor enough that I wouldn't just make my fear worse. She warned me that piercings were addictive once you started, but I figured that, with how much fear I felt just looking at most piercings, it wouldn't be too addictive for me.
So, with the agreement of my father, we headed down to Body Exotic, told them what I wanted, and started signing papers. While we were doing that, a woozy-looking young man walked out of the back room with no visible piercings, a worried girlfriend hovering around him and the piercer, Chris, handing him a glass of water. The implications of this scene sunk in, and I started chuckling around the frightened knot my throat and stomach seemed to have tied themselves into, loosening up enough that I could stop my hand shaking as I signed the paper.
Finally, I picked out the jewelry, and they stuck it in the autoclave as I was taken into curtained room, where Chris proceeded to keep up a running conversation as he suggested placement, aligned it, marked it, measured it, re-marked it, asking me to check it every step of the way. With the jewelry out of the autoclave, finally, I felt panic beginning to rise again, not really dispelled by the piercer's lighthearted, and increasingly one-sided, chatter. Finally, he told me to lie back, and close my eyes. He put the clamp on my eyebrow, and I started breathing shallowly, panicky. He advised me, once again, to breath evenly, keep my eyes closed, as he busied himself getting the needle. He put his hand on my face to steady the eyebrow, and told me to count to ten, out loud.
"One, two, three, four, five, si.." I got about that far before he pushed the needle through. With the element of surprise on his side, I couldn't have flinched, even if I was going to.
But the odd thing was, after all the anticipation of pain, fear, and awful sensations.... It tickled. No pain at all. As he pulled the needle through to insert the jewelry, I quite literally had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud. Through some unlikely combination of strange sensation, adrenaline, and hysteria from fear, I couldn't stop laughing. I opened my eyes to see Chris looking down at me in curious amusement, then shaking his head before he finished the piercing, and put the ball on the curved barbell I'd picked out earlier. I still could not stop chuckling, which caused Chris to start as we walked out, myself both shaking with laughter and shaky-legged, to ring up the piercing and jewelry.
All the way through the half-hour drive home, my father kept on giving me strange looks until I finally calmed down and stopped laughing.
It definitely broke my fear of piercings. However, keeping it safe was a very, very difficult task, between taking shirts on and off (ouch), taking a messenger-style bag loaded with schoolbooks on and off (OUCH), and family and friends, all of whom seem to have an almost magnetic attraction to accidentally bumping or brushing by the eyebrow. Probably a familiar situation to anyone else who's gotten a prominent piercing.
And you know what? It turned out great. And my friend was right, damn her. The addictiveness of piercing is quite undeniable. I've been looking around the site with acquisitory thoughts floating about my mind recently...