I've been reading quite a few experiences lately, and about half of them are underage piercing adventures. I thought I would share my own as a cautionary tale. Just to make this clear, I have nothing against people getting piercings while underage, or people who self-pierce. However, I want to urge everyone to be SMART so you don't end up having an experience like mine.
At A Glance Author becks. Contact becks.@bme.anon IAM becks. When Five years ago Six years ago, I was sixteen. Many of you can relate, or, perhaps more appropriately, commiserate. I was typical: depressed, angsty, wanting to be rebellious. However, I was also very competitive and determined to be the best, which for me ruled out many typical forms of rebellion. I had to find some method of deviance that wouldn't 'interfere with my future,' and piercings and tattoos had always fascinated me. I remember going to the Winnipeg Folk Festival in junior high school and buying a clip-on nostril ring, which my parents wouldn't let me wear out of the house. I really don't remember where I got the idea for a navel piercing; very few people at my school, if any, had their navels pierced. I became consumed with the overwhelming need for a navel piercing. When my parents said no, this only further fueled my need. Not only would this piercing be edgy, I'd be rebelling against my parents by getting it done!
In retrospect, I was adorably naïve, wasn't I?
One day during 10th grade, one of my best friends approached me and said she heard of a place that pierced navels without asking for ID. I was ecstatic. However, I had no car and she couldn't borrow one till the weekend, so we had to wait. It was excruciating. Finally, Friday rolled around. We piled into her '87 Chevette and motored out to this cheesy little strip mall in an eastern suburb of St. Paul, MN.
The shop didn't even have a store front on the strip mall; we had to venture into the depths to find it. This place made Claire's look like the epitome of professional body piercing. It was dingy, dirty, full of plastic costume jewelry, and the counter was manned by two girls who looked to be my same age at the time. The kicker: the place was called Just Ears. The irony killed me, even at the time. I knew it was bad, I knew it was wrong, but I was determined. And all of us who have been 16 know we're immortal, bulletproof, at that age. We filled out consent forms, nervously listed our age as 18 and did the quick mental math to list our birthdays as 1980, not '82.
I stepped up and got my virgin navel gunned.
I have no memory of how much it cost, but I think it was a similar deal to the Claire's deal: buy the stud, get the mutilation (because truly, that's what it was) free. Plus a few bucks cash to grease the palms of the counter girls. They told me to come back in three days to get the piercing stud changed to a ring. Looking at my new adornment on the drive home, I noticed something looked amiss. When I returned in the allotted three days, my suspicions were confirmed: the 'gun artiste extraordinaire' had missed. I had, in effect, a vertical surface piercing above my navel. I was devastated. I'm pretty sure I cried as I removed it.
The saga continues. I waited a few weeks for the hole to heal, and returned to Just Ears, doubly determined to make it work this time. I realized that leaving a piercing stud with a butterfly back in my navel wasn't the brightest idea, so this time I returned the day after to get my stud replaced with a ring. Surprisingly, this time the hole was decently placed and began to heal (no thanks to me; the internet didn't really exist at this point and I had zero aftercare instruction. I think I used leftover Claire's ear solution. Eep.).
Several weeks after my second trip to Just Ears, my friend and I decided we wanted to change from rings to barbells, as we thought those would be more practical. We figured that since we already had the piercings, we wouldn't be IDed for a jewelry change. We cruised through Minneapolis looking for a piercing shop, and just pulled up in front of the first one we saw. Terrified, we walked in with as much boldness and confidence as we could muster, and asked the man at the counter for a jewelry change. And just where you thought my poor navel couldn't possibly be further abused...
We walked out with 18g externally threaded straight barbells in our navels.
Two years pass. I graduate high school, exit my depressive phase, and enter college. My navel piercing remains; perhaps I really am immortal, bulletproof – or at least able to heal 18g straight barbells in my navel. I slowly begin to accumulate a few more piercings, and with them, more piercing knowledge. It becomes clear that my navel jewelry is not so much an oddity as a joke, and those lovely men in the little shop where we got our jewelry changed laughed all the way to the bank. (I sometimes drive by this shop now. I always shoot it dirty looks out of principle, even though it was closed for quite a while and looks to be under new ownership. It makes me feel better.) However, my stubborn streak did not disappear when I exited my teen years.
Finally, during my sophomore year in college, my piercing began to migrate. It took three years, but my body eventually figured out that a thin straight barbell wasn't too comfortable in that area. I think this may have been aided by some sliiiiight weight fluctuation. College was fun. However, the bar wasn't fully rejected. It never got red, never got sore; the bar just migrated so the top hole was about half as deep as where the bar originally sat. This meant that more of the bar was exposed, and it started to get caught on towels, trousers, shirts, boys... My sense of aesthetics and practicality eventually overrode my stubbornness, and I removed the bar.
I was sad. I felt empty, like something was missing from my life. I also felt melodramatic. Seriously, though, my stomach felt a little weird. I was on an abroad term in Glasgow when I felt the itch and had to get it repierced. This time I went to a professional piercing place, where the piercer was not a gun-wielding 16-year-old but rather a very pierced and tattooed Northern Irish fellow. We had some lost-in-translation moments, such as when I said I was pissed (angry) about the earlier abuse to my navel and he thought I was drunk, and the indecipherable (but I'm sure choice) phrase he uttered when he discovered just how much scar tissue had formed from my old piercing. That hurt, despite the fact that he was very careful and gentle. Scar tissue is not fun.
Unfortunately, my navel seems to thrive on difficult circumstances and didn't know what to do when properly pierced. [Also: Abroad terms are also not great times to get pierced, as I was more focused on having fun than taking care of my piercing. I kept it clean but it got a fair amount of inadvertent abuse because I couldn't devote all necessary care to it.] Despite several months of TLC upon returning to America, my navel stayed red and irritated. About six months after getting it pierced, I removed it for good.
Two years have passed since I removed my navel piercing. All I have now are the memories and a slightly puckered scar about 1/8 inch in diameter where the top hole was. The underside of the top lip of my navel, where the bottom ball on the bar sat, has a divot nearly 1/4 inch deep where the skin receded from the bar. Good thing no one can see inside my navel.
The moral of my tale of navel woe is this. Know what you're doing, and be smart. 'Impatience' and 'stubbornness' are not productive emotions to have when it comes to a piercing. I have a nasty scar on my stomach from a piercing that at this point in my life, I wouldn't even want anymore. I know waiting a few months, much less a few years, feels like a lifetime when you're 16. I know you wanted it, like, five days ago. However, waiting until you can be smart about your piercing is worth it. Your piercing will most likely have more staying power, heal better, and give you many fewer problems if you wait until you can get it done professionally (or at least intelligently). Many people say, 'It doesn't matter because piercings aren't permanent. I'll just be left with a little scar.' This may be true, but my little scar drives me nuts, and I went through so much money, hassle and pain for pretty much nothing. My experience is a little on the extreme end, but it's far from worst case scenario.