My little brother had his nipples pierced 3 years ago, and I thought they looked really good on him. I'm not really the piercing or tattooing type. I don't even have an ear pierced. Bit I'm making some changes in my life right now (diet, exercise, etc.) and I wanted to do something kinda radical as a daily reminder to stick with it. I also wanted to have something else in common with my brother, and to show him that I wasn't the big p*ssy he thinks I am!
At A Glance Author Travis When A week ago Artist Kenny Carter Studio Love-N-Hate Location Lewisville, Texas So, I decided to get my nipples pierced. I picked the Love-N-Hate studio in Lewisville, TX because it was right on the way home from work. I'd passed it several times but never noticed it was there until I found them online. I went in at about 8:30 p.m. with the mindset that this experience was gonna be a somewhere between a haircut and getting a tooth filling. After I met Kenny, my piercer, he had me fill out paperwork, and then we went into the piercing room. He took a few minutes to prepare his tools, them marked where he wanted to put the holes.
I laid down and he clamped my left one first, then told me to take a deep breath. He then pushed the needle through. It stung, and I remember a rush of adrenaline. I think I uttered a subtle 'humph,' then took another deep breath. I always get an odd taste in my mouth when I get a big shot of adrenaline or pain and it feels like my teeth are coated with something. I moved my tongue around to get this 'coating' off my teeth while he set up for the right side. Wierd, right? Again he told me to take another deep breath and he pierced the right nipple. Then he moved back to the left side to pull the circular barbell through with the flexible end of the piercing needle. He told me I'd feel a pinch when he pulls it through. It wasn't bad at all. He repeated the right side and then told me I could stand up and look in the mirror.
No more than about 10 minutes had passed from the time I walked in the door and the time I stood in front of the mirror looking at my new nipple piercings. It wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. It reminded me of the line in Harvey Danger's song Flagpole Sitta, "I wanna pierce my tongue; It doesn't hurt, it feels fine."
Kenny said to me afterwards, "this probably the most painful piercing for men above the waistline. I've had some big ol' boys on this table that couldn't take it."
He told me how to care for them, then I thanked him and drove myself home. They started to get progressively more sensitive on the 15 minute drive, so I called a friend and told him what I had just done. Although it was a bit difficult juggling the phone, seatbelt, steering wheel and five-on-the-floor stickshift, talking kept my mind off of the increasing sensitivity just enough to get home.
The next afternoon I drove up to my brother's house and later told him, "I got pierced last night." He thought I said "I got pissed last night," and proceeded to ask me, "What about?" After a couple of confused looks and more confusing exchanges I realised he misunderstood me and I repeated my original statement. He lit up and said, "No way! Lemme see!" He didn't believe me at first, so I had to show him. I had just driven 4 hours and I hadn't looked at them since my shower that morning. I pulled up my shirt and there was about an inch and a half long trail of dried blood running down from the left nipple. My brother said, "Cool! It's all bloody!" The next day he was still shaking his head saying, "You're pierced!"
It's been almost two weeks now and so far so good. They're pretty sensitive, especially the left one, but I'm just going shirtless around the house and wear loose shirts when I'm out.
One friend's reaction was like, "You got your nipples pierced!" But I told another friend about it on the phone and he was like, "Are you gay?!" That kinda shocked me because that thought had never even crossed my mind before getting them done. I had never even considered that some closed-minded people may stereotype nipple piercings as synonymous with homosexuality. So I was kinda taken aback my that. But then, that's another reason I did this...it was my way of giving the finger to the neo-conservative Bible-thumping tight-a** ditto-heads that are trying to turn this country into even more of a police state than it already is. If you saw me at work, you'd probably think I was one of them...but I'm not. And I needed something to prove it.