It has been over seven months since my last piercing (not counting stretching) and I have been thinking about another piercing for at least the past four or five. As I have described in earlier experiences, I work in academia and so have to maintain a certain degree of appearance; other than my 00ga earlobe I think I have exhausted my options as for visible piercings. The possible exception to this is may be an ear cartilage such as helix, daith or inner conch, but these are piercings I am saving for another day. Whether it's piercing or tattooing, I am a firm believer in too much, too soon spoils the fun. For me I derive just as much excitement and pleasure from the anticipation of the piercing procedure and the healing process than I do from the actual healed piercing itself, the resulting body decoration and experimenting with different decorative jewellery.
At A Glance Author alan IAM alantsuda When A week ago Artist Eizo Mamiya Studio Noon Body Customisation Studio Location Shibuya, Tokyo Japan Even before I got my nipple pierced in September last year I was considering getting an apadravya done. To me this piercing was enticing as it is much less common than PA or frenum, it has an exotic Indian (a continent I love) context and is decidedly erotic and sensual whilst being hidden. I also think it looks great. However, after reading up on the subject and about the procedure itself, being a coward in many ways I contemplated the possibility that I would not be able to handle the pain of a piercing needle through the old storm-trooper's helmet so I decided to go for the comparatively less traumatic option. Having a Prince Albert done first would allow me to test my mettle, see how I got on with genital piercing and give me the option to 'upgrade' to an apadravya if I felt it was really me. If I found it was not my thing I could always take the PA out and recover without too much scarring or reminders of the event.
When it comes to a man's best friend you really want to give yourself the best chance possible if you are going to have someone stick a sharp needle through it. The best piercer I know personally, who in addition to a portfolio the stuff dreams are made of also has an impressive array of genital piercings himself, is a certain Eizo Mamiya. We first met in the winter of 2000 when we worked together on the stall run by Keibunsha at the December International Tattoo Convention there. Since then whenever I am in Tokyo I always drop into his studio to say hello. His 'body customisation studio,' as he calls it, is known as Noon and is located in fashionable Shibuya in Tokyo (the place with the really big crossroads where thousands of people cross at one time you always see in video clips of Tokyo, and also the scene of some of the maniacal antics in the Jackass film). At Noon Mamiya-san offers the whole range of modifications, from piercings, tattooing, branding, scarificatio n, implants and more. Since I found myself in Japan in late March and early April on a mixed holiday and work trip, I decided to pay Mamiya-san a visit and get my PA done there. As I would not be commuting to work for over a fortnight I could take it easy after the procedure for a few days instead of having to commute to work on my bike with a healing PA to contend with.
I arrived in Tokyo after spending a few days in the Kansai area, and the morning after a nice hot bath and early night – and no booze – I made my way to Noon having had some toast and potato salad for breakfast. The studio itself is in Utagawa-cho, which means you get out of Shibuya station at the infamous Shibuya Hachiko crossroads and walk through the trendy Center-gai pedestrian shopping arcade full of brown-haired, mobile phone-clutching young girlies and get blasted by megaphones, loudspeakers, bright flashing lights, ghetto-blasters firing out all kinds of music and men and women shouting at the top of their voices as market traders, shops and arcades try verbally to cajole you into sampling their wares.
Having made it to Noon it turned out I arrived too early as they open at 1pm, so I lingered around a bit at Tokyu Hands, bought some Japanese Morning Glory seeds to take back to London with me and waited until the studio opened. As I arrived I was welcomed by a very nice lady who works there who had the cutest lip ring I have seen in ages. Mamiya-san arrived and we said our greetings and I gave him a tattoo machine that I had brought with me from England. He has a huge collection of machines from around the world in a display cabinet in the studio, many that he uses for his daily work but others just for keepsakes and I gambled that he hadn't got the one I had brought, a Micky Bee J-frame. Luckily I was right, he didn't have one and he was especially delighted with the gift as they are quite rare now and then he said he could do the Prince Albert there and then.
Mamiya-san asked me what gauge I wanted it, to which I replied 'um...' since I had no idea. He told me 12ga was most common so I went with that. He produced a large fisherman's tackle box with already-sterilised 12ga ball closure rings of a number of different diameters in it and told me to choose the one that was most appropriate for my size. Seeing as I would be dropping my drawers in a few minutes there was no possibility for exaggeration or modesty, I picked a size that I thought would fit me best and Mamiya-san concurred. We went next door to the actual piercing room and he washed up, put new gloves on and generally got his equipment ready. He had placed a disposable plastic-coated paper sheet on the piercing chair and I took my trousers and boxers down to my ankles and sat down. The great thing about Mamiya-san is that like a good doctor, he has a wonderful 'bedside manner' that puts you at ease straight away and makes time fly by. He also hardly ever stops talkin g, which in a situation like this is I think a good thing. I am by nature a rather introverted person and am not at all comfortable with things like public nudity or exhibitionist behaviour. However, due mostly due to his efforts I felt totally relaxed in Mamiya-san's studio and simply thought, 'let's get on with it then.' He inspected my penis to see where to pierce and swabbed some sterilising fluid onto it. I told him that since I dress to the left, and that my penis turns very slightly in the same direction, he might want to have the entry hole slightly to the right of the frenum (being born in Japan, I am circumcised). He had a good look and agreed but said that he could easily go through the frenum itself. I told him he was the pro and that I leave the decision to him so he marked a point just to the right of the centre of the frenum and asked me to check if I was happy with the position. I said it was pukka and Mamiya-san turned to wash up and get ready for th e piercing itself. By now I was beginning to feel a little bit nervou s, and my old John Thomas must have suspected something was up after being handled and prodded a bit and was doing its best to hide away. All the while Mamiya-san was talking to me, saying how every man's penis is different with regards to the positioning of the frenum, turning of the penis and dressing etc. and I joked saying that in my line of work I didn't really get to see too many penises but I trusted his judgement. We had a laugh and he said that women's genitals also differed greatly between individuals, and that often women were very unaware of their own genital anatomy, more so than men. I suggested that this was because men masturbate a lot more than women. However, my laughs were cut short when I saw him lubing up the receiving tube he had taken out of its sterilisation pouch and it looked huge. Mamiya-san said he would put the tube in, and that most blokes say this bit can be a bit painful. I looked away at a piercing chart on the wall and expected somethi ng horrid, although to be honest I only felt a slight pull and he said it was in and he was ready to put the needle in. I don't know whether it's because I have naturally a wide urethra – I've experimented with sounding by sticking small insertion tapers up it, but nothing wide or large as I found it wasn't really my thing – and although when flaccid my penis isn't very long my glans is proportionally quite big, which means to reach the level of my frenum the tube had to go quite a way up to reach its final position.
I decided to steel myself with a couple of deep breaths, but before I could draw in the second Mamiya-san said 'Here we go,' and he stuck the needle through. Although I was not watching directly and he caught me off-guard, the pain was still that you might expect of someone sticking a very sharp piece of metal through the shaft of your essentials. It wasn't a cringing pain or a pain to make you jump so it can't have been that bad, and compared to my nipple piercing it was over in about half the time. Before I could even gasp out Mamiya-san whisked the tube away and I looked down to see my now very shrivelled helmet with a needle sticking out of the urethral opening. Certainly the pain had surprised me and any dullness resulting from having woken up late in the morning was dissipated instantly. I said 'That hurt a little bit,' to which Mamiya-san replied 'Yes, this piercing does hurt, no matter what people say it hurts.' Mamiya-san then turned back to me with the BCR rea dy and I turned away to the wall chart again to ready myself for another dose of pain. He lifted up my penis again and then suddenly got up and turned away again. I looked down and saw he had fitted the jewellery already and I hadn't felt a thing. I asked if that was it, and he said he just had to fit the ball and then that would be it. He closed the ring onto the ball with a pair of pliers and it was done. I looked down and saw this big, shiny ring going right through the end of my cock: I hadn't seen something as beautiful as that in ages!
As Mamiya-san tidied up he gave me a surgical glove to fit over my penis and I padded it also with some tissues and gingerly pulled my boxers up to hold everything in place. As I was getting dressed we through aftercare, and he warned me that the first couple of urinations might hurt a little bit. After I finally got my trousers on I said my thanks and made to leave. I also picked a copy of Mamiya-san's book 'Piercing Bible,' thanked him again profusely and left.
Following his instructions I went to a café after leaving Noon where I could sit down for half an hour or so to let my essentials settle down a little bit and I read my paper over a coffee and a sandwich. Afterwards I made my way back to Shibuya station and got the train back home. The journey was uneventful, and I found that standing still and walking was the most comfortable but getting up from a seated position or walking up stairs or up an incline was a little painful with the end of my todger seemingly catching the insides of my trousers even though I had purposefully chosen a very loose pair.
When I arrived home I went straight into the shower. I took off the glove-based bandage and found that I had bled a fair bit, staining myself and my boxers a little bit. As I washed myself off in the shower I couldn't help but look and admire my penis, so beautifully decorated as it now was. I then felt the coffee I had earlier had kicked in and I had my first piss since the procedure there and then in the shower. It was not at all painful, just stinging a tiny bit as a small blood clot flew out the tip followed by some red-tinged urine until bladder urine came out and I actually felt it brought a little relief to the inflammation of my penis surrounding the piercing. After the shower I carried out two hot sea-salt water soaks and found out that immersing my penis in a mug full of the warm water seemed to bring on the most insistent urge to urinate, causing me utilise my bathroom sink for a purpose other than it was envisaged. However the soaks felt good and really did help the healing process and I repeated them twice a day, morning and evening.
I had a good meal in the evening and went to bed early. Before going to bed I attempted my first urination in the toilet; I had been worrying about this for a while after hearing various stories about what the PA procedure does to your ability to urinate standing up. I don't know about other people but as far as my Prince Albert piercing goes, when the urine starts flowing there is no problem, although sometimes as the stream flows out a few drops can run down along the ring and drop straight down, so it is best to stand partially straddling the bowl rather a distance away, otherwise I end up with a puddle of piss between my feet. For me the problems began at the conclusion of urination, when the stream slows down to a dribble. Holding my penis as I was accustomed to before having the PA, about a 45-degree angle downwards, is disastrous. As the urine slows down to a dribble, the stream follows the curve of the BCR and I ended up spraying my testicles, thighs and boxers with my own piss. The trick I use now is to move the shaft of my knob as close to horizontal as possible when I feel the end of urination is coming, this way the last few drops that get carried along the ring spray downwards into the toilet bowl and not onto my trousers. Another important thing is not to tense your voluntary bladder muscle as you approach the end of urination, as was customary in my pre-PA days, to squeeze out the last few drops. This results in wet underpants too, so now I do my best to relax and let gravity take control at the end so that the urine drops straight down instead of being squirted onto myself.
To bed I wore a pair of soft oversized shorts and stuffed them with tissues, which proved wise as when I woke in the morning there was a small clot and spots of blood on the tissue paper. The blood had even found its way in a couple of places to the inside of my shorts. All the blood appeared to be coming from my urethra as this was crusted in dried blood but a nice saltwater soak first thing in the morning did wonders.
The following day I went out in the evening to eat shabu shabu and ended up drinking a fair bit of the old amber nectar and hot sake. This was probably not a good idea as I should have taken it easy that day, and the amount of walking I did probably exacerbated my bleeding a little which continued at a low level throughout the evening since when I got home my boxers were stained a little bit. In the shower I washed the piercing with soap and rotated the ring in its place to make sure soap got into it.
On the morning of the third day after the piercing I found my shorts were unstained and there was no blood around the opening of the urethra. I did however have a stonking erection that was very tender around the piercing. I was rescued only by the freezing cold temperature of my room (Tokyo in March is cold) and by the heavenly saltwater soak. After rewarding myself for getting through the PA procedure by shopping for old books in the 'book town' of Kanda (a district in old Tokyo that has over 140 second-hand bookshops) I came home to find I had bled a little bit, probably caused by walking around for so long. Again, soap cleaning in the shower and saltwater soaks twice a day was my aftercare regime. Tissues in the shorts for bed as usual.
On the fourth day it was like a revelation: the bleeding had finally stopped! The tissues in my shorts were spotless. I also woke with a throbbing erection again, followed by an urge to masturbate that was quickly dispelled after a couple of strokes as I felt that the frenum part of the piercing was still very tender. By this day there were whitish secretions, like you get with other healing piercings, drying around the frenum entry point of the ring and these I removed easily in the hot saltwater soak.
By the fifth day after piercing, the bleeding had stopped and tenderness was completely gone. I reduced my aftercare system to one saltwater soak in the morning and soap wash in the shower in the evening. There were no other serious problems encountered since this time, and I am getting more accustomed to my new mode of urinating with each time I practise it. Occasionally I now get a little jolt when I catch the ring on the insides of my trousers but it is not a serious pain. The white crusts of dried secretions can prevent the ring from rotating properly and can cause serious pain if they get dragged into the piercing, so I make sure my morning soak and shower in the evening removes these as much as possible. I am going to wait a couple of weeks before I change the jewellery to a curved barbell, and I look forward to the future when I am going to stretch it up a few gauges.
In summary I feel the Prince Albert is a great piercing and cannot recommend it enough to any man considering their first genital piercing. If any reader is in Tokyo and is looking for a good piercer, I highly recommend Eizo Mamiya as he is a body modification legend in Japan and my own experience with him has been nothing short of exemplary. He can also perform many different types of mod and in a town notoriously full of hacks and quack piercers Noon is a veritable oasis of cleanliness, professionalism and knowledge. Anyone reading this who wants to know more about my experience or about Noon just visit my IAM page and leave me a message. And as a last note about my PA experience, whether or not the real H.R.H. Prince Albert himself had one is debatable in my opinion, but who cares...I've got one!