Okay so I have this minor fascination with body piercing. I first heard about the idea of a clit piercing a few years ago and was mildly interested, as in "I would do that" but didnt really think much about it, other than not being apalled at the idea. Certainly had no serious intent to do it. About six months ago, I came across the BME site and the photo galleries, got some great ideas about different piercings, and out of morbid curiosity, checked out the genital piercings, more for entertainment value than anything else. Showed the male piercings to my boyfriend ("you should do that, haha") and started looking into the female piercings. I found the clit piercings to be particularly attractive, but wasnt the least interested in any of the others. Discussed it with my boyfriend who was surprisingly supportive. Well, I shouldn't say surprisingly, he is supportive of any modification I want, being as it is my body, but I was a bit surprised as to how interested he was. He said he wasn't going to offer pressure either way, as body modification is entirely my descision and a big one at that and he didn't want to sway my opinion in any way, for or against having it done. He liked the look and the idea and would be supportive if I chose to go through with it, but would absolutely be happy either way.
At A Glance Author MixieArmadillo Contact MixieArmadillo@bme.anon Artist Paul King Studio Cold Steel America Location San Francisco (corner of Mission and the Castro) So I did a *lot* of research into it, read everything I could find on the subject (which didnt seem to be enough). Not many body piercing places perform them, and most of the information I read was overwhelmingly negative in that it is dangerous if performed by an inexperienced individual, 90% of women are *not* anatomically suited for this piercing, etc. The general consensus seems to be that the vast majority of women are not built correctly, and only the most experienced of piercers should ever attempt it ("a piercing best left in the realm of fantasy for most"). Perfectly fine with me. Personally, if I am going to have someone poking around in my most sensitive bits with a needle, I want it to be a master piercer who has done this before and is fanatically obsessive about sterility in a comfortingly professional environment and who is *only* going to perform the piercing if he thinks my body is built to acoomodate the thing, not some skeezy dude in a dirty shop going "heh heh heh" whos going to just grab ahold and puncture, right. Seems like most of the experiences I've read are girls who have friends do it or random people in their homes. I have no words to describe how stupid that sounds. I mean, this isn't your earlobe, its your clitoris for gods' sake. Eight thousand nerve endings in about a quarter inch of space. You could do a lot of damage if it is done incorrectly, much less the vast risk of infection. Hello, hiv.
But I digress. So I came across the Rings of Desire website, and Elayne Angel. She is the head of the outreach program for the app, very well known, used to work at Gauntlet in San Fran years ago. She was kind enough to give me tons of information, answer all my questions, and ultimately referred me to Paul King, a master piercer at Cold Steel America (two locations in San Francisco, the first at the corner of Mission and the Castro, near Noe, and the second one is on the upper Haight). I called and spoke with him at length, he was very nice, answered all my questions, even gave me his cell phone number to get ahold of him and set up the appointment.
I talked it over with my boyfriend and we set a date. Drove the hour and a half to San Francisco, drove around for like fourty minutes trying to find street parking. Finally found a spot and walked the couple of blocks to Cold Steel, went up the stairs and met Paul. He's adoreable. Very, very nice. He went over the various options for female genital percings, we talked about possible problems, after care, etc. I signed all the necessary forms and showed id and all that good stuff. Finally went back into the room for the 'exam' where he took a good look at my bits and went over the pros and cons of my anatomy, and how suited I am for the piercing. I have rather pronounced outer labia, which was a negative in that it would tend to compress the area, but evidently have the perfect clitoral hood (amused at this) as its nice and loose fitting, and everything opens up easily. Also that one of the major things in my favor is how calm and grounded I was about the whole thing ("radiating calm," evidently) very sure of myself and not nervous or freaked out about it. The only issues were that my clit is average sized, and is that when im not spread open, everything closes up pretty thoroughly. He was leaning towards a vertical hood piercing, but his only concern was healing time, not nerve damage or anything. So we decided to go ahead and do it. I went to the little waiting area and told my male person all about the pros and cons and such and that I was going to go through with it, and if he wanted to be there he was more than welcome to be.
So we went back and I stripped my pants and panties off again and hopped up on the table while Paul got everything ready to go. He explaned the entire proceedure to me in great detail, from marking it to how it would be positioned, clamping, the actual percing, everything. He changed his gloves about thirty thousand times (reassuring) and disinfected *everything* including the mirror he had me hold to look at it (way reassuring). Showed me all the little autoclave packets and such, and told my male person he was welcome to stand at the end of the table above my head and rub my shoulders to keep me calm (ultra reassuring) he petted me and watched the whole thing and kept glancing down at me looking a little worried which somehow was very comforting heh. He had me lay back, put my feet in stirrups, practice breathing, and spread myself open. Marked the spot and had us both look and approve, and clamped me. That was sort of ikky, actually. The clamp pinched a bit and was more actually painful than the piercing itself.
He had me take a deep breath in, and exhale hard, piercing me on the exhale. I remember grunting a hard "unh" sound and being slammed with this wall of intensity. It wasn't like pain so much as you'd associate with needles and punctures and such, as just being slammed with this massive impact of something more intense than I have the words to describe. I remember my vision getting all dark and sort of swirly and heaving, trying to breathe, like panting, for what felt like forever but was probably a minute or two. Paul was petting my shins and telling me I did beautifully and calling me 'my dear' which I remember thinking was honestly very comforting. He finished lacing the jewelery in and such and was just like "take your time, relax, and as soon as youre ready you can get dressed and come out." He even gave me the sharpie marker he used to mark me, as it is one time use (nice touch).
I paid with a debit card, twenty two dollars for the jewelery, twenty five for the piercing (cheap) and six for the after care gooey stuff and sea salt. I was expecting sixty to seventy dollars.
It was a really really incredible experience. I would recommend Cold Steel very very highly. They were very professional, very very careful about sterility and caution, and super nice. Great experience, would absolutely do it again in a heartbeat.