I was going to spend the first half of this venting about a local shop that lied to me and has been anything but helpful since I found it, but after writing it all out I felt it was out of my system and didn't need to be dumped on everyone who reads this. There were no shops near me (within 50 miles) that would pierce my triangle, so:
At A Glance Author Juniper Contact Juniper@bme.anon When Three months ago Artist Dana Studio Adorn Body Art Location Portland, OR Eventually I stumbled upon an alphabetical list of all the body art shops in Portland. I don't remember how I picked Adorn as the first shop to call, but I did. After chatting with the counter girl for a good 20 minutes, I was feeling a lot better. Although the shop was in Portland (82 bloody miles away), their main piercer, Dana, could and would pierce my triangle if I showed up on Sunday, a couple of days later. The counter girl was also helpful enough to tell me the easiest way to determine if I was suited for a triangle.
~I remember to eat and then drive for 2 hours~
Adorn is purple and filled with cat sculptures, cat paintings, and the most massive selection of tribal jewelry I have ever seen in one place. Dear gods, I have come to the right place.
I remind the counter girl of who I am, a few minutes later Dana walks out from the back with a pleased client, she fills him in on me, and after getting together the paperwork for me and a trio of girls, he crouches down next to me and says that he's going to go stab this other woman's tongue quickly and then we'll go spend "a lot longer than five minutes on this." Yay! he takes TIME to do this right! Feeling giddy and rather nauseous, I drool over fractal creations jewelry and jade plugs until the aforementioned woman comes out with a tongue piercing and a suprisingly small amount of drool. She exhibits her unhindered speaking skills to the trio over on the couch and then it's my turn!
It's about damn time!
So the next ......er........section of time (my adrenaline hit about this point and I lost all sense of time) was spent stripping off some clothes ("That has got to be the best skirt I have Ever seen someone wear for a genital piercing."), being marked with gentian violet, which will apparently dye Everything purple before you ever know it's misted, making a last run to the bathroom, and trying to relax my nerves, which had been on edge for the last three weeks. I do seem to remember purple gloves being double-layered, despite my general spaciness at the time, but I can remember almost nothing of the technical details. The person who was with me would have mentioned if anything was not up to par, so it must have all been very clean and sterile.
Laying there with my legs dropped off the sides of the chair/table, I was told to concentrate on breathing slowly and deeply while Dana pinched my precious nerves up out of the way (no clamps!), double-checked his placement, and set the tip of the needle against the entrance hole. At some point during all of this I had a moment of lucidity wherein I thought to ask how many triangle piercings he had done (about 20 in the last 6 years) and, reassured, went back to my relaxation. And then....
"breathe in........and out"
and suddenly my back arches and my deep breathing starts to sound like i'm in the throes of intensely spectacular sex
there's a pause while Dana makes sure I'm not hyperventilating, and then some more
"breathe in......and"
more noises from me as i reportedly turn paler in a greenish sort of way "arrrgh! aren't you done yet?"
"no, there's three layers of tissue here. still have one more to go"
back to the deep breathing and the clenching of the muscles to prevent this from going screwy and "fucking hell!" it's all the way through
I just lay there and wait for the needleshock to hit, because it always does. Meanwhile Dana pulls the jewelry through (stainless steel 12 gauge 9/16" CBR), which was more uncomfortable than anything, and tries to hand me a mirror. I eventually take it but it's a few minutes with a surprising absence of any light-headedness or bleeding before I can make my arm move enough to let me see. Delighted by my new ring, I spend another half an hour eating chocolate and noticing Dana's wonderfully awesome 1/2" silicon outer conch tunnels (I would have noticed them sooner but I was fascinated by his missing eyebrows and ass-stomping boots). Once I realized that, astoundingly, the world wasn't going to go all fuzzy and gray and make me tip over, I unsprawled myself, wrapped my skirt around me again (mmm....so convenient), stuffed my suddenly evil g-string in my purse, and tentatively walked out to pay.
Yet another surprise: walking didn't hurt. Until I got to the stairs.
My total ended up being $85, plus a $10 tip. After being offered sea salt, aftercare instructions, and a business card ("call if you have Any problems") I inched my way down the stairs and spent another two hours eating reeses and appreciating exactly how bumpy the winding scenic highway was.
~almost 4 months later~
Aftercare was sea salt soaks twice a day for a month. Other than that, I avoided touching it for a couple of weeks and kept it away from mouths *ahem* for 3 months, just to be on the safe side. After a week of going slowly insane I determined that sex, if done carefully, did not bother my triangle. With the exception of the piercing itself, which was 10 seconds of the most intense ?pain? I have ever experienced and a small amount of bleeding the first time I slept after getting it pierced, my triangle has been ridiculously well-behaved and easy to care for. After the first 5 weeks it was essentially healed (until I tried to stretch it to a 10 gauge and succeeded only in making myself sore), but I did not consider it completely done until I successfully stretched it up a couple of days ago. Now, with a 7/16" 10 gauge ring, it doesn't twist underneath my labia nearly as often and sits almost exactly where I pictured it.
Since I'm sure Somebody wants to know the benefits of this piercing, I'll add them in here. The most noticeable difference I can see from having my triangle pierced is that I can now orgasm from clitoral stimulation alone. I've been told that most women are exactly the opposite (can orgasm only with clitoral stimulation) so I have no idea what effect this would have on someone else. I'm really not the best judge of how it has enhanced my sex life, as I was having perfect sex for a couple of years before I got this piercing, but I'm pretty sure that it has had Some effect.
In summary: worth every excruciating second.