From: cj@eno.esd.sgi.com (C J Silverio)
Subject: cj's piercing
Reply-To: cj@sgi.com (C J Silverio)
Organization: SGI TechPubs
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 19:30:25 GMT

---
No, I didn't get anything exciting like a nipple or a clitoris
pierced.  I just got my left ear pierced twice.  Nothing that I
would find difficult to explain to my children 20 years from
now.  I'm told that clitoral hood piercings give their wearer
much pleasure, but I find the idea horrifying.  In other people,
it's pleasant.  Pierce *me* there?  Squeak!  The culture
acclimates me to holes in my ears.  No more.

I know I'm way behind most of the people in t.b in this
respect.  Everyone, even some of the shy nerdoids, has pierced
ears.  My experience is mundane.  Nonetheless, here it is.

I had my ear pierced at Leather Masters in San Jose.  I had it
done there because they could do it with a needle, and put in
hoop-n-bead rings immediately.  The idea of going to a mall &
having some over-made-up teenager do it with studs and a gun was
dreary.  "Would you like the ruby studs or the little hearts?  I
had mine done with the hearts."  No thanks.  Instead, my
piercing was done by a man with a leather skull cap and many,
many earrings.  I didn't ask about his nipples and his penis.  I
was so nervous that I forgot to look at his nose.

Leather Masters is a pleasant store, one of the SF Bay Area
genre of clean, well-lighted sex stores with friendly
atmospheres.  Probably the SF equivalents have more inventory.
Probably Gauntlet has more jewelry to choose from.  But it is
local and less trendy.  It has a roomful of videos that I will
go back to investigate.  It's a closer source of lubricants than
Good Vibrations is.  It's a nicer place to buy magazines than
Tower Books.

While I waited for my appointment, I watched a man in a business
suit talk to a clerk about the safe sex seminar he was running
at his company tomorrow.  Then he tried on leather jackets.  I
tried to picture him out of the suit.  I couldn't do it-- his
beard was too neatly trimmed.  Another man asked about jewelry.
His accent was Eastern European.  The prices shocked him.  He
was going to get his foreskin pierced, and he wanted a good deal
on a barbell.  An older woman examined an electrical product.
The bearded clerk told her about his wonderful experiences with
that product.

I was wearing more leather than the clerks and the customers--
boots & motorcycle jacket.  And I was probably the least likely
of them all to actually lead a leather lifestyle.

The piercing dude came out from the back to talk to me about
what I wanted done.  I had a hard time deciding between the
surgical steel rings and the niobium rings.  I went with niobium
eventually.  The rings aren't very large.  "If you get anything
heavier, it'll just mess with the healing," the man said.  In a
couple of months I'll get heavier gauge surgical steel rings.

He did the piercing in a back room, on a frightening adjustable
table.  It was up in seat mode.  I sat on it & took off my
jacket and my glasses.  He soaked the rings and scrubbed up.  He
put on surgical gloves.  He marked two spots on my ear with a
pen, measured, consulted with me, and confirmed the placing.  He
took a needle out of a plastic package.  The needle was large.
I decided not to watch.

He did the first one.

"Just try to breathe it out," he said.  "You'll notice a little
pinching."  I noticed some pinching.  It didn't exactly HURT,
but I felt the needle go through my ear. He swabbed at my ear
and threaded the ring through the hole.

He did the second one.

I breathed out sharply.  "Most people say they notice the second
one more than the first," he said.

"I'll confirm that," I said.  The needle went in & out as I
spoke.  He swabbed at my ear.  I looked at his equipment table.
There was blood all over a cotton gauze pad.  It must have been
my blood.  I just then thought about HIV risk, but realized that
his precautions had been routine.  I was a risk to him.

He held up a mirror for me.  Two blueish purple rings in my
earlobe, with blood trickling around them.  Don't ask me to
explain why I was pleased, why it was attractive.  I can't
explain.

The drive home to Palo Alto on 280 in the rain was much worse
than the piercing.  My earlobe felt hot & huge.  It ached.

Lance accidentally nibbled at my ear last night.  I nearly killed
him.  By the time he learns not to nibble, it'll be healed.

---
c j silverio