Hmm . . . How should I start? Well, I guess I should start by saying that I got interested in piercings when I was 8 years old, it was 1988 and I wanted my ear pierced badly. So after begging and pleading for 7 years!! my parents finally let me get it done.
At A Glance Author hedonist101 Contact hedonist101@bme.anon When A month ago Artist I didn't catch his name Studio Lefty's Tattoo Parlor and Body Piercing Location Chula Vista, California Both of my parents are fairly religious and very conservative, especially when it comes to any sort of body modification. It was worth the wait though. I suppose that it was then when I became "obsessed" with the concept of piercings. Nothing too outside of the norm at first, a total of five ear piercings, two in each of the lobes and one in the cartilage of my left ear, done over a period of two or three years.
It was not until my senior year of high school that I really got into the idea of body piercing. It was around that time when piercing became a little more mainstream, thereby making it better known to the public; until I was about 16 or 17 I don't even think I knew that one could pierce anything but the ears, I didn't even know that there was another way to pierce without the use of a gun (Scary stuff, and I regret all of the piercings that I got with those damn guns. If I could, I would go back and re-pierce every one of the holes I put in my ears with a proper needle, and probably at a bigger gauge too.).
But I digress, let us get back to the story of my tongue. As I have said, I was a senior in high school when the idea of piercing something other than my ears began to appeal to me. I had seen several different body piercings and one that really appealed to me was the tongue. I thought it looked cool and having a bit of an oral fixation I decided that I wanted to get one (not to mention the much talked about added effects for certain forms of extracurricular activities ;-), though, I have yet to find out if that is really true. I thought long about it and finally decided that I did not want the piercing just because it looked cool or some of the added benefits, but because I wanted it, though the other things are definite bonuses.
So, after a couple of years I began to feel that I really wanted to get something new pierced and of course one of the things that popped into my head was getting my tongue pierced. Also, the idea of nipples began to float around in my head. So, in an effort to not piss off my parents I brought the idea up to them, as I was and still am living at home. I talked to them continuously about the piercings that I wanted, figuring that I would be able to break down their initial reluctance to the idea as I had about my ear piercings. But all talks proved to be futile. "Oh well," I thought to myself that is that. I was really beginning to piss them off. Then one day I decided, "Fuck it, I am going to do it anyway." So one day while I was out with my friends I asked them "How would you like to see me get something pierced?" I had been talking to them about it for a while, nonetheless they were still surprised that I would actually do it, they didn't see me as the type that would get anything else other than my ears pierced.
It was a Saturday night in August of 2000 I believe when we pulled up to the piercing studio. I had done tons of research on the internet, I don't think I had discovered BME at the time, about both nipple and tongue piercings, acquainting myself with all the dangers of the piercings as well as the aftercare procedures, and by talking to friends I received some second hand information about a place called Lefty's in my hometown of Chula Vista, not too many people that I know are as into body modifications as I am. I heard good things about it and after calling around to local piercing shops I found that it also had the most reasonable (read as, cheapest) prices. At the time I think it was $60 for the two nipples and $50 for the tongue, jewelry included.
Seeing as I had not told my parents about my piercing foray, I wanted piercings that I thought would be unseen by them. I debated for quite a while about what I was going to get done. "Should I get both my nipples done or just one? Should I pierce my tongue or not?" Eventually I came to the conclusion that the nipple piercings would be less visible, damn was I wrong (something I will have to relate in another story on the nipple piercing page) so I settled on getting just them. I should have done it then, oh well.
Fast forward two years into the future: a couple of months ago. The piercing bug had bitten me again. Actually I had found BME again and that reminded me about how much I wanted a tongue piercing. So I redid all of the research on tongue piercing that I felt was necessary, voraciously reading all of the experiences that I could, ever increasing my appetite for a hole in my tongue.
I began to pressure my parents into letting me get my tongue punctured. They were again, predictably, completely against it. So I talked to them about it until my mother started to yell at me telling me that she didn't want to hear another thing about it.
It just so happened that only a week or two after my mother flipped out one of my friends was moving. She lives up in Los Angeles and she needed help. The perfect opportunity had presented itself; if I believed in a god/s, I would have thought that s/he/they was/were sending me a message. So over the next couple of weeks I planned what I was going to do and when I was going to do it.
I planned on leaving Friday night and after my last meal I would go to Lefty's and get punctured, giving me at least two or three days for the swelling to go down and make it so that my parents would be less likely to notice my new adornment.
Finally the day would arrive, I could not help but count down the days until this one would be. All day I waited and finally 5:00 P.M. came around. I was meeting a friend so that we could drive up to LA together, so we went to eat and at about 8:00 P.M. after we had finished we made our way to Lefty's. Lefty's is a clean place with a good reputation and having been pierced there before I knew that their equipment was sterile and I had no reservations about getting pierced there again. There was one other person in front of me getting her labret done I believe, but she had to go around the corner to the ATM, unfortunately Lefty's does not take credit cards, otherwise I would have a lot more holes in my body, so I got pushed up to the front, whoohoo!
The time had come, the moment of truth, had all of the experiences I read exaggerated the ease of the piercing, had some people exaggerated about how much it hurt. The answer is no and yes respectively, at least for me. People say that the most painful/uncomfortable part is the clamps. I must say that I disagree. But I will get to that later. Here is the order of events as best as I can remember them:
After getting bumped up to the head of the line, I received the aftercare instructions, paid the $40 (that's right down from $50 which was a welcome surprise to me), and was told to sit down in the "dentist chair" as so many people on BME describe it as, though I must say that I never drew a correlation between the two until I started to read the experiences on this website, after which I was told to swish around the Listerine, it was blue and did not taste bad at all. After I spit it out, the piercer, someone I had never met before (I don't get pierced very often and I don't have a relationship with any of the piercers at Lefty's, so I was not surprised when it was someone I did not know that was going to pierce me) told me to stick out my tongue and he looked at it. Then he put on the clamps, "What, don't I get to decide where my tongue gets a hole?" I thought to myself, though I was not overly worried, it felt like it was in the right place.
I found the clamp was not uncomfortable in the least, let alone painful. I don?t even recall the needle hurting overly much. I mean, I felt the needle go in and through, but it wasn't painful, perhaps I have a high tolerance for pain, that would explain my lack thereof, or perhaps it was the blue Listerine that I was told to swish around for 30 seconds. Whatever it was I didn't feel too much of anything. I didn't even really feel the difference between the needle and the barbell.
After a few seconds of fiddling around with the barbell, putting the top ball on he told me I was done and turned around admiring my new modification. "Damn that looks good," I said carefully pulling my tongue back into my mouth, very little blood not even a drop just a little around the hole and that was easily washed away.
I was pierced with a 1-inch 14-gauge barbell and I bought a shorter, ½-inch 14-gauge, barbell for $20, figuring that I would not get the chance to come back and have them switch it for me. I bought cold water, to help with the swelling I was sure was going to ensue, from around the corner at 7-11 and could not help but play with my newly acquired barbell every chance I got, not a good idea I hear, but it doesn't appear to have done me any harm, and then we went to buy the other necessities, the Biotene mouthwash and Ibuprofen.
Finally we were on our way to LA. That first night I could only eat three fries, in part because I wasn't very hungry and in part because I could not figure out how to eat them yet. But the next day for lunch I had a 6-inch Philly Cheese Steak, in very small bite-sized pieces of course. My tongue only swelled up in the mornings and I was taking an Ibuprofen every 4 hours or so, which I am sure helped immensely. We arrived back in Chula Vista early Monday morning so I did not have to face my parents until that afternoon, fortunately.
I continued to rinse with mouthwash and saltwater, as well as plain water, religiously and I cannot remember my tongue swelling up at all after we arrived back home. I debated whether or not to replace the long barbell with the shorter one but decided to stay on the safe side and wait for it to heal a little more, so on the eighth day I switched them, and have not had any problems with it.
I talked to my parents without them noticing and I was able to eat relatively normally, so they did not suspect anything. It has now been just over 5 weeks and still they have not noticed. I do catch myself playing with it when they are around before I realize that they are there and that they can't know about it. So far I have been lucky but I will have to be more careful in the future.
So, if you are thinking about getting your tongue pierced, I say, "Go for it." It remains well hidden as long as you don't show it off and it is very fun to play with, especially for those with an oral fixation.
I hope that this experience helps you decide if this is the piercing for you, and for those of you just reading these experiences for fun I hope you found it entertaining and enlightening.