Pierced

A friend and I were talking about piercings the other week, and I revealed that I have seven holes in one ear, three in another, and I used to have my navel pierced. As far as the ears go, I was actually pretty tame comparatively speaking. My holes were all in the side of my ear, so while there was a risk of hitting nerves up higher, I never did the scarier inner-ear piercings that were so popular at the time.

As far as my navel goes…well, everyone was doing it in college, and I was a lifeguard, and it was cool and sexy in that “sort of, but not too far” kind of way. Those charms pictured above? I had those dangling from my navel ring occasionally. And yes, the one of the couple embracing actually does move a tiny bit…up and down, of course. I don’t remember where I found it…it was a long time ago.

I was never interested in facial piercings at all, but I did have one more that I never told my parents about. It was one of those things that I thought would be totally sexy, and ended up being more of a nightmare.

Yes, when I was in college, I had one of my nipples pierced (technically, the ring goes behind the nipple, actually).

It hurt like hell, of course, but the woman who did it was very nice and professional and coached me through breathing so it wasn’t unbearable, by any means. And I really did like the way it looked, even while it was healing. Or trying to. Therein lies the problem.

People all heal at different paces, and I’d expected it to take awhile, since my belly button had taken a good six months to heal up (constant soaking in pool water doesn’t help piercings any). The thing I hadn’t counted on was my boyfriend at the time (now my husband) being completely unwilling to leave it alone, despite my insistence that it needed to heal. That was truly a two-steps forward/one step back sort of thing…odd for a guy who wrinkled his nose when I told him I’d done it.

Then of course there’s the whole bra/swimsuit thing – it doesn’t help to have constant pressure on the ring while it’s trying to heal, and I haven’t been able to go braless since I was a young teen. Swimsuits are even tighter, and I wore one almost constantly back then due to work and class schedules.

In any case, it never did heal up right, and six months to a year later (I forget exactly how long), I gave up the fight and just took it out, letting the holes close up.

I don’t regret having done it, and honestly, I wish I could have gotten it to heal, because I really did like how it felt and looked. Alas, it just wasn’t really a fit with my lifestyle, and one side effect I do still have is somewhat reduced sensitivity in that nipple. Not a huge deal, but noteworthy.

These days, I’m pretty staid when it comes to metal…I have one earring in each ear, my navel ring grew out several years back, and while I actually think those back-corset piercings look amazing, I have no desire to deal with the pain or aftercare for something like that.

Now you know. Anyone else care to share? Got any fun/funky piercings you’d like to tell us about?