Tell me about yourself and how you got immersed in piercing.
Well, I'll be 28 soon. I've been piercing pro for about five years consistently, although I've been doing it for eight, and I've always been into piercing, I've pierced my own ears twenty times by the time I was probably fifteen or sixteen, so it's been an interest pretty much all my life. I started piercing myself when I was fourteen, I guess. I have several other holes up top that I don't wear any jewelry in.
My sister always wanted me to do hers, so I pierced her eyebrow, ears, and her nostril. I pierced her nipple, too, recently. She had hers done in jail. They had smuggled gold jewelry in, and she was wearing that in her nipples and she had to take it out, so she lost the piercings in jail. When she got out she wanted me to pierce her. She's got rings in them now. It's kind of neat to pierce your sister.
Was there a specific incident you can recall that kindled your keen interest in piercing?
As far as an amorphous interest, it has always been there; but I think that the change happened when I pierced my own navel. I'd seen pictures of navel piercings before and I thought, that is really neat. I want to pierce my navel. So I did mine myself with a darning needle, which is not the way to do it. I think I put a little gold stud in, which is not the way to do it. I was about sixteen at the time.
Which particular pictures depicting navel piercings did you peruse that piqued your interest?
I think it was punk rock. I don't remember who it was, but it was a photograph, and the girl who had her navel pierced was from LA. LA had one of the first professional piercing studios: Gauntlet on Santa Monica Blvd.
I had no idea at that point what I was doing and then I contacted Raelyn Gallina, who is a master piercer here in Oakland. She told me the jewelry to get and so forth. Through her I got more interested in the professional approach to piercing. She taught several classes within the context of S&M, through QSM, which is an informative series of classes, and I took several classes over the years with her, and with Jim Ward and Fakir. Friends approached me all the time for piercings, and I got to experiment and get a little bit more hands on knowledge to compliment the theoretical knowledge. I have a very steady hand, I'm a triple Virgo, so I am very detail oriented. It works really well for me as far as being able to visualize something and then execute it.
Since this interview, Raelyn has moved to San Francisco.
So you have found your niche in life?
One of them, yeah. I play music, too. I play bass and sing in Bitchcraft. That's my band.
Could you tell me about your interest in S&M?
Before my nipples, before really anything besides my ears, and my own navel piercing, the first major piercing I had done was my clitoral hood. For that I was the demonstratee for a class on female genital piercings. It was a trip because it was in front of a class full of probably thirty people drawn mostly from the S&M community. Probably more lesbian couples than any other kind, but there were men and straight people there. It was a trip!
The reason why I got it done was that the skin — the hood itself, over my clit, is not very big, is not very loose, so the clit doesn't really get exposed and I can't really pull the skin, even now, off of my clit, so I wanted somehow to provide more stimulation, and the placement of the clitoral hood piercing is ingenious. It's a very, very high yield piercing. The bar — the part of the ring that goes through your skin, rides right on the shaft of the clit, and the bead on the captive bead ring will hang right under the clit. Any pressure put to the area that touches the ring. It does definitely stimulate sensation in the area.
After that not only did I want to do piercings, I wanted to get piercings, so I had both of my nipples pierced at the same time. That generally stimulates growth, it will actually make the nipple develop further. It goes through the nipple at the base and generally the nipple will get a little longer, and a little thicker and wider. It definitely sensitizes it.
After that I got both of my labia pierced. I'm very symmetrical in my approach, I'm totally Virgo, so I am really linear. Those followed my nipple piercings by about three years. One of the reasons I wanted the labia pierced is because I have exceptionally long labia, and they are very stretchy, and I can tie them in a knot. Having rings at the very tips of them gives me something more to hold on to, so I can tie them in a knot easier. That was one of the reasons I wanted a labia piercing, and also to hang weights off them, and stretch them even further. I like the esthetics of that.
Did the fact that people were watching you when these piercings were done excite you?
Yes, because of the exhibitionist tendency that I have. Both the clitoral hood and the labia piercings were done in the group context, so that was a real rush. You go from being a child, and being taught to be ashamed, or unaware of your genitals to actually embracing them, and becoming a sexual person. It was kind of a redemption for me to be able to show off my genitals and be proud of them, and have them pierced in the context of appreciative, attentive people, to counteract the revulsion that society in general has for female genitalia. It was a reclaiming of sorts for me.
How did people react to your freshly pierced genitalia?
It's interesting how people form such opinions, one way or another, in reaction to someone's very private decision to pierce themselves. Oooh, how could you do that? Or, didn't it hurt? How awful. Why on earth did you do that?
I think it was a way of providing a screen, or a filter for people's reaction to my body. It was almost like saying if you can't handle me having a ring in my clitoral hood, then you can't handle me. I wanted a lover who would be appreciative of the strength it takes for me to pierce myself.
I wasn't so active with S&M partners after that, interestingly enough, but with straight or vanilla people that were attracted to the fact that I had this experience. It really opened my mind about accepting other peoples differences, by creating a need for them to accept my differences. Does that make sense?
Yes. Why did you stop playing with S&M?
I think it was just the fact that my mind opened up, and it continued to open up. I was exclusively lesbian for several years, as a reaction to being dissatisfied with male lovers I had up to that point. I discovered that my reasons for wanting to see women exclusively were flawed, because I wasn't wanting it sheerly out of desire, but out of reaction to being dissatisfied with men. I discovered that my relationships with women were tainted by the same problems that I saw happening as patterns with my male relationships, and I could transcend that. Now I am seeing a man, very happily.
Is he pierced?
Actually, yeah. He has his nipple pierced. That was the only piercing he has, but then he came to the shop to get his ear pierced. We met through a friend who sent him here to the shop. He's really neat, and he shares a fascination with piercing, although he's not as inclined to get pierced as I am. He's happy to settle with his nipple and his two ear piercings. I still have a few things that I'd like to pierce, on myself, when the time is right.
How much were you into S&M before?
Very light. It never became a total life style for me. It was more just light B&D with lovers that I had that came from a far more dedicated S&M point of view than I did. So, I was kind of introduced to it by lovers that were more into it than I am. As far as the S&M attraction goes, for me, as a lesbian I was always interested in topping the women I was with, while in heterosexual relationships I was always interested in bottoming, and it opened my mind up to the gender role patterns that I was playing, and what I do enjoy about sex. As far as S&M goes, it was never so much the challenge of boundary breaking or limitation stretching that most S&M embraces. It was more an interesting way to approach sex, and a way of heightening my sensitivity. B&D was mostly the approach. Spanking and some restraining. I am interested in B&D games that most everybody has tried, at one point or another, I would assume, if they are sexual.
What sorts of places have you worked at as a piercer?
I've worked at a tattoo studio as a piercer, which was very distracting. It's effective in that the two go hand in hand. People that are interested in one often times are interested in the other. We have a tattoo artist named Daniel here at Precision Piercing.
How long have you had your own place, and why did you want to open a place of your own?
We have been in business here in Oakland since January of 1995. I'd been piercing in a high turn over place before, so I had some proficiency as far as that goes, but I wanted to get my own place going, where I could take a little more time. It's hard to do things in a quick way, because you want to spend a lot of time getting to know clients and telling them what they need to know about their piercing. The last thing I would want would be for someone to walk out of my shop with a piercing and not understand what just happened to them, or what to expect in the future. Opening my own shop, I'm much more in control of the atmosphere. I'm approaching it as if they are piercing themselves, and I am just the tool they do it with.
Is there a group or community of piercers or pierced people?
There are cliquish groups of piercers and piercees. I tend to shy away from the cliquish atmosphere, because it's exclusive, and I really think that the experience of piercing is as diverse as every single person it belongs to. Some people claim that piercings should only be done in a ritual aspect, or that all piercings have to conform with this idea, or this esthetic. That's just not the case. There are people who simply want their navel pierced for esthetic purposes. Some people would be more likely to condemn that approach because it lacks depth or ritual, or spiritual intent, whereas I don't judge anyone's motivation to be pierced. Generally, if somebody has an idea that they want to be pierced, it is their own motivation. All I am doing is providing the service.
Do genital piercings present problems for people when they have sex?
It depends on the piercing and the placement, and the jewelry. Some of them heal quite quickly, for example, my labia piercings were healed in four days. They start to itch a bit just at the end of the healing process, just as tattoos do. The skin cells start sloughing off, and it itches. Once the lymph, a crusty build up, stops forming on the ring, you know that it has healed. You just don't have sex during the healing. Some of the piercings that go through a lot more skin, like an outer labia piercing, or a cock piercing, take a long time to heal, and generally, you should not have sex during the whole healing process. Not only is there a risk of body fluid contamination, but you don't want to harass it, as it can slow down the healing time. Those are much more heavily invested piercings, you've got to really want it, because you have to set aside all that time to heal. It can be very enhancing, though. In India, women have the choice to turn down potential male suitors if they didn't have a certain kind of piercing, intended to enhance the woman's pleasure, which I find very interesting. A cultural esthetic that offered women the choice of turning down someone who didn't have a specific piercing.
In what ways can a piercing enhance sexuality?
I really believe that if nothing else, a piercing brings attention to an area. Because you can't not be aware of a new piercing. It totally focuses your attention on, say your clitoral hood. All of a sudden it is in the forefront of your thoughts. Even after it is healed, during sex, you're thinking about it. I think that the heightened awareness you have towards an erogenous zone can break down the inhibition that would block you from coming. It may not be a physical reason that a woman isn't coming, it may be an aversion to the area, and once you break down that wall of denial, you become more orgasmic. That's a theory, but in my own case, that's been an enabler for me: to be able to focus and be aware of my clit in its activity, as far as making me come. I can focus on it a lot quicker now. It might be the same way for some men, but you'd have to ask them about that.
What trends do you see in piercing?
Tongue piercings are getting to be one of the most popular, and they used to be one of the most obscure. Now it's almost ever type of person you can imagine, some who have no other piercings, who are getting tongue piercings. I think it's more than anything for sexual enhancement, especially for oral sex. It's a real winner, the ladies love it, and so do the men. It's a little tool, a thing to move around. It is a mucous membrane that heals pretty quickly, and then you've got this little bar with a ball on it that you can move around. You can attach a chain to it, and use it like a little leash.
Precision Body Piercing is located at 4233 Telegraph Ave. in Oakland. The number to call is (510) 547-7751.