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All About Genital Piercing (cont.)
Part of the appeal of piercing has typically been in its visibility, the way in which a pierced nose or tongue sets a person off from most of the people around him or her, or perhaps challenges societal norms. Of course, the meaning of piercings has shifted as they became more popular. They are no longer just symbols for countercultural rebels but also fashion accessories for primped celebrities. But surely, getting your genitals pierced must have a different motivation, since very few people will presumably know you did it. If you're just trying to look cool, getting a Prince Albert isn't the way to go; it's the equivalent of buying a $250 pair of shoes but only wearing them to bed. So who pierces their genitals, and why? A common motivation for genital piercing is, obviously, sexual. Implants in the penis can increase stimulation for a person's partner during intercourse and implants around the clitoris, like a VCH, can stimulate the piercee. Angel reports that couples will often decide to get pierced together and get "compatible" piercings. In surveys of women with VCH piercings, some women reported having their first orgasm only after getting pierced. Though Angel says that while some of her clients start with nipple piercings and "move south from there," she reports that it's common for people to only pierce their genitals. "Many of our genital piercing clients do not have any other piercings," she says. "Lots of them are suburban housewives looking to spice up their love lives. These are very 'normal' looking people with no other body art at all." Some critics believe that genital piercing is motivated by masochism -- after all, what could seem more masochistic than driving a needle through the most sensitive part of your anatomy? The practice is also sometimes associated with self-destructive behaviors, like cutting. Believe it or not, it may sound worse than it is, and Angel and Stirn both dispute the idea that masochism plays much of a role in the desire to be pierced. If pain is what you're after, genital piercing isn't really what you want because it doesn't really hurt that much, they say. "It may pinch or sting a bit, but the word pain is really too strong to apply to what most people experience during a piercing," says Angel. "It is a common if largely unfounded assumption that it must be more painful to pierce the nether regions than other parts of the body. But I have plenty of clients tell me that their ear piercings hurt more." Angel emphasizes that genital piercing is about increasing pleasure and not causing pain (or preventing sex, a misconception that perhaps stems from confusion between genital piercing and the practice of female circumcision). Rites of Passage? For some, genital piercing has a spiritual component. Some piercing devotees can get a little fuzzy and mystical on you when they start talking about piercing, lamenting the loss of ancient "rites of passage" in our dysfunctional modern society. Of course, we do have rites of passage in our society -- dressing up in a gown and mortarboard and getting a diploma, for instance -- and genital piercing never had symbolic meaning for most cultures. Besides, a rite of passage is usually a ceremony sanctioned and enforced by a person's society. Some might argue that a do-it-yourself rite of passage lacks this social context and could be considered the equivalent of making a diploma out of construction paper and crayons -- it might mean something to you, but it doesn't have any inherent significance to anyone else. But this is precisely the point: for some, a piercing is imbued with individual meaning. "People can and do use piercing to mark events," says Angel. "I have pierced people to mark everything -- births, deaths, anniversaries, graduations, clean and sober time, and reclaiming the body after childbirth." After conducting research into piercing, Stirn agrees. "What struck me the most is that each piercee seems to have a story to tell," she says. "All of them seem to do it for a reason of which fashion seems to be the least important." Stirn is particularly interested in how some women who have been sexually abused will use genital piercing therapeutically, and she is currently researching the subject further. "In some of these cases, experiencing the pain of metal struck through private parts serves as a liberation of the formerly felt emotional pain," says Stirn. She believes that for some, piercing can mark a way of "reclaiming" body parts from memories of abuse. |