Last Friday a good friend of mine asked me to join her on a
rather personal adventure: getting her hood pierced.
After much debate as to the proper etiquette with respect to
shaving and whether to eat before or after (she decided on after,
which may not have been the best idea), we arrived at the piercing
parlor.
We sat down on the leather couch, where she proceeded to get
progressively more nervous and I unsuccessfully tried to make small
talk to calm her down.
I don’t think I would ever get my own hood or clitoris
pierced ““ I’m not the biggest fan of piercings. While I
have a nose ring and have gotten my ears pierced numerous times, I
personally don’t find certain types of piercings
attractive.
However, after last Friday, I’ve come to realize why some
women want to get their genitals pierced. While some do it to
enhance sexual arousal, others, such as my friend, have a deeper
motivation behind their decision.
My friend Mary, who requested to remain anonymous because of a
possible career in politics, originally mentioned getting her hood
““ the piece of skin above the clitoris ““ pierced months
ago. She said she’d been fascinated by hood piercings for a
long time, and that day it simply made sense to get one
herself.
For Mary, this was more than just a piercing. It was a way for
her to affirm the existence of and her control over something she
owns: her vagina.
“I know my identity for the most part ““ who I am,
what I want to be, or what I don’t want to be, but sexuality
has always been a very strange thing for me. It has been the gray
part of my identity,” she said.
While the idea of piercing your genitals to affirm their
existence may sound counterintuitive, the idea of women needing to
affirm their vaginas isn’t new.
This is the central theme behind vagina workshops and the
“Vagina Monologues.”
“This piercing is saying that I love this part of my body,
that I am OK with it,” Mary said. “I didn’t used
to be OK with it, so I needed to symbolize this change in a
tangible way. It isn’t like saying I love my breasts and
getting them enlarged. It’s saying that I acknowledge this
part of my body.”
But beyond sexuality affirmation, some women get hood piercings
in order to provide a “doorknocker.”
According to a case study by Dr. Leslie Miller, an associate
professor at the University of Washington, one woman got a clitoral
hood piercing to help her partner locate her clitoris.
“Female clitoral piercings are like a dummy button, as in,
you play with the piercing and get the other person off,”
said Jeffrey Gilbert, a third-year math student at the University
of Arizona.
There’s something strange about women getting pierced in
order to help their partners satisfy them sexually. If someone is
having so much trouble locating a clitoris that they need a
piercing to help, there is something wrong with our sex education
system.
However, while it is possible to show a sexual partner where the
clitoris is, it is my experience that certain people have a
tendency to forget, so perhaps for some relationships a hood or
clitoral piercing is useful.
But some men, probably for the better, would rather think they
can succeed in the treasure hunt without any metallic help:
“So, basically, it’s like training wheels? I’d
like to think that I don’t need one and leave it at
that,” said Nathan Hackman, an electrical engineering student
at Santa Barbara Community College.
“The same thing goes for the clitoral piercings. They just
make girls horny all the time ““ which is great and all
““ but then it takes away the little spark, makes it less
special and more “˜OK, so she chose me this
time,'” Hackman said.
It’s doubtful a woman would choose her clitoral piercing
over an interactive sexual experience.
Many people think women get genital piercings in order to be
aroused all the time. However, one of the first things that Guy,
the piercer at the parlor, warned Mary was that she wasn’t
going to be getting orgasms just by walking down the street.
Mary got a vertical hood piercing (a vertical bar through the
hood), which is meant to be less arousing than a clitoral
piercing.
But whether these piercings are arousing or not, I doubt most
women forget about their sexual partners, just as men don’t
forget their sexual partners just because they can masturbate.
While some people I talked to were averse to piercings in
general, many listed a fear of infection and loss of nerve endings
as reasons for not wanting to get a genital piercing.
While this is an understandable fear ““ genital piercings
certainly aren’t for everyone ““ it shouldn’t be a
problem if the piercing parlor uses clean instruments. But
it’s important to do research.
“I talked to someone with a genital piercing, and I did a
lot of research online. I was worried that it would cut off nerve
endings and that it would get infected, or rejected, or both. Or
that my anatomy wouldn’t be right for it at all, and that
they wouldn’t do it,” Mary said.
“I looked at myself, but I couldn’t tell what would
or wouldn’t work.”
After waiting on the couch for about 10 minutes and attempting
to distract ourselves from the impending event by checking out
other piercing options, it was Mary’s turn.
We followed Guy into the piercing room and Mary sat down on the
leather chair, commenting that gynecologists should invest in
similar furniture.
As Guy cleaned the area, Mary looked over at me with an awkward
smile. She later told me it was a fascinating experience, and
rather arousing.
“I had to distract myself by looking into the fluorescent
light in order to avoid embarrassment,” she said.
After the cleaning, Guy marked the area and placed a metal tube
underneath the place to be pierced so that the needle
wouldn’t pierce any unintended parts.
When it came time for the actual piercing, she asked me to hold
her hand while Guy attempted to make small talk with me to distract
her.
She reacted with a gasp and clenched my hand. But it was over in
two seconds.
After Guy had inserted the jewelry, she jumped up and seemed
ready to leave. But as Guy was giving her instructions on how to
clean the area, the color left her face and she leaned against the
wall, sliding into a sitting position.
“I haven’t come that close to fainting since high
school,” she said.
Guy reassured her. “It’s just because you were
nervous. You’ll be fine.” He fetched her water and we
helped her lay down on the leather chair. He even lowered the
lights so she wouldn’t have to stare into them.
In a few minutes, the color had returned to her face.
“That wasn’t as bad as I expected,” she said.
I was quick to agree. I had been secretly suspecting that I would
have to carry her back to the car.
Once the piercing and dizziness were over, Mary was back to
normal. “I can’t even feel it ““ it’s like
it’s not even there.” Even days later she could only
feel the piercing if she purposely moved it in certain ways.
As for arousal, while vertical hood piercings are purported to
be a little arousing for some people, Mary decided she wasn’t
going to experiment with it until it had healed.
After we got back to Westwood, she immediately headed to her
apartment in search of a hand mirror.
“It looks beautiful. I didn’t really have a mental
picture of it until I looked at it. And I was shocked because it
looked just right.”
And, for some people, it’s exactly that ““ just
right.
Send questions, comments and piercing anecdotes to
Loewenstein at lloewenstein@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments
to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.