Why I Removed My Tongue Piercing

2001 - 2009

The other night, I just took it out.

Around eight years I held that stud in my mouth, originally put there by my wife. It was time.

I guess the main reason I removed my tongue piercing was that after all that time, it's inevitable - even if you're careful - that you're going to chip a tooth or two. I was working on my third. The reason I held onto it for so long is a different story.

As soon as I was eighteen I drove downtown to have my left nipple pierced. I may have almost passed out, but I was hooked. Soon after was my first tattoo. After I met my wife, she pierced my tongue, then my right nipple. Before we were married we each sat for almost 8 hours to get the same piece: I on my right upper arm and her on her back. I'm still aching for another tat.

About four years ago, I removed the nipple rings. My nipples were sensitive before and piercings added a level of sensitivity that was actually beyond comfortable or pleasurable. Turns out, after the removal, they're at the exact level of sensitivity I was hoping for with the piercings.

But the tongue.

The tongue I held onto. I mentioned in a recent post that I'm soon to turn 32, and I think my holding onto my tongue piercing was a holding onto something edgy, something youthful, not that I think having one's tongue pierced makes one edgy or young.

Some of the logic I was mulling through said that cunnilingus was why I was holding on to that archive of my life. Why do I have my tongue pierced? Wink wink.

I realized the other night, in one single moment, that the flash, the edge was not in my piercing, it was in me, my charm, my personality. My talent was not in the stud, but in the tantalizing undulations of my tongue. "So you can make me come that doesn't make you Jesus." No, but at maybe St. Peter. Would you like to see my St. Peter?

Basically, it was a question of Samson in reverse. Samson believed - didn't God tell him? - all his power was derived from the length of his hair. And when his hair was cut off, his power was gone.

I realized my power was not in my "hair" but in me.

Then again, I've been trimming my "hair" for many years. Makes the power look bigger, they say.

So goodbye tongue piercing. I will miss you only in the funny way my mouth feels in your absence. You may have helped flick the bean, but the muscle was all mine. And that talent remains.