Trouble brewing.

The trouble with boys…

… is that they’re not much fun if they’re smarter than you. And college is positively chock-a-block full of smart alecs who really do believe what their Mum’s told them about the world being their oyster.

In any case, there’s a pretty good chance that college will be your first experience of getting into a relationship… and all the difficulties that comes with it (what do you think all those broken-heart songs are for?). Not all boys are as nice as we’d like them to be, especially when they’re far away from home (i.e., foreign students are the ones you ought to be most wary of). But there are certainly a load of cute, intelligent boys that you can count on being your knight in shining armour should the need arise. The trick is to not rush into things.

Year One

The friendly guy:

Let’s face it: you’re no Jennifer Garner, so not every guy has to worship the ground you walk on. Some guys just want to be friends (seriously — we asked). During your first year, all males should be friends only. No exceptions.

The special guy:

Regardless of what you just read above, you will single someone out as the guy you’re most interested in. Perhaps he’s really smart. Or funny. Or a Beckham look-alike. Or whatever. But our stand remains the same: friends only.

The dangerous guy:

You’ll know this guy from the way he makes you — and every other girl in college — weak at the knees. Beware! Breathtakingly handsome and usually rich, he’s always on the prowl for ‘fresh meat’… and you’re perfect.

Year Two

The friendly guy:

The Friendly Guy — he who said he’ll ‘always be there for you’ — will start to wander. He’s got new, male friends. But he’s not ditching you, and he’s not gay. It’s just that guys aren’t hung up about friends the way girls are —he’s just being his usual, friendly self. It’s not personal, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a truer friend than he.

The special guy:

Either one of you would have made your move by now (it’s nice to live in this liberated age and time, isn’t it?), and things are purring along nicely. Still, things should not be physical between the two of you yet. Be patient, will you!

The dangerous guy:

He’s still as dashing as ever, although you don’t feel faint every time he smiles at you anymore. Keep your guard up, though!

Year Three

The friendly guy:

Here’s a secret: guys are naturally logical people, and can do very well in science or mathematical subjects if they put their minds to it. You’ll find a friendly guy invaluable if you’re weak in an area like this during your exam year.

The special guy:

Trouble may be brewing as the pressure bears down on both of you. Your relationship can either grow from this experience, or flounder. The best advice we can give is to put all matters of the heart on the backburner for this time, until the Finals have gone and sanity and order return.

The dangerous guy:

If he’s still there (they’re usually seniors), he could pull the good ol’ “Would you like some help with that sum?” trick on you as a last gasp effort. Don’t fall for it.

In the College Life series:

• College life: new freedom, new independence
• College life: new friends, new rules
• College life: your body, your health
• College life: boys, boys, boys!
• College life: study hard, study smart
• College life: fun, fun, fun!

Demons are everywhere, but most of all, they're inside your head.

He’s naked. You’re naked. The lights are out. A scented candle burns softly in a corner of the room. The curtains are drawn, but the windows are open. Stevie Wonder’s My Cherie Amour drifts up from downstairs. He moves closer to you, and you open your arms to engulf him in your embrace. You are completely alone….

(Whispered): No, you’re not.

Uh-oh. Looks like your twosome just became a threesome. A third, imaginary presence is in the room, and now you’re more frigid than a block of ice. The Bedroom Demon strikes again.

It could be your mother or your ex-boyfriend or even your partner’s ex-girlfriend, but that Demon haunts your most intimate moments with your boyfriend, putting you out of sorts and him in confusion. Your sex life is being strangled by a figment of your imagination, and you swing between queen dominatrix to virginal kitten every time it makes an appearance. You struggle to maintain focus, but your self-esteem is battered by the things these demons say: “Good girls don’t do that,” says Mom. “You know I’m better than him at this, right?” growls your ex-boyfriend. And, worst of all, the throaty snigger of the busty bombshell your partner dumped to be with you: “You call that sexy?”

Sometimes they leave you alone and you don’t hear from them for weeks. But just when you think they’re gone for good, they return to taunt, to tease and to befuddle you, making you feel inadequate and insecure. Your partner senses something is up, but how are you to tell him? No, you have to fight your own Bedroom Demons… and the sooner the better.

When Mother comes to visit

If your Mom is anything like mine, you can probably still hear some of the things she told you (read: nagged you) when you were young, in exactly the same tone of voice that she’s always said them in. Such gems as “All men are the same” and “Good girls sit with their legs closed” come to mind. But having that voice in your head when you’re trying to have a game of bedroom Blind Man’s Bluff is not only distracting, but downright annoying.

“My Mom has never hesitated to warn me about men,” says Jennifer, a 23-year-old receptionist. “My first boyfriend and I were not allowed to be alone, even for a minute. When he was over for lunch, we were chaperoned to the kitchen!” she recalls.

Jennifer was fifteen then. But even after she turned eighteen and could go out with her other boyfriends, she still got the feeling that she wasn’t alone with them. A pair seemed to follow her wherever she was, and she just couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. So effective were her Mom’s litanies that Jennifer sometimes still sees her disapproving glare hovering before her eyes when she snuggles up close to her boyfriend in bed.

“I heard her saying, ‘Do you know how many women has he slept with, Jenn?’” says Jennifer. “It’s so disturbing to hear that when you’re next to the man you love.”

The trouble with bedroom demons is that you cannot just walk up to them and tell them to leave you alone. Jennifer could hardly blame her Mom for intruding upon her midnight escapades, because she wasn’t really there! Her demon was in her mind, and it was at the root of all her inhibitions.

Jennifer never really shook her Mom out of her head until last year, when she went through her seventh break-up: none of her boyfriends could understand what she went through whenever they tried to get intimate. She just could not relax, and this made them feel insecure.

“My father was unfaithful to my Mom, and they divorced when I was ten,” says Jennifer. “I guess she was just trying to protect me — I just wished she hadn’t tried so hard!”

But even supposing you do have the uncommon good fortune of being blessed with an ultra-modern, ultra-cool Mom with liberated views on sexuality and love, you still won’t be able to avoid the most dreaded demon of all: his ex-girlfriend.

When his ex-girlfriend drops in

Being a woman herself, Esther, 27, feels threatened by other good-looking women… especially if they’ve shared the bed of her partner before. Normally, we learn about our boyfriends’ past liaisons in bits and pieces, over the course of several years. But what happens when you find out about every woman he’s ever loved, and are shown pictures of them, too?

Unlike us, men are not prone to keeping photos of past girlfriends, preferring to throw them out along with the rest of their stuff. But Esther was unlucky and, admittedly, a little stupid. She stumbled across a family photo album in Ricky’s parents’ house. Curiosity got the better of her, and she forced him to walk her through every picture… including the ones in which his arms were romantically draped across the shoulders of different girls at different times in his life. And then the worst possible thing happened: they bumped into his last girlfriend at the mall.

“Ricky’s girlfriends have always been very pretty and very sexy,” says Esther guardedly.

Next thing she knew, whenever they went to bed together, ghostly images of those ex-girlfriends began playing on her mind. She started comparing herself to them, and suddenly her breasts seemed too small and her hair too limp. She couldn’t concentrate and was losing her sexual esteem. Horribly, the act itself began to seem forced.

“I knew it was silly,” says Esther. “They are part of his past, just like my ex-boyfriends are part of my past. But after meeting Kimberly, I couldn’t help but feel so unattractive and inadequate. I kept thinking about how she had made love to him, how she had drove him wild. I had visions of them in bed together, and Ricky going mad with lust. How was I supposed to feel good about myself?”

It took some weeks before Kimberly faded away and stopped dropping by uninvited into Esther’s bedroom. But during that time, Esther subjected Ricky to non-top interrogation about her breast size, hips, bodily hair and acrobatic ability. He didn’t understand what was going on, but patiently reassured her that she was beautiful beyond words every time.

“He was very nice about it, although I bet he must have been confused,” says Esther.

Facing bedroom demons which are not even rightly your own is tough because you don’t know them. But it can be done, with a lot of love and time.

“I can’t even remember what Kimberly looks like anymore,” says Esther. “At least when she comes visiting now, I only see a hazy image and dull voice. I just keep reminding myself that although she is Ricky’s past, I’m his present. And that makes me the special one.”

When your ex-boyfriend swings by

As good as our ex-boyfriends may have been in bed, having them in your head when you’re trying to get down and dirty with someone new is downright unnerving, particularly when what they’re saying is true.

If your ex looks like Mr. Depp, you'd be forgiven for still having wet dreams about him anyway.

“My ex was a real pest and I have no regrets about leaving him,” says Christine, 25. “But he was sooo good in bed. He never disappointed.” Six months later, Christine still has the occasional wet dream over him, which is nice. What isn’t nice is the fact that he also comments on the sexual performance of her new partner almost every time she’s between the sheets with him.

Christine says she used to hear her ex whisper about everything from her boyfriend’s stamina to his clumsy orgasm. Things got better the more she talked to him about what it is she wanted, but she’s never been blown away the way she was with her ex.

“I’ll admit that Greg (her new boyfriend) cannot do the things that my ex could,” continues Christine. “This demon seems to know it. Every time I’m not satisfied with something Greg is doing, I think of my ex. It’s so upsetting, and worst of all, I cannot talk to Greg about it.”

Christine has battled her ex-boyfriend’s demon the only way she knows how: by focusing all her energies into making the sex with her current partner better. But it’s an uphill fight, because they’re so different. Her ex was an adventurous experimenter, whilst her present partner is a lot more reserved.

“My ex had a way with my body that I doubt I’ll ever experience with another man again,” says Christine, rather sadly. “But I feel an emotional connection with my current partner that wasn’t there with my ex. I think that makes it right, even if it’s not earth-shattering.”

Demon busters

Talk dirty to me baby, yeah.

Excellent remedies for getting rid of your bedroom demons include:

1. Dirty talk — if you keep up the sexy conversation with your partner, constantly encouraging him to do this, that or the other (and vice versa), your bedroom demon will not have the opportunity to interject with his/her own words of wisdom.
2. Loud music — Jennifer swears by Guns ‘n’ Roses, but you probably have your own favourite band that can help drown out that voice in your head. Blast it loud and clear, so much so you have to raise your voice to be heard (which is kind of empowering in itself, considering the language you’ll be using). Our recommendations? Think Metallica, Matchbox 20 and Linkin Park.
3. Getting drunk — okay, maybe not, since this will also pretty much drown out any other sensation you’re supposed to feel.
4. Counting sheep — the age-old method for inducing sleep also blocks out unwanted voices. The only trouble is that it can even distract you from the task at hand: making love.
5. Arguing — I know, it doesn’t seem to make sense, does it? But remember Gollum in Lord of the Rings, and how he argued his other voice into submission (Master is good — is not — is too — is not — is too!)? That’s the principle you need to use here, even if you do seem to be off your rocker for a moment.

Women are more intuitive than men



Surprise, surprise -- Men talk more than women!

Entire books have been written on the subject. Songs have been sung about it. Movies have been made around it. But in truth, there is no such thing as “Women’s Intuition”. Sorry.

Scientific studies dispelled the myth that women are more intuitive than men ages ago. However, some research does suggest that women pay more attention to detail than men do. Anthropologist Ashley Montagu says that women are more sensitive to colour discrimination — where a woman would say “ebony”, a man would simply say “black”. It’s this attention to detail that makes it seem like women have more intuitive sense than men, because they notice the subtler signals in a situation that men usually miss. But mind-reading? Puh-leese.
2.    Women are talkers; men are listeners
Surprise, surprise: men have the bigger mouths, after all!

Studies have repeatedly shown that men talk more than women do in virtually any given situation (except arguments, perhaps), from as far back as 1951. In the most recent study by the linguist Marjorie Swacker, three pictures by Albrecht Durer were presented to men and women separately. They were then asked to describe the pictures, and were timed — the idea was that whoever took longer were obviously the more elaborate talkers. The scientists bet on the women talking longer; the gamblers bet on the men. But the results caught everyone by surprise.

Women took an average of 3.17 minutes for their descriptions. The men took an unbelievable 13.00 minutes.




Men blame themselves more than women do

He didn’t get the promotion he was counting on, and he’s really down in the dumps. You see the signs of his impending breakdown draw around him. You know those signs; you’ve had them before. Right now, he’s just disappointed. But soon, he’s going to be beating himself up with bitter regret and thoughts of, “I could have done it if only I….” And then, outright anger will set in. It’s an implosion in slow motion.

Fast talking baby girl.

Except that the breakdown never happens. Wonder of wonders, in a couple of days, he’s back on his feet and as cheery as a canary on a sunny Sunday.

The fact is that women are much harder on themselves than men are. They assume responsibility when things go wrong, even if there was no way they could be to blame. Need proof? Well, ask yourself this: why do women use apologetic phrases more than men like “I’m sorry” and “Excuse me” so much?

 

Men give more detailed explanations

Remember #2 in this list? Well, although men do tend to talk a whole lot more than women, they don’t necessarily say much more. Women still offer much more detail about an incident or their day at work than men, which is an odd contradiction when you stop to think about it — where does all his breath go?

Although men can give more detailed explanations about something, they often choose not to, preferring to be efficient in their communication rather than exhaustive. Women, on the other hand, give you the gory details anyway… whether you want to hear them or not.




Men don’t touch others as much as women do

Wrong again. It seems that men are touchy, feely people, too.

Research has proven that men are more likely to touch people than women, whether male or female. When in male company, it’s by backslapping or handshaking. When in female company, it’s by doing gentlemanly acts like helping women in and out of cars or leading them through a doorway. Nancy Henley, professor of psychology at the University of California, found that men touched women four times more often than women touched men, believe it or not. However, it’s important that women do not interpret these touches as sexual advances, especially if it’s on her back or shoulders. We said ‘gentlemanly’; not ‘sexually’!

Men don’t listen as well as women

You pour your heart out to him, and his face remains impassive. He shows no signs of listening to you, let alone understanding anything you’re saying. Why is he ignoring you?

Well, he’s not. It’s just that men look less attentive than women when being spoken to. Sally McConnell-Ginett, a researcher at Cornell University, found that women are more inclined to say “um-hum” than men when listening to another person. Men, on the other hand, are as cool as cucumbers, and prefer to remain blank and expressionless. Why? So they don’t lead the speaker into thinking that they either agree or disagree with what they’re saying!

Men are less emotional when they speak

Real men can cry now.

Rubbish. The only reason it seems that way is because men express their emotions differently from women. It’s all a question of style.

Paul Ekman from UCLA found that whilst women typically have five different tones in their speech, men only have three. That’s why women appear to be more emotional than men — those peaks and valleys in their speech really dramatise things… even when they’re saying the same thing as the men!

Also, women’s speech is much more animated and their body language more distinct, making them more interesting and engaging. Add to that the fact that women are more likely to cry or have a quaver in their voice when talking about something bad, and it’s no wonder you think men are such cold creeps.

Men ask more questions than women do

Nope. Surely you’ve realized by now that virtually all men are Mr. Know-it-Alls. So, if they know everything, why should they ask questions?

If there is one general assumption about men that is correct, it is that men really are egotistical creatures. Asking questions mean that they’re not in the know about something, which would be utterly devastating to their self-esteem. Therefore, they remain silently ignorant… unless they’re pretty sure no one around them has the answer anyway. That’s why male scientists don’t mind asking questions about the origins of the universe, but refuse to call up their mothers for the family’s chicken stew recipe.

Men are equally anxious to talk about safe sex and STDs

I hate to disappoint you, but although men may be concerned about safe sex and STDs, they are much less likely to bring up the subject. In her book He Says, She Says professor Lillian Glass says that 70-percent of women (compared to 30-percent of men) were the first to bring up a problem… including such topics as birth control and HIV tests.

Although men are as aware as you about the dangers of unprotected sex and STDs, they are also more embarrassed when it comes to talking about it. They think that women ought to take care of intimate matters of their relationship like these serious subjects, and will wait for them to bring them up before offering any ideas of their own.

Men laugh at the same things women do

A man’s idea of a good laugh.

Whatever gave women the idea that men find gynaecological jokes funny, I don’t know. Men are men, for crying out loud — which part of that sentence do you not get?

Research shows that whereas women’s jokes tend to be more focused on word play and puns, men’s jokes are more sarcastic and abrasive than women’s, and far more aggressive. When it comes to laughter, men and women do not see eye-to-eye. So leave your penile dysfunction gags and your soiled pad anecdotes for your girlfriends, please.

Photo credit: nicubunu. Click image to visit photographer.

Let me present you with a scenario: You come home one evening after a full day of shopping with the girls, and catch your man red-handed on the PC, surfing pornographic sites. There’s a picture of disproportionate blonde in a contorted sexual position on the screen, and he smiles sheepishly at you as his face goes from red to purple.

What do you do?

Well, naturally your first reaction would be to scream in bloodthirsty fury at his cyber-infidelity. (By now he is apologising profusely; his flustered eyes darting between your shopping bags and the PC screen, as he struggles to shut down his companion on his recent lustful adventure).

Then maybe you retreat into an abyss of misery (he has genuine remorse in his voice right now, and probably has a few sparkles forming in his eyes as the full realisation of what has happened hits him). Finally, you settle into a pensive state of depression that you’re determined to remain in until you feel much better, which of course you never do. (The ultimate guilt trip – he’ll be quite sure to never do it again, at least not in this lifetime).

But why did he do it exactly? When you asked him (read: SCREAMED at him) during your first reaction, he probably answered but you weren’t listening, having other thoughts on your mind like whether the scissors in the kitchen drawer were sharp enough to do a little hasty surgery on your dearly-beloved’s most-precious of organs. You probably asked him again a little later, when you began to descend into that abyss, and again he probably answered, but again it got lost in translation. By the time you were really ready to get an answer, he had probably given up trying to explain. Allow me.

Yes, men like porn

It’s true: I won’t deny that us men are big fans of pornography, and that we have all gone onto the Net to search for nude pictures of our fantasy women at least once. But believe me, we do get bored. Quick. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say that once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Women in the nude all look the same (no offence).

It doesn’t matter if it’s Cindi Margolis (Guiness’s Most Downloaded Woman) or Audrey Hepburn. After about three months of trying to find the ultimate in porn, we realise that there is no gratification to be found in the whole hyped-up medium anyway. They’re all homogenous products of clever photography and Photoshop.

But there is something else that is readily available on the Net: information. This is where a lot of us end up going to when it comes to fulfilling our sexual notions. Believe it or not, some of are actually interested in satisfying our partners in bed!

Erotic stories abound on the Net, and, in true trashy-novel tradition, most of them are written by women. There is no way on earth you would ever find us holding a Mills & Boon novel in our hands during our time on this planet. Still, we figure that if women write these fantasies, and other women read them, doesn’t it make sense that they are pretty much fantasies of women the world over? So, by us men reading these stories, we’re able to act out these fantasies for our partners!

Another example: There are thousands of guides out there for women to get better sex from their men. ‘How to Increase His Endurance’; ‘Getting That Multiple Orgasm’; ‘Make Him Your Slave’… and many, many more. These articles were written for women. They’re full of advice on how women can manipulate their partners so that they get better sex. It makes sense, then, that us guys should read these same articles and find out what we’re supposed to do. Manipulate us, please!

Men aren’t exactly ‘open’ when it comes to talking about our sexual needs. And despite women getting some great sex advice from those romance novels, we don’t see much of it rubbing off. So we carry on with our usual routine between the sheets, wishing we could play a little ‘cat-and-mouse’ around the kitchen. Women, it seems, do the same… but neither of us knows it. If only we did, we’d be able to have our very own episode of Tom & Jerry.

A friend of mine once caught his wife red-handed for surfing pornographic sites (I believe she was perusing the anatomy of Hugh Grant at the time; or, at least, his lookalike), and he told me that after they got over the first few minutes of shock, complete speechlessness and overall staggered heartbeats, they understood each other much better in bed. They opened up to each other, because each realised that the other was just as naughty. They spoke openly of what they would like to do to each other one day, and made plans in the general direction of having wild, unbridled sex. Most of the details are unprintable.

From good sex to great sex

My experience on the Net has been a wholesome one. I started out like many: finding the ‘juiciest’ sites where I could ogle at women for free, and looking up sources for getting quality porn at dirt-cheap rates. But I soon grew bored. In fact, in less than three weeks after getting on the Web, I had already outgrown this lusty habit, and had moved on to more productive surfing (read: erotic stories). Of course, at the time, I had no sex life.

Photo credit: motleypixel. Click to visit photographer.

But when I settled down, I was frightened. The age-old adage that sex becomes a walk-in-the-park after marriage rang in my ears. Where it was once ‘hot’, ‘steamy’, and ‘wild’, after marriage it becomes ‘nice’, ‘good’ and ‘wonderful’. I was determined to not let this happen, but I didn’t know what to do. We had great communication, but I had lousy intuition and she had an even worse imagination. The signs of doom were on the wall.

If you watched the uncensored version of What Women Want starring Mel Gibson, you’ll understand what I mean. We know you have likes and dislikes in bed, and we wish we knew what they were. We’d be more than willing to accommodate you every need, I assure you. But Mel Gibson’s ‘sixth sense’ for hearing the woman’s thoughts (in the bedroom scene of the paranoid coffee-girl) in that movie is fictional. My bedroom isn’t.

So I did what I found a lot of other men in similar positions doing: I got the advice that was meant for women, reverse engineered it, and put it into practice. Whilst my wife subscribed to women’s magazines in her quest for an imagination, I started surfing the Net during my lunch break to develop an artificial ‘sixth sense’. I devoured everything I got my eyeballs on from ‘Oral Pleasure For Women’ to ‘Kama Sutra Defined’. I invested in some lingerie, both for her and for me (I never knew that my wearing a G-string could make a woman so ‘happy’). I looked up some fantasies that other women have, and figured out how I could act them out with my dearly beloved. I learnt all sorts of new tricks and, thankfully, most of them have worked.

She caught me red-handed on the Net gawking at a doctored image of Catherine Zeta-Jones once. But after I explained what I was really surfing for she smiled in anticipation. These days, we sometimes even surf together, searching far and wide for tried and true techniques and postures that guarantee us a fulfilling sex life. We have since learned to open up a lot more and right now, we use all the words in our considerably vulgar vocabulary on each other in bed, knowing full well what they really mean and enjoying every minute of it.

So the next time you catch your man eyeballing Britney in a two-piece bikini, smile, pull up a chair, and join him. You’ll see what I mean.

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Photo credit: Sunshine City. Click to visit photographer.

It’s not just about being different. Body piercing is fast becoming a mainstream form of self-expression; the ultimate in saying, “Look, I’m not your average Joan, alright?” It is beyond the skinhead look, the fluorescent look and the temporary tattoo fad. Body piercing is about satisfaction.

It takes more than just a broken heart and a no-reason-to-live attitude to get a piece of jewellery attached to your body. It takes will; a will that not many people can claim to have. But testimony of your having that will lie in your having accomplished something ‘out there’, something truly ambitious… to go where few have gone before. To get a part of your body not normally associated to punctures marked for life, and to have a silver trinket adorn it as proof.

“It’s about personal satisfaction,” says Mabel, a body-piercer at DragonFly Body Art in Kuala Lumpur. Of course, there are some who just want to be ‘in’ with the crowd. But most of the time, it’s about a sense of achievement. According to Mabel, her customers are by and large young women. They especially like navel piercing, perhaps because it is the least intrusive and easiest to cover up if something goes wrong. I should let you know that she speaks with a pierced tongue on this matter. “In general, body piercing can fall into two broad categories: the trendy, and the erotic,” explains Mabel. “Trendy piercing is usually in locales that are easily viewed in the open like the face and the navel — places you want to show off. Erotic piercing is more private – the tongue, the nipples and other extremities.”

Trendsetting Perforations

The most popular targets of unusual body piercing are the navel and various areas of the face. Whilst the navel ring, which can sometimes even be a dangling piece of silver-and-stones, is a very sexy addition to a perfect tummy — assuming you have one — it says little else about yourself except that you’re a major turn-on. That a lot of women get the ring and then cover it up with t-shirts is another matter altogether.

Getting a ring on your eyebrow, however, speaks volumes about what your opinions are of yourself. It means that you don’t care who sees your ring: everyone is equal, and you don’t hide anything from nobody. A ring through the nose is quite common. Then, there is the bottom lip. Hardcore body artists have experimented with bars and rings through their cheeks, hands and chins. No flesh is safe.

There are some things to consider about these rings, though. Firstly, if you are a dancer or athlete or someone that uses their body a whole lot, it might be a bad idea to pierce these areas… unless the thought of getting a piece of clothing snagged on the bar through your eyebrow whilst you’re moving at the pace of a Java-charged jumping bean (Ouch!) sounds like fun. Even if you’re a model, and you’re on duty changing clothes at a rapid pace backstage, it’s a bad idea. If you sweat a lot, it’s a bad idea. Heck, you could probably come up with dozens of reasons NOT to get your bellybutton or cheek decorated.

Still, if you’re intent on experimenting with body piercing, these areas are the best place to start getting those holes punched. Why? Because if something does go wrong (heaven forbid) and you do get an infection, it’s much better to have it on your navel or eyebrow instead of your tongue or nipple (Ow!).

Erotic Pricks

Photo credit: jennifermaria. Click image to visit photographer.

Okay, so maybe you are a hoochie-coochie woman, and derive sexual pleasure in every way that you can. Or maybe you want to give your partner something to think about when he’s not with you. Piercing your tongue and/or nipples is supposed to not only please you, but your partner.

The tongue is one of the strongest muscles in your body, and can give – as well as receive – a great deal of pleasure (as most of us already know). This is why French kissing is such a big deal, and why many people pierce their tongues for no other reason that to give their sex lives a boost.

Bars through your tongue or rings on your nipples can’t be seen by the general public, so there is no statement to make with them. Why say something if you can’t be heard, right? Nipple attachments have long been known to be regular features in the bedrooms of those well versed in advanced bodily unification techniques. Back then, they were merely clips, whipped out when the mood was right. Now, piercing makes metal accessories permanent features on the chests of both males and females. And, they’re a big turn-on.

It is advised that you don’t get up to any hanky-panky in direct relation to the body part you just pierced during the healing period, which normally lasts at least a month. This means no kissing (for tongue pierces). And no oral sex, either (unless you’re on the receiving end). And no curries, crunchy food or rare beefsteaks. Nothing that might ruin an otherwise perfectly harmless hole-through-the-tongue.

Getting your tongue can be quite a sobering experience. The reason that the bar is so long (when you first pierce it) is that for the next week or so, your tongue will swell up to twice its normal size. You’ll get all sorts of gunk oozing from it. White, sticky stuff is (apparently) quite normal; but yellow and green stuff is more likely a sign of an infection.

The Gory Details

Is piercing painful? Yes… at least it used to be. According to Mabel, she’s just learned a new technique for piercing that makes it near painless. How far that is true, I don’t know. She does, however, claim to lay all her clientele fears to rest the moment they walk in the door. Piercing at an established (and reputable) parlour like DragonFly is not expensive when you consider what you’re paying for. Then there is the question of jewellery, which they usually have on sale, too.

As with all other injuries to your body, you should treat your piercing with care and cleanliness. The last thing you want is for your tongue to go gangrenous and fall off.

For external piercings on your face (nose, eyebrow) and body (nipple, navel), keep a simple antiseptic handy. Make sure you turn the jewellery often, lest the healing process make the metal a permanent part of your body. For your tongue or cheek, make an antiseptic mouthwash your best friend for the next couple of months. Here, too, you should make sure you twist the accessory often to make sure you send the right signals to your body and tell it that you wounded it on purpose, and that it is not supposed to completely heal this particular wound.

Above all, keep it as clean as is humanly possible. Then you’re well on your way to stamping your mark in society as either the trendiest girl on the block or the most exciting. Either way, you’re bound to turn some heads.

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