Here I am with my girlfriend at a jewellery shop in Seacon Square. My girlfriend has come here to pierce her belly button. I have come to support her. She has been wanting to do this for a long time. I think ever since the first time she saw my navel ring.

I think it is normal for girls to pierce their belly button. Lots of girls do it because they want to follow fashion. I follow fashion too sometimes but only the ones I like. Also, I sometimes do crazy things which not many people do like piercing my belly button. Not many boys do it because they think it’s girl stuff but I don’t think like that. I think it looks cool when you do something weird especially when not many people are brave enough to do it.

You know what? Some of my friends like piercing themselves and that is why they have lots of rings on their body. They also like drinking and nearly every time they get drunk, they pierce each other’s body. When they first found out that I pierced my belly button, they complained to me that I should have asked them to do it for free. They also told me to tell them the next time I want to have somewhere pierced. I don’t think I want to take that risk.

I have heard before in the news that someone received HIV after they went to get their body pierced at a bad shop. The shopkeeper there didn’t change the needle at all. I always go to a good-looking shop if I want to pierce something. And I always check that they change the needle to a new one before they pierce me. If the shopkeeper doesn’t do that, I will leave straight away. I don’t want to take a risk that might be a danger to my life.

Will you believe me if I tell you that one of my friends has more than twenty rings on his body? To me it looks like he does it without thinking. He has three rings on the chin, three on the nose, four on the eyebrows, two on the tongue and about four on each ear. I really like how he pierced his ears. He didn’t have it like other people. He has really big holes in his ears. The biggest hole is about eight millimetres wide.

Now here I am at the jewellery shop. There are different rings for different parts of the body. I walk around looking at those rings and choose some nice ones for my ear. I keep looking for a while then Tai comes to ask me to help her choose a ring for her belly button. There are lots of rings and it is not that easy to choose. Finally, we agree on one that has a smiley face on it. We come back to our seat and wait. I can see that Tai is very excited.

Now, there are no more people waiting before us. We are next. The person in front of us is sticking his tongue out to have it pierced. I see his legs start to shake when the shopkeeper asks him, “Are you ready?”. He nods and says “Yes” then the shopkeeper begins to pierce the boy’s tongue. When the needle goes through his tongue, he grips the chair very tight. Some tears are coming out from his eyes and his knuckles are white. It looks so painful.

After the boy finishes and comes out I tell Tai that it is now her turn. But she says she is too scared to do it alone. Then she asks me to do it with her but the problem is I have a belly button ring already. I don’t think I want to have another one there. I tell her that then she tells me to pierce my body somewhere else.

After thinking for a while, I decide to pierce my tongue. We walk in and sit on the seats in front of the shopkeeper. He asks me, “Who is going to pierce and where?” I reply to him. “Both of us, I want to pierce my tongue and she wants a navel ring”. He gets ready, changes to a new needle and then asks us “Who’s first?”. I am about to point to my girlfriend but I am not fast enough. She answers quicker than me, “Him first”. I look at her and say “What?“ She says to me that she is scared so she wants me to do it first. I understand what she is feeling because I am scared in the same way as her. But I am a boy not a girl so I will do it.

I swap seats with her and then tell him I am ready to put a hole in my tongue. I open my mouth and stick my tongue out at him. He picks up a pen and marks a spot on my tongue. Then he asks me to take a look and tell him if it looks OK. I look in a mirror and then think about it. Finally I decide to pierce further inside. It is all because I have to teach at my old school and also my dad won’t be that happy if he sees it.

He marks a new spot and then he turns around and takes out some tools from his bag. He uses a kind of clamp to hold my tongue and then he sprays some anesthetic on my tongue. A few minutes later, my tongue feels numb and then he starts to pierce. He works on my tongue for nearly one minute and then he tells me, “It’s done”. I can’t believe what he says because it is too fast and it didn’t hurt that much. I ask the shopkeeper about that boy before us. He says that boy overreacted.

Tai comes to sit where I sat and then opens her shirt to show her belly button. The shopkeeper changes the needle to a new one and then turns to Tai. I sit nearby and hold her hand while the shopkeeper tells her not to look. Tai sits properly and looks straight forward. He begins to pierce after he marks her belly button. Tai tries to look down when the needle goes through her skin. I stop her in time before she does it. I tell her that if she looks she will feel faint and the needle might hurt her more.

After he finishes piercing Tai, he gives us some medicine to take for the pain. I say thank you to him and then pay the money and leave to walk around. My tongue starts to hurt more and more since Tai finished piercing. I think maybe it’s because the anesthetic he sprayed has stopped working. Tai looks fine but really her stomach hurts a little. She can’t really make her body straight when she walks. She tells me that she can’t laugh because her stomach will hurt a lot. We are both not that fine so we agree to go back home. She doesn’t want to go on a normal bus because someone might hit her stomach so I take her home by taxi.

After that day, it took about a week for me to get used to the ring. I had to be very careful about my tongue ring. I tried my best not to let my dad see it but he saw it in the end. He yelled at me a lot and told me to take it out. Until now, I still haven’t taken the ring out of my tongue. I won’t take it off not even when I go to school or when the teacher tells me. I will take it off only when it causes me a problem with my work at my old school.

Now I am thinking about having a nipple ring. I have seen it before in a movie. I think it looks cool. One of my friends has done it before but he took it off after only three days. He said it hurt very very much. Too much for him to take. Also, it looks bad when it gets an infection. When I thought about what he said and then imagined it, I felt freaky. Still, I am now considering about getting it. I really want to have it and I will get it one day. I will tell you if that day comes. Maybe show you as well! However, I am not that brave and crazy yet. What about you? Are you crazy enough to have a nipple ring?

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This is the uncut version of Panrit's article that first appeared in his Gor's World column in the Bangkok Post when he was 16 years old. We will be posting his full versions every Sunday for him while he is still in prison. Read more about Gor at his website www.ThailandLife.com.