Last Friday I got my belly button pierced.
I wrote about deciding to get it done back in December but wanted to wait until the summer to get it done as I thought it would be easier to get it to heal when I wasn’t wearing winter clothes, which considering the current weather in the UK is a bit of a laugh but it sounded like a good plan when I first had it. Then came our trip to Greece. I seriously thought about doing it beforehand thinking that all that fresh air and salty sea water would be marvelous for healing but talked myself out of it as if I was wrong about that the thought of being stuck in Greece with an infected belly button piercing didn’t sound like fun.
So post holiday I am looking in the mirror at my tummy, which I HATE, but it looks OK, it is all tanned and I suddenly realise that if I don’t do it now then I will forever be putting it off for some reason or another and I head downstairs and tell Michael I want to finally get it done. He is delighted and off to the piercing place we go.
I am not particularly nervous, apart from the bit where I have to show the guy my stomach because I think it is ugly, and then I am laying on the bed, Michael is holding my hand, there is a sharp pinch followed by another and it is done. Michael is grinning at me
“You are going to love it” he says
I stand up and look in the mirror, my first thought is that it is wonky and I do mutter something about that but the guy is already talking to the next person waiting and the mirror is small and tucked in the corner and so we leave.
Out on the street I pull up my dress and inspect it. I really want to look properly in a mirror but there isn’t one and so I drop my dress and we go into the shop and pick up some groceries, including some sea salt which I will need to keep my new piercing clean
When we get home I disappear upstairs, strip off my dress and look into the mirror. There it is, sitting snuggling in my belly button. I turn from side to side; I even lay down and take pictures of it in an attempt to see it properly and the more I look the more I hate it. By the time he comes up stairs I am sitting on bed sobbing.
“You are going to hate me” I say “It looks awful” I confess through giant sobs. (You see he paid for it and so I felt terrible for not loving it.
Anyway, this bit went on for quite a while with me mainly crying and him being patient and loving whilst I verbally tore my tummy apart.
So something about my tummy; it is saggy and wrinkled, the result of being very overweight at one point in my life as well as carrying 2 babies in there, I also have a large scar that runs from my belly button right round to my side on the left of my stomach. It is 20cm (nearly 8inches) in length and is the result of surgery to remove my spleen when I was 6 to cure a blood condition. (A long and complex medical story that I will not bore you with) As a result of all this my belly button has basically collapsed and falls away towards the scar.
I have for most of my life just ignored it/lived with it but I have never in all my days worn a crop top although I will totally rock a bikini. My love of sunshine overrules all the horrible feels I have about my stomach. When we go to Clothed Male Naked Female the hardest part for me is that people will see my stomach up close in all its horrible ugliness’. I am not bothered about people seeing my tits or cunt and have often said to Michael I wish I could wear a scarf round my belly to cover it up. I know what you are thinking, that I take tons of naked self portraits and I do but rarely will you see one of my tummy flat on the camera. There is the odd one that I have posted where I have liked what I see but mainly I tend to turn the left side of my body away from the camera to hide the scar.
I have over the years slowly learned to accept how I look, but that one area still gives me complex and often very negative feels. The piercing was an attempt to reclaim that part of my body from some of those feelings. Don’t get me wrong, at no point did I think it was going to miraculously make my tummy button straight/round again nor did I think it was going to give me flat stomach but I did I had always wanted one, even when I was a teen, but I just never had the balls to get it done, until now and in the spirit of growing old disgracefully I did it.
And then I my horror I hate the fucking thing. Actually that is not true it just draws my eye to part of my body that I have struggled to ever be OK with and resulting emotions are overwhelming. He holds me while I cry and when I say I want to take it out he says OK but then I hesitate.
“I feel so silly” I say
“Why”
“I don’t know, like I should have known better, what was I expecting was going to happen?”
“I want to like it” I whimper
And then he does that thing where he holds my face and makes me look at him and he tells me that he loves it, he thinks it looks sexy and that I am sexy and that he has decided that for now I am going to keep it until it heals and then if I still want to remove it I can.
“I don’t know” I mumble
“I do, and your choice is accept my word or use your (safe)word.”
That was Friday and I still have my belly button piercing. Every day I give it a little look, sometimes I still hate it but now and then I catch a view of it and I think it is OK.
Only time will tell if I keep it or not but right now I am damn glad he pulled rank.
30 comments
I’m so glad you went through with it! Though I am merely a stranger on the ‘net, let me add my voice to say that it does indeed look great! I hope you grow to love it too and I am so glad that he likes it so much.
Thank you. I am warming to it, I think. I am glad he made me keep it for now, I think I need time to live with it and I think I would have always wondered if I did the wrong thing if I had just taken it out because of my initial knee jerk reaction
Holy hell, I have so many feelings about this…
I have a similar hatred for my stomach that involves always being heavy, never having what I consider a “cute” bellybutton – I have an overhang thing going that I detest that no amount of weight loss makes disappear. Baring my stomach creates more anxiety than I know what to do with and I have and probably will again sob over how I feel about it.
But I also know that face grab and that determination to accept that HE likes it/thinks I’m sexy/wills it so. It’s powerful and can make me ignore (at least for a time) every insecurity I have. One of the most submissive things I think I do is accept that he loves parts of my body that I hate.
Not that it necessarily helps at all, but I think this picture (no matter how much you “posed” for it) and the ring are adorable. But I do understand the hatred of that particular part of your body.
The tag line for my blog is @I see myself through others eyes and I made anew’ and it is definitely the truth, taking my pictures have inspired me to see myself with much kinda eyes and that is also down to him. Oh and yes i have a horrible overhand thing too. As for the picture I actually didn’t pose that much, just laid on the bed and held my phone up and snapped away. I was pleasantly surprised when I found this one in the mix.
Mollyx
One of my mates tried to talk me into getting one too, but I’d gained weight, and had already had the first of five bowel resections. Personally, I chose not bringing attention to my horrible area.
There’s a Southern USA saying: If ya can’t hide it, paint it red❣
My suggestion is, wait a year. Why not? I think it looks fine!
Thank you. I have to wait until it is completely healed now anyway as if you remove it too soon the risk is that the ends close up and trap any infection in the middle. So for now it stays and time will tell if I keep it in the long term or not
Mollyx
OMG . . . just reading this is wonderful because you verbalise everything I’ve always worried about whenever I’ve thought about a piercing / tattoo etc.
I LOVE looking at them on others . . . but always been too scared about doing it myself, thinking “what if I hate it, what if I want to take it away, remove it, hide it etc. etc.”
So . . . I just know I would be exactly like you. Doubting, worrying . . . wondering ???
I can’t really tell you from your photo if it looks lovely or not . . . but I can tell you that I feel every word that you’ve said . . . and I now so want to know how you feel about it in the days to come.
Xxx – K
I am good with my tattoos. I have never worried about hating them but then I waited a long time to get them and thought a lot about what I wanted and why so they are all very personal to me. I got my nosed pierced a few years back as I always wanted that done too but I am happy with my nose so at no point did I find myself looking at it and thinking, oh my god look at my horrible nose. Which is what happened with my belly button.
I will definitely keep you informed on how I feel about it as time goes on. For now I can say I am warming to it slightly but whether that means I keep it long term or not we shall see
Mollyx
It’s hard to get over how you feel about parts of your body. I think you’re brave for showing it on here. I’d wondered if you would and I’m glad you did. I hope too that the longer you have it, the better you feel about the piercing/your tummy.
Well I took a lot of goes to get a picture that I was OK with. You can see my stretch marks and my scar but you have to search for that, it is actually more noticeable when I am standing up as the muscle damage means it is puckered and creates a indent line across the left of my tummy
Mollyx
Looks good. Your partner will love playing with it. It becomes an erotic thing to play with after a while.
I have belly anxiety as well. A hysterectomy at 33 left me with a saggy left side. Being overweight didn’t help any. So i relate.
It doesn’t matter what i think…but i think your belly looks perfectly wonderful! You brought life into the world with that part of you. There’s great power there. We all have scars…i think what you did took courage. And it’s lovely. I hope you keep it…your personal symbol of self acceptance.
This is a wonderful post and want a brilliant thing for you to have done. Shows a lot of trust in your own strength and determinations to win the battle with the voices in our head that tell us to hate bits of ourselves. Happy that Michael is encouraging you as ever and hope it stays in and that we see more photos of that part of your body xx
I am another belly hater, mine is awful and as for my belly button…yuk, I wish I could go back to when I didn’t have one! So I totally get where you’re coming from.
However, I have seen yours and honestly I have never noticed any wobbles, scars or anything there to hate. You are beautiful and I really can’t wait to see your new piercing.
This is so beautiful Molly! It made me cry. I also hate my belly. I love that you got the piercing, taking control of your own perceptions! And I love the way Michael insisted. I hope you grow to love it. And that it gives you confidence in your belly. You are beautiful!
For what it’s worth, I think it looks absolutely stunning! And even so, I totally understand your feelings around it. I don’t think I would opt for a belly button piercing again, simply because I don’t want to draw attention to my 50-year-old wobbly tummy, even though I really like the look and feel of the piercing. I think it’s a good thing that you have to keep it in now. That way you can get used to it and if you still don’t like it fully in a couple of months, you can always still remove it 🙂
Rebel xox
This made me teary-eyed. I think you’re incredibly brave to choose to do the piercing. I can’t even be photographed nude – rarely even clothed. You’d laugh because my body’s not all that bad. It’s my perception of myself that’s wrong. My boobs are droopy and asymmetrical after a lumpectomy, my tummy’s got a flap due to a c-section, my upper thighs have cellulite, etc.
I battle inner demons all the time because I don’t think I look nice even in clothing. I need a larger size on top. It gives me the appearance of always being heavier than I am actually. Our Dominants know what’s best though. I love that yours pulled the safeword card. Very clever! They see beauty and pleasure where we see ugliness. You and I may never be able to look past our scars. But we serve. Our bodies serve. I never imagined I’d have my clit pierced past age 50, but Sir wanted it and we discussed it at length. I like it. I would love my nipples done if they were small but they’re not…
Any case this is about you and your thoughts. You both get great delight from your body correct? It must please him so much to adorn you. It’s another way of dressing to please him. I think you can do this if you approach it from a submissive mindset. After all, you’ve done some very amazing things thus far and will continue to do so! You’re very strong. Again, I for one am so proud of your unfailing courage.
My first reaction (honestly) was Hot! it wasn’t till I read what you don’t like that I even saw it. Granted that’s the nature of photography and self perception but …
I find it easy to see my own physical imperfections, but I’m not young, I’ve started going to the gym, and looking at my peers, I could be in worse shape. So could you. A lot worse!
I envy your piercing. It looks great. I miss my nipple piercing (it had migrated too far over the years due to contact sports, so had to go before it got too far) but I’ve always wanted a (low impact) genital piercing.
I have only just started following you and other writer/photographers. This is one of the first blogs I’ve read and I found it a joy to read such an honest description of your feelings and reaction to the piercing. It was also very moving to read.
I love this post. I just found this blog through another site and I am hooked. I think it rings true for so many of us. I have wanted to get a piercing and a tattoo myself for so long but always come up with a reason not to. I may just have to take the leap. I hope you end up keeping it and loving it.
To me, it honestly looks absolutely gorgeous on you. I hope you have started to love it too! I completely understand how you feel about your tummy though (even if I think it looks beautiful in the photograph). There’s a reason mine has never been featured in any Sinful Sunday photos. Maybe I’ll brave it one day, though, if I’m honest, probably not.
Aurora x
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[…] In the Navel […]
[…] of Molly that has stayed with me for weeks, and which I can still recall without re-reading it, is In the Navel, where she writes about her new navel piercing. She voices her thoughts and feelings so clearly and […]
[…] post about getting her belly button pierced was a frank account of the emotional rollercoaster that sometimes comes with casting a spotlight on […]
Many thanks for sharing your feelings about it.
Many people including myself, have that area or areas of our body we would like to change in some form or fashion.
Yours looks great. Very sexy too.
First off I want to thank Exposing40 for nominating this post on the #291 Wicked Wednesday meme (which I missed contributing to because I was at the Oasis with only a phone connection and now I will have to do penance via my #SoSS post). Molly posted it back in August and I was not blogging that month so I missed it.
Secondly I want to put up my hand to indicate membership of the saggy tummy group, the multiple stretch marks group and the multiple lumpy scar group (one lower caesarian, one from caesarian to navel, one lumpy gangrenous gallbladder scar which you see in any of my tummy/boob shots, and one teeny scar on my navel from when my belly button ring got infected and tore shortly after it was inserted…
My missing piercing is the only one I regret – the others were life saving ops so I bear them with as much grace as I can muster and sometimes I’m proud of them. I was doing a lot of belly dancing when I had my piercing and I was so proud of my belly because it could do lots of interesting things despite bearing the T intersection scars at that time (gallbladder was 5 years ago). I cried because it got infected, because it tore and because my dream of sexy navel jewellery went with it – I didn’t want to risk it again. I hope your dream of a sexy navel rematerialises over time Molly. To me it looks fine but its not my belly. You are probably past the healing now so I hope its still in place and you are finding some hot studs and chains to adorn it. If so I’m sure we’d all applaud. And if you’ve taken it out well that’s your choice, though I applaud Michael’s insistence at least until you’ve lived with it a while.
[…] of Molly that has stayed with me for weeks, and which I can still recall without re-reading it, is In the Navel, where she writes about her new navel piercing. She voices her thoughts and feelings so clearly and […]
[…] In the Navel […]
[…] In the Navel […]