Every year, the idea of tattoos and piercings becomes less taboo and more the norm as incoming freshmen decide to start anew with some art that lasts a lifetime. Whether to defy their upbringing, stand out among their peers or simply show an interest in body art, students are coming up with bigger, better and more creative ways to be seen as unique.

We decided to visit our inked pals at The Asylum tattoo and body piercing shop, 111 Welch Ave., and hang out on a Saturday afternoon to see what the shop was all about. More importantly, we decided to experience firsthand what getting pierced feels like. It wouldn’t have been WTF, however, if we only had our ears pierced — we decided to take it one step further.

Dante

Prince Albert:

While we were sitting around trying to decide what body parts would be the targets for our experiment, we all agreed on one thing — someone needed to bite the bullet and get what we imagined would be one of the worst piercings out there, the Prince Albert.

Basically, if you don’t know, the Prince Albert is a hoop that enters the one male hole that nothing should ever enter. If you’re still unclear, get online and Google it — then you’ll be able to put this into context. I’m sure you’ve figured out by now who that unlucky person was.

First off, I’ll answer the obvious question. Yes it hurt. It hurt a lot. I wasn’t too nervous because I had been told it didn’t hurt very much, but I figured out very quickly one of two things had happened: Either they had been lying or I am just a complete wimp.

Maybe I was just naive to think there was some unimaginable way to have a needle in my urethra and not have it feel horrible. Now, after it’s all said and done, I can safely say the worst part of this particular piercing comes after the actual piercing and lasts for about a month — celibacy.

Knuckles:

OK, I’ll admit I’d never even heard of someone doing this before, but I came to find out that in heavily-pierced circles, this is not so uncommon. The process was about as straightforward as it looks — we made a measured mark on the webs of my fingers and proceeded to drive holes through them. I don’t know if anyone else has ever been able to say this, but the shock of recently having my privates penetrated with a big needle sort of dwarfed the challenge of three little holes in my hand.

After the piercing — and the shakes that came with it — I realized how poorly I had thought the decision through. I had pierced my right hand, hampering my ability to perform simple tasks like high-fives, handshakes and typing. Believe me, the fact that you are reading this is a testament to a labor of love. My hand is now killing me.

Alex

The WTF emblem:

Only having four, slightly smaller tattoos and my ears pierced once upon a time, I didn’t think I could make a request the veteran artists hadn’t heard of, but I did. I decided, for some odd reason, that branding myself with surgical steel would be a good idea.

Even after I was asked multiple times if I knew “how big this is going to be,” I couldn’t not do it — I have never turned down a challenge and wasn’t going to start here.

So, with 13 barbells ready to be placed and a crowd of spectators staring at me in awe, Hot Rod and I began to work on my new bionic arm, so to speak.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t as painful as I had anticipated. Near the end, my skin grew tighter and more tender, thus increasing the pain, but I think I handled it pretty well.

And now, after having had multiple gauge needles shoved through my skin, there is only one thing to fear — whether my parents will appreciate their son becoming a pin cushion.

If you like what you see, prepare to pull out the wallet. Surface piercings at The Asylum run about $40 apiece, so prepare to face pain in the pocket as well.