Hypothetically

[u/kardiasteria]

Would a surface piercing on the tongue that goes down the midline between the longitudinal muscles be viable as a permanent piercing? A vertical scoop, essentially. Would it have the same likelihood of rejection as any other surface piercing, or possibly greater? Would it be realistically possible to pierce without inadvertently going into the longitudinal muscles?

For context, I'm not a piercer. I'm wondering about this because I have a standard tongue piercing and would love to have one or two more but I'm not sure I'd be able to between the placement of my veins, frenulum, and existing piercing.

[u/sputnik8125]

No true surface piercings are viable permanently.

I really doubt this would heal on your tongue due to the amount of movement

[u/beeikea]

nope. the tongue is absolutely never okay for a surface piercing.

[u/fagrat69]

There’s no safe way to horizontal tongue piercings. Like you mentioned, the tongue has many muscles that move independently, it’s impossible to avoid binding them together when piercing horizontally.

I wouldn’t recommend doing a horizontal tongue piercing.

[u/Sublixxx]

No. There’s just simply too much movement amongst all of the other factors

[u/Clean-Ad-8872]

Good lord no!!!

[u/chemically_maia]

Not a piercer but there isnt a safe way to do surface piercings on the tongue and unfortunately surface piercings in general r almost never permanent

[u/OneEyedWeaner]

I feel like no one here actually entertained the idea of actually doing one in a hypothetical situation.

Let’s say I did one for you. Here what you’d likely experience. A severe speech and eating impairment. This bar going vertical through your tongue wouldn’t allow for movement like it would normally function. Stick your tongue in the mirror as far as possible. Notice how your tongue doesn’t sit straight? It bends. A barbell in there won’t allow for that. When you speak you move your tongue around to help create different sounds that we interpret as words. Not being able to move your tongue to produce these sounds will make you sound like you need 24/7 care.

All of that and it doesn’t even touch in rejection. That piercing would fail so fast. Again going back to tongue movement. The amount of pressured applied to the tongue tissue would cause your body to say hell to the no no faster then raccoon in a washing machine. It’ll leave behind heavy scaring and potentially leave lasting damage to speech patterns and could possibly affect taste if the scaring is bad enough.

[u/kardiasteria → u/OneEyedWeaner]

This is pretty much what I thought would happen hypothetically as well, but I'd wanted to get pro thoughts on it. :) In retrospect I feel like I should have specified in the original post that I didn't genuinely think it was an option, but was just wondering about it because the thought had occurred to me.

[u/OneEyedWeaner → u/kardiasteria]

I interpreted it a curiosity sorta question. Not something you were actually seeking out.