There's an interesting discussion going on right now over at my personal blog, where I wrote a post revealing that …
MY EARS ARE UNPIERCED.
I know. Try to contain yourselves.
What has surprised me about having unpierced ears is the general public's reaction to the news, which ranges from shock to, well, anger.
Why is having unpierced ears such a big deal? Read on to discuss …
Perhaps you're wondering why my ears are unpierced?
Well here's the short version from my blog post, as told to a certain bemused celebrity stylist:
"Well, I mean, they used to be pierced when I was ten but I had an allergic reaction and they got really infected and it was horrible just horrible and I let them close up again only one of them healed badly and at that point I couldn't even wear clip-ons so when I had my tonsils out in high school the doctor was a family friend and he fixed my earlobe so that I could get my ears pierced again if I ever wanted to only I guess he sort of botched the job and one earlobe looks a tiny bit different from the other now and my mom says it's deformed I'm not even kidding and she told me a few months ago I could never wear my hair short because of my deformed earlobe and well …" I finished breathlessly, "No. My ears are not pierced."
I've gotten an earful (heh) in the comments on the subject. Here are just a few responses…
"My twins had theirs done for their 8th bday and the oddest thing happened to one of them. Her ear got infected several months later, and we couldn't get it healed. There was a weird kind of bump in the lobe, so we actually tried to stick an earring through it as we assumed it was scab of some sort that had formed. Ended up taking her to the pediatrician, who referred us to an ENT and guess what!!! 3 days and 1 surgery later, they came out of the OR with an EARRING BACK! Her lobe had apparently grown around the earring back and it was completely inside her earlobe." -Beth
"I also have unpierced ears! I have never been made fun of due to it, but I get a lot of incredulous reactions. Every time I get an odd reaction, I am taken aback by how prevalent pierced ears have become in our society – just seems weird that *I* am the curiosity, you know?" -Leslie
"I have never had my ears pierced either. I don't see anything wrong with the fact that you don't want any holes in yours body that GOD didn't give you!" -Lynn
"I've had my ears pierced for years – doesn't do me much good though since I wear the same pair of earrings every. single. day. The only day I changed them? My wedding day and even then I had to be reminded!" -Bren
I looked up the history of ear piercing and according to Wikipedia, ear piercing is such an old practice that even the world's oldest mummy, the 5,300 year-old Otzi the Iceman, had an ear piercing!
Another interesting tidbit from the Wikipedia article on piercings:
From the European Middle Ages, a superstitious belief that piercing one ear improved long-distance vision led to the practice among sailors and explorers. Sailors also pierced their ears in the belief that their earrings could pay for a Christian burial if their bodies washed up on shore.
Wikipedia also states that ear piercing fell out of fashion in the 1930s, when clip-ons were invented. So now I'm thinking that perhaps those of us who are unpierced aren't weirdos after all — maybe we're just at the forefront of a revived trend!
But now I want to know what all my fashion-loving friends here on The Stir think of the ear piercing phenomenon.
Why is earpiercing so prevalent in our society, anyway? And why do you think so many people are stunned when a woman's ears aren't pierced?