What side is gay for earrings

Men with both earrings are now widely accepted in every society, and choosing earrings that are highly compatible with your personality is encouraged. However, there are still some considerations to keep in mind when it comes to men wearing earrings.

If you are wondering which side is the gay piercing left or right, then, to make a long story short, getting pierced in your right ear meant you were gay. There is a rich history of jewelry being used to show off wealth, nobility, or status. In the 20th century, it was used to show off sexual preference. A man would wear a single earring in his right ear to say he was a gay man. Join us in unpacking this old gay stereotype and ask the question: do we still need it? Since ancient times, people have been getting body piercings to show status or caste. Adornments like facial piercings and other jewelry were common.

What side is gay for earrings

We accepted it as gospel and never questioned its validity. But as I grew up, it seemed like everyone I met, no matter their place of origin, knew and understood the earring code, as arbitrary as it seems. Historically speaking, the truth is more complex. Earrings on guys have signified many things over the years, such as social stature or religious affiliation. In his book The Naked Man: A Study of the Male Body , Desmond Morris explains that earrings have indicated wisdom and compassion in the stretched earlobes of the Buddha, while pirates wore them in the belief it would protect them from drowning. In the Elizabethan era, earrings were quite fashionable for men, he writes. In the Western world, earrings, so long a purely female adornment, have recently been seen on increasing numbers of male ears. At first it was assumed that the wearers were all effeminate homosexuals, but it soon became clear the the habit was spreading to the more avant-garde of the young heterosexuals. This led to some confusion and stories began to circulate that there was a secret code, that to wear an earring in a pierced left ear was homosexual, and in a pierced right ear was rebel heterosexual. The problem was that nobody could remember which was supposed to be which. In the end the male earring lost its sexual significance altogether, and simply became a generalized way of annoying middle-aged, latter-day puritans. Another guy got two piercings in his right ear in college, to which we all remarked that that he wanted everyone to know that he was a power bottom — which he is. A man in the U.

It meant that anyone getting one piercing usually a boy because girls got both ears pierced would have to get a left ear piercing because the right ear meant that you were gay — and being gay was wrong, what side is gay for earrings. Some true Christians and Jews before Christ considered earrings to be a custom of pagans and idolaters. But the question is, why did gay men decide to pierce their ears?

These days, seldom does a trend stick around for longer than a few weeks before a neologism replaces the one before it, permeating the halls of TikTok or Instagram and causing all of us to second-guess what was once considered mainstream — only to then swap a coveted wardrobe staple for the latest passing fad. Still, certain exceptions prevail. Even today, one of the most unshakeable cultural signifiers has been the "mono" piercing — more precisely, and befuddling, on which ear it's placed and what it says about your sexuality. Pre-Y2K and beyond , it's been socially understood that wearing one earring on the right ear means someone is gay; the left, straight. Despite recent data and celebrities supporting otherwise, the demagogic proverb "Left is right and right is wrong" has been a whisper placed upon gay and straight men and their piercers for decades. No one really seems to know where the adage originated.

Culture is a funny old thing. Gay men and women had to come up with ways to signal to each other so that they could form communities and relationships without being harassed. However, whether or not this was ever actually widely used in the global queer community is disputed, and nowadays the notion of it has its own horrible homophobic dog whistle attached. Read on to find out. The practice of having a gay ear is said to have come about in the sixties and seventies, and propagated further in the eighties with the AIDS crisis and inhumane policies pushed by Conservatives in both the U. Prior to that, piercings had seen a slight drop in popularity, having been ubiquitous among the wealthier in many societies across the globe before then. From the piece:. Gay men followed, often wearing a single piece of jewelry in the right ear to indicate sexual preference. But in the last few years, so many heterosexual men have begun wearing earrings — often in both ears — that the placement no longer suggests anything about sexual preference.

What side is gay for earrings

Sorry, the content of this store can't be seen by a younger audience. Come back when you're older. Have you ever heard the term "gay ear"? When people talked about the gay ear, they referred to a specific ear being pierced on a man. This trend didn't include women in the gay ear fad because, in most Western cultures since the s, it has generally been a cultural norm for females to have their ears pierced. Keep in mind that this performative measure was originally used to discriminate against men based on their perceived social class, not sexuality. Initially, the only men who had pierced ears were usually sailors.

Modulenotfounderror: no module named tensorflow

Any piercing during that time, Scully insists, would have been an act of defiance anyway — pre- or postpunk era. In Western fashion, it is generally acceptable for men to wear an earring in each ear. What do earrings on guys mean? These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Well, if you were a heterosexual guy and you wanted to pierce an ear, it always had to be the left ear because the right ear was the gay ear. Some people simply do it because they like the way it looks. Talk about a full circle moment, I totally told him yes. Unlike other marginalized groups being gay is something you realize slowly. It does not store any personal data. Phillip Salem , a real estate agent and longtime New Yorker, has lived in a bubble for 15 years. Most homosexuals needed signaling to quietly show off their pride. Some years back, wearing a single earring or stud in the right ear was affiliated with homosexuality, but that has been disputed over time. Undergear, too. We're Hiring!

In the world of earrings, there has long been a fascination with the placement and symbolism associated with them. One question that often comes up is, "Which side is the gay ear? Traditionally, a right-side piercing identified a man as gay, serving as a part of LGBT "culture and code" to secretly identify oneself to the community.

And he prefers it that way. The concept of men wearing jewelry is an old one, dating back thousands of years. Recent cultural forecasts are spot on with their predictions, too. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Power Your Happy. We accepted it as gospel and never questioned its validity. Joshooeerr Maybe the ear code was once widely understood in the US, but around the rest of the world it seems to have been mainly a source of confusion. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. In the s, it was believed that an earring in the right ear meant the wearer was homosexual, while an earring in the left ear meant the wearer was straight. Today's isms, like no-makeup makeup and tantouring, don't force us to relive the best of the worst; rather, they remind us that the journey of defining a "personal" style is as finite as doing the dishes: you're never really done. In the 20th century, it was used to show off sexual preference. And according to ancient Chinese belief, the left earring meaning also symbolized that a person's life had been endangered, and to prevent a recurrence, an earring was worn to prevent bad luck. Men with both earrings are now widely accepted in every society, and choosing earrings that are highly compatible with your personality is encouraged.