I don’t have pierced ears. Where I live, it’s fairly unusual for a woman not to have pierced ears. Plus I grew up in a time when people pierced other body parts to show their nonconformity. (Or maybe to look sexy or funky or on the edge. I’m not sure since I never did it.) It’s the rare occasion when I meet another woman without basic ear piercings.
It’s not that I don’t like jewelry. I actually have a weak spot for jewelry. I wear necklaces, rings, the occasional bracelet or anklet. I love shiny sparkly stuff, and I love how artistic jewelry can be. I look at beautiful earrings in little boutiques and covet them.
People ask me if I don’t have pierced ears because I’m afraid of the pain. While it’s true that I hate pain, that’s not really the reason. I wasn’t allowed to get my ears pierced as a kid, but I could have done it when I was twelve or thirteen. Only by then it was too late. Without even knowing it, I had already grown up into a closet nonconformist.
I thought about getting holes punched in my ears, and then I thought about what a weird idea that actually was, punching holes in your body just so you could display a little more bling. Suddenly ear piercings didn’t seem ordinary anymore. They seemed like a barbaric custom of some foreign tribe.
Now please don’t get me wrong. When I look at other people’s pierced ears, I don’t feel shock or horror or condescension. I don’t actually think piercing is a barbaric custom. It’s more that, once I thought of that point of view, I could never look on the custom the same way myself. It’s been twenty years, and I’ve never found any reason to change my original decision. I’ll keep my ears the way they came, at least until I have a provocative reason to do otherwise.
So what do you think? Am I stubborn or an original thinker (or both)? Either way, my lack of pierced ears is one of my tells, revealing that I am a free spirit.
The Practical Free Spirit 
Seeing as I don’t have pierced ears, I’m right there with you.
Friggin hippies.
Interesting. I have almost the opposite story and reasons. I do have pierced ears, which I got in grade 6 or so, and I got them for multiple reasons: I love jewelry, I wanted to be pretty/accepted, and I did it for the selection and the lack of pain. My mother did not have pierced ears, so she had a range of clip-on and screwback earrings, and just about all of them hurt at least a little bit. My sister had pierced ears, and not only could she get jewelry wherever she wanted instead of only at estate sales, she said that it didn’t hurt while you wore them. Decision made.
Any other piercings I have or will have, were/will be for personal and nonconformist reasons. I like to feel decorated. And in a more specific example, I do not like wearing finger rings, but I do want to have some kind of wedding ring. I like the idea of getting one or two gold CBRs with custom beads, and wearing them somewhere along the rim of my ears.
Oh, I love the idea of wedding earrings! That is awesome and unique.
And yes, clip-on earrings are usually painful. Apparently they now have these magnetic earrings that aren’t so bad, but clip-ons turn my ears bright red. So unless I’m costuming elaborately, I go without earrings of any type.
Well, here’s my version.
When I was just starting high school, one night Todd came over. He was the older brother of my brother’s best friend, and he was a total Todd.
He was on his first leave from the Marines, straight out of boot camp, and he had the sleeve on his T-shirt rolled up to accommodate a huge pad of gauze taped to his shoulder.
He pulled the pad away, and for a moment you could see the Marine’s screaming eagle in bright new pigments, gleaming, bold, and furious, and then a wash of blood hid the image and he slapped the bandage down, and I knew.
Some day I was going to have a tattoo.
You’ve been around me long enough to know that I might just possibly have a few little issues, a few infinitesimal points of connection, with tough-guy nonsense.
That was the tattoo that I wanted, the one where if it inadvertently went on display everyone looked away and pretended nothing happened. A tattoo that decisively establishes one’s tough-guy presence.
That tattoo no longer exists. Thank you, ReSearch and Modern Primitives. These days, a tattoo means, especially a menacing one, says, “Hi, I enjoy popular music, come from a single-parent family that did not allow me adequate attention during adolescence, and find appeal in the idea of sexual intercourse.”
All of which are perfectly reasonable to express, things I could express myself were I in the mood, but I wanted a tattoo that said, “Do you really want to sit next to him?”
For entirely different reasons.
I guess badges of nonconformity (or tough guy indications) change with the times. Not so surprising now that I think of it. No ear piercings for a woman seems to have held up to the changing mores well, though. (sigh of relief)
I’m right there with you, too. To me, women who don’t have their ears pierced often appear very natural, sensual and self-willed. Think of Charlotte Gainsbourgh or Julie Delpy, for instance. So I hope you’ll keep your ears the way they came.
In Japan, many women don’t pierce their ears. Instead of piercing, they wear spring-made non-piercing earrings. They don’t pierce their ears because of confucianism.
The Teacher(Confucius) said, “Xiao(respect and being good to parents) is the foundation of virtue, and is what all teaching grows out of. Sit down; I will tell you.
“The body, hair and skin, all have been received from the parents, and so one doesn’t dare damage them—that is the beginning of xiao(respect and being good to parents). Establishing oneself, practicing The Way, spreading the fame of one’s name to posterity, so that one’s parents become renowned—that is the end of xiao(respect and being good to parents). Thus xiao(respect and being good to parents)xi starts with serving one’s parents, progresses with serving one’s lord, and ends with establishing oneself. The ‘Great Refined Odes’ say, ‘Do not just commemorate your ancestors; cultivate your virtue .’”
I personally don’t like ear piercing because I disagree with tearing and making damages to ears only for the beauty.
I don’t think earring make women beautiful.
I will not marry with a woman who have her ears pierced.
I just found this post. I’m a woman in my forties with unpierced ears and boy do people have strong feelings about that. When I was 13 or 14 my friends dragged me to the mall to “get it over with, already” because I was the only girl in school without pierced ears (I’m Canadian, by the way). I begged off claiming to be ill, but really I just bristled at being pushed to doing something so I could be like everyone else, which I never wanted and still do not. I didn’t like those “friends” much anymore either because I never felt they respected me as much as they wanted me to act like I was supposed to. They taunted me about being afraid of a little pain. Nope. I’m a migraine sufferer – piercing holds zero fear for me. Today, I’m so happy I never did it because the standard one hole in each lobe is so common that it’s totally uninteresting to me. I love that I’m different. I hate to see babies with pierced ears because their parents have stolen their right to choose for themselves. You can never return ears to their unpierced state. I don’t care if someone wants to get their whole body tattooed or modded, so long as it is their choice – we each own our own body! By the age of 13, I knew very clearly who I wanted to be. No disrespect to anyone with pierced ears – I just oppose the idea that it’s something we all have to do.