this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
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I guess I will explain it for people
This is actually a thing…with piercings
Getting the right ear pieced, also called the gay ear, is a way to signal to others that you are gay. I have no idea if it’s still a thing but growing up if you were getting a piercing the rule was left or both
I have two in my right, one in my left, and have been told many times that its the same thing. More in the right ear apparently makes me gay. Im definitely straight, but I kept my piercings like this for the last 15 years, and wouldnt you know it, the only people telling me thats gay are other straight people. This is certainly just personal experiences, but my personal experience is that its not a 'gay rule' as much as its a 'homophobe rule.' Like you said, pretty sure it was a style or signal in the gay community in the 80s or something, but any more it just feels like an urban legend perpetuated by bigots.
Honestly it just reminds me of the moral panic over "cock ring Ken."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earring_Magic_Ken
(also amusing in this context to note that his earring is in his left ear, so I'm not sure even the homophobes were consistent about this)
I actually always figured it was based in the same logic as flagging. Beware; extremely NSFW link about sex and BDSM.
Do you ever punish those straight people for their mistake by humping their buttholes?
Yes.
Honestly, I don't blame straight people that caught up with the "right ear" thing in the 80's for that they haven't caught up with the fact that it's expired.
Or, as my mom so concisely put it when I was a child, "Right is wrong if you're straight."
She voted for trump, didn't she?
Progressive-leaning lesbian and vehemently anti-Trump, actually. She was very much a part of LGBTQ+ culture in the 90s, and the ear piercing thing was a part of it at the time. Though it really has fallen to the wayside nowadays.
Is this still a thing? I could have sworn it fell away like ten years ago.
Then again, I wasn't sure certain types of pants would ever come back. RETURN TO US, JNCO!
Is 40 years old too old to start wearing JNCO and Sketchers again?
Nope.
Wear JNCOs and healies and then you can look like you're floating around like a Russian dancer
I heard it was the left ear, or any piercing, or it was the right ear, or it was only certain kinds of piercings.
None of it was true.
This was never a very reliable thing ever and certainly isn't anymore. The joke the OP makes is in reference to what it was used for, which was an attempt to attack / stigmatize anyone who did choose their right ear for a piercing perpetrated by small minds. Many of those small minds have now grown into the hateful old bigots that are the base of the GOP.
You should fact check these bigots then
https://pridepalace.lgbt/blogs/news/which-ear-is-the-gay-ear