do you have your ears pierced?

what age were you when you first got it done?

my mum was openly horrified by the idea and said I couldn't have it done until I was 18 which I find pretty absurd but I didn't particularly want to have it done anyway it's very weird like tagging yourself as livestock or something

my friend is taking her daughter to have it done for her 10th birthday, which is why it came to mind

10 seems a perfectly reasonable age

lol @ 18

maybe she was worried I would get caught in something and rip my ear off, which is not an unreasonable fear in my case

I took my friend's daughter to have hers done when she was 8.

I took her to a tattoo parlour in Bath, while her mum waited outside with the baby.

She came out with professionally pierced ears and saying, "I'm NEVER getting a tattoo!" which I think her mum considered an excellent result all ground.

ouch!

this reminds me, I really have an instinctive dislike for people with pierced noses

they just think they're so GREAT and fooking alternative as they head off to their fooking day of deskjockeying

(apologies to any roffolk whom I love who have pierced noses that I haven't noticed)

First piercing when I was about a year old. My family are traditional Indian jewellers by trade (i.e literally melting down blocks of gold and creating the jewellery from scratch, so piercings and jewellery are very very usual (and expected). My grandad did my ears with a hot copper wire I have been told.

I now have about 11 piercings in my ears (culturally very normal for me), mostly done by different members of my family. Also (sorry Clergs!) have my nose pierced, but again less because I am edgy and more cultural norms (even my grandma has her nose pierced

I was 4 I think.  The girls in my class had pierced ears and I harangued all the adults in my life until they relented.  My aunt pierced them for me using a needle.  I don't think they even had ice cubes at the time.  Anyway my screams were so loud and wrenching the neighbours all came out to see what was wrong and found me screaming that I didn't want the second one done because the first one hurt so much.  I have no recollection of the second hole being made.  But time goes by and we laugh about it now.

Why tho?  We used a needle, no ice cubes and neosporin leftover from the war because we didn't have anything else.  But wtf would you do with a sharp stud and an ice cube otherwise?

16, parents were a bit annoyed.

I don't like sleeping in earrings and am always forgetting to put them in. Then I will realise I've not worn any for a couple of months and have to force them into closed up piercings.

Did this yesterday, it really hurt. So I sort of redo it myself regularly, I just grit my teeth and shove an earring in. A bit surprised it's never gone icky.

Our 6 year old wants it done, a couple of her pals at school already do. Mrs G (whose issue this one very much is) is divided, she had hers done around 12 at Claire’s Accessories who still do it now but charge £65 which is a lot apparently. 

Under 12 the done thing is to do both ears at the same time so as to avoid sizzlers’ problems. 

I though you would buy the entire contents of Claire's for £65. Seems a lot.

I went to the jewellers in the local town. School did not permit even plain studs so I went on the last day of summer term in a queue of other girls doing the same, so you could leave them in until September.

I had mine done when I was a baby.  Then a few more over the years, and finally my tongue in my mid twenties.  I am constantly tussling with the urge to get a load more, but I'd have to go to a specialist place to get the ones I want, and I just haven't got around to it yet.

I was finally allowed to get my ears pierced during the summer between year six and senior school 

 

when at university I worked for Claire’s Accessories and would be piercing children as long as they had their certificates 

My mum convinced me & my sister that it was horribly painful, would get infected etc so now it feels like we’re practically the only adult women in the UK who’ve never had their ears pierced.

Didn’t stop my mother in law from buying me earrings a couple of years ago (been together c 20 years!)

Yes, bloke here, one ear, aged 16.  In 1982.  If you liked new wave music, it would have been bad form not to.  Then got both pierced, and kept them all the way through college. 

The distinction I draw is whether done for decorative reasons, ro done to signify that you're a gimp.  

Ear-rings, being decorative, are fine, but not the self-abuse ones which stretch the ear lobe.  Nose rings and tongue rings etc, just for gimps I'm afraid