What is the gay side
Why Did We Grow Up Thinking a Piercing in the Right Ear Was Gay?
On the playground, it was a truth so firmly established that defying it meant social suicide: If you have an earring in your right ear, it means you’re gay. We accepted it as gospel and never questioned its validity.
It may have been the subtle homophobia of my Illinois community in the ’90s. But as I grew up, it seemed love everyone I met, no matter their place of origin, knew and understood the earring code, as arbitrary as it seems.
It was even solidified in the New York Times: A 1991 report said gay men “often [wore] a single piece of jewelry in the right ear to indicate sexual preference.” In 2009, the Times covered it yet again, in TMagazine: “the rule of thumb has always been that the right ear is the gay one,” the composer wrote about his have piercing journey.
Historically speaking, the truth is more complex. Earrings on guys own signified many things over the years, such as social stature or religious affiliation. In his book The Naked Man: A Examination of the Male Body, Desmond Morris explains that earrings have indicated wisdom and compassion in the stretched earlobes of the Buddha, while pirat
Rise of the sides: how Grindr finally recognized gay men who aren’t tops or bottoms
Every month, nearly 11 million gay men around the world move on the Grindr app to glance for sex with other men. Once there, they can scroll through an endless stream of guys, from handsome to homely, bear to twink. Yet when it comes to choosing positions for sex – a crucial criterion for most queer men – the possibilities have elongated been simply uppermost and bottom. The only other selection available toggles between those roles: verse (for versatile).
“Not fitting those roles has made it really tough to discover someone,” said Jeremiah Hein, 38, of Long Beach, California. “There’s no category to choose from.”
“Whenever I’d look at those choices I’d think, ‘I’m none of those things,’” said Shai Davidi, 51, of Tel Aviv, Israel. “I felt there must be something incorrect with me.”
Last month, however, that finally changed. In mid-May, Grindr added a position called side, a designation that upends the binary that has historically dominated gay male culture. Sides are men who locate fulfillment in every kind of sexual act except anal penetration. Instead, a broad range of oral, manual and frictional body techniques provide
I’m gay and I’m not a top or a bottom – I’m a ‘side’
As a lgbtq+ man, prying strangers and potential hook-ups alike contain asked me one ask more times than I’ve had hot dinners.
‘Top or bottom?’
Words get me out of bed in the morning, and when uttered by the right people at the right moment, they’ve also been acknowledged to get me into bed.
But neither of these – highest or bottom – accurately describe what I opt favor to get up to in the boudoir, so my response has always been a guarded mix of shrug and mumble.
Here’s the tea: I’m actually a ‘side’, a phrase coined by American psychotherapist and sexologist Joe Kort to describe those, favor me, for whom penetrative sex – in either position – does very little.
Getting the peach involved is, quite literally, a pain in the ass, but as for the aubergine, let’s just say that hands and mouths always comprehend the assignment way better.
To continue the food metaphor: if man-on-man action were a dinner party, I’d have zero interest in sitting down to a bland meal when the amuse-bouches are so good.
I confess that I indulged in a lot of sex in my 20s – penetrative sex.
It oddly took yon
Your ear candy carries a surprising amount of controversy. Let’s unpack the debate: Which ear is the gay ear?
Nowadays, there are more people with piercings than without, as Statista’s data indicates that over half of the U.S. population have at least their earlobes pierced. Earrings have evolved into forceful symbols of style and self-expression, allowing individuals to convey their personality through jewelry choices and piercing placement. However, earrings hold also sparked debates over sexual identity, such as the concept of which ear is the queer ear, leading to stigmas over the left and right piercing. For many, this debate has added an extra layer of doubt to a plain fashion choice, opening up broader conversations about culture, expression, and acceptance within the LGBTQ+ community.
Let’s unravel the complicated layers of the “gay pierced earring,” and where this controversial idea of which ear is the gay ear stands today.
American Jewelry: How Pierced Ears Became Mainstream
Earrings gained prominence in the 1920s, with clip-on earrings becoming a sign of wealth and sophistication. However, physical ear piercings remained relatively uncommon and often c
A few years ago when I was looking into nose piercings (it wasn’t until last year that I finally worked up the nerve and got it done) I discovered multiple websites debating which was the ideal side to get it done on.
I learned that in India the left side is preferred because it supposedly makes giving birth easier. I also learned that some people contemplate a particular side to represent sexuality.
Granted, there were no legitimate websites that provided me with this information. My past English teachers would frown if they saw me consuming information from such unreliable sources. Still, I found many of these websites where one would ask “which side should I obtain my nose piercing on?” and people would battle it out in the comments claiming “Get it on the right side! If you get it on the left side, it means you’re gay!” or “No, it’s the right side that means you’re gay!”
I wasn’t too conflicted. Does the average person actuallyknow these so-called “facts” about the connection between nose piercing and sexuality? I assumed then, and still suppose now, that they don’t.
A bigger issue that I had