Thats the reaction I get at least once a week living in a small conservative town with 1/2" inch ear lobes. But it wasn't always that way, it took me about a year to get to this apparently offensive size, and heres how it went:
At A Glance Author Andrew Contact xblackflagx@sbcglobal.net When A year ago Artist Me Studio My Bathroom Location Dayton OH/Florence KY
I got my ears pierced at the mall when I was fifteen on kind of a spur of the moment thing, by the way, I really don't recommend getting ANYTHING pierced by someone Candy that works at a place called Icing, it just won't be good. Trust me.
I was very happy about my shiny new cranium accessories, that is until I noticed they were very uneven. I debated taking them out, letting them heal up, and then getting them repierced, but being the impatient and stupid guy that I am, I just left them in.
So there I was, about a month and a half later, my ears were healed up, and still looked very uneven. My boxing coach at the time had zero gauge ears, and for some reason, I thought it could fix my little problem if I stretched up a little, so I asked him how he did it, and he explained the whole process to me and hooked me up with some twelve gauge captive bead rings.
I ordered some tapers, bought some lube, and prepared to go on my first body mod adventure.
Now, my ears were still the gunned twenty gauge size and I was going to try and shove a twelve gauge taper in there. BAD IDEA! I wrestled with my right ear for at least an hour of blood, pain, and vasoline until I finally got it through, but, I had forget to put the captive bead ring on the back of the taper. I tried to put the jewelry in really quick, but skipping that many gauges causes a lot of swelling, so I failed to get it in. My ear felt like it was about to fall off, so I didn't try to stretch it again until about two weeks later. Pretty much the same story this time, except, I got the captive bead ring in this time. I let out a scream of joy that probably woke up the neighbours seeing as how I did this at about six in the morning on a sunday.
That whole ordeal tought me my lesson about skipping gauges, and hopefully it will convince anyone who is thinking about skipping, not to.
That one painful experience, got me hooked on body mods, I went on the net, bmezine.com specifically, and started looking at lots of pictures of large gauge ears along with other piercings.
I no longer cared about my them being uneven, I was more preoccupied with the thought that twelve gauge was very small, so I ordered some more tapers and some new plugs, and my goal was to stop at six gauge.
I got my stuff in about a week, my ears were not fully healed from the last time, but I didn't really care, I had some ten gauge plugs and they were going in my ears damn it! This was my second mistake in my journey to large gauge lobes. Not only did it hurt stretching more then it did last time, but my ears also got infected because I had torn them quite a bit.
I waited about three months before trying to go up to the next size to make sure that I would be fully healed. This time stretching went off with out a hitch, as did the next stretch to six gauge, my stopping point.
With cool new six gauge plugs, I felt awesome and was showing them off to everyone. Which got me thinking, six gauge is nice, but two gauge is even better! So same story as the last time, got more stuff, got it in nicely, and everything was honkeydory.
I stayed to two gauge for for a while before the stretching bug got to me again. It wasn't long before I found my self at a double zero gauge, at this point I was just playing with my piercings a lot and wearing heavy double flared jewelry all the time which seemed to make my ears stretch them selves out on their own enough to where I could slip the next sizes in without tapering.
It was a long road to half inch ears, filled with pain, steel, and antibacterial soap, but it was a fun one that I would gladly go on again if given the chance. Even the stupid comments that get about them on a regular basis give me an odd sort of satisfaction and are always good for a laugh.
So if you are thinking about stretching you ears, just remember, take your time and don't skip gauges, stretching your ears is not a race, its long scenic journey that should be enjoyed every step of the way.