gay ears, christian hankies.

i seem to have lost my last hoop earring. in the last 3 weeks, i've lost all the earrings/studs on my left: starting with the stud, followed by a hoop, and now even the second hoop seems to be missing. the last one may have slipped while i was showering or sleeping but a cursory check of the living room, shower and bedroom didn't show a missing earring. all i have left are are the 3 studs on my right ear.

80s lore states that if your left ear is pierced, you're straight; if it's the right ear, you're gay. the first time i heard that, i found it difficult to believe how straight and gay men agreed to determine which ear is the gay ear. the idea alone is rather ridiculous. it does seem to have some subcultural basis though, when there was a time when a pierced left ear meant one is a sexually dominant gay man, right meant sexually submissive. some other stories say it's the other way around.

so i wonder: what does my ears say now, considering only my right ears have studs? what about then, when i have studs and earrings in both ears?

(gay) identification by the placement of accessories is also associated with how someone wears bandanas in one's pants' back pocket. i've heard stories of how innocent men were dissuaded from putting bandanas in their back pockets because they could be mistakenly identified as something-or-the-other. strangely enough, this also has basis among leather fetishists: certain colors of bandanas worn either on the left or right pant back-pocket meant something, ranging from latino bottom-loving tops to bottoms who get off with carpenter sex.

stranger still, a similar bandana identification has been "adopted" from queer leather culture by some christian practinioners.

okay, so it's really just a joke poking fun at various christian subgroups, but it's still amusing going through the christian hanky code and finding out the appropriate hankies for the believes in a little sprinkle for baptism, literal creationism, or a flat earth.

and no, that's not my ear in the photo.