The gay side
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 think about 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 fetch 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 consider now, th
Rise of the sides: how Grindr finally recognized same-sex attracted men who aren’t tops or bottoms
Every month, nearly 11 million gay men around the world leave on the Grindr app to look 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 gay men – the possibilities have long been simply top and bottom. The only other preference available toggles between those roles: verse (for versatile).
“Not fitting those roles has made it really tough to find someone,” said Jeremiah Hein, 38, of Long Beach, California. “There’s no category to decide from.”
“Whenever I’d look at those choices I’d reflect, ‘I’m none of those things,’” said Shai Davidi, 51, of Tel Aviv, Israel. “I felt there must be something untrue 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 society. Sides are men who find fulfillment in every kind of sexual perform ex
Which Ear Is the Queer Ear? Which Ear Is the Straight Ear?
Which ear is the gay earring? The idea of a "gay earring" based on which ear it's worn in is a stereotype that became popular in the s and s.
According to this outdated faith, wearing an earring in the right ear signified being gay, while the left ear was considered straight. However, today this notion is widely considered irrelevant and outdated.
Which Ear Is the Gay Ear?
You might recall hearing that if a man wore an earring on the right ear, that meant he was gay. The term "gay ear" was often used. Around the s, people began to catch on that a right-ear earring was effectively a code for organism gay. At the alike time, the left ear is straight.
As time went on, earrings as a whole became more well-liked, and even some linear men opted to pierce their right ear. It soon became clear that the "gay ear" was no longer a faithful way to tell if a man was homosexual or not.
The "gay earring" fad lasted until the s. But wearing an earring on the right ear is still a popular choice. And as ear piercings on both men and women are bec
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 like 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 report said gay men “often [wore] a single piece of jewelry in the right ear to indicate sexual preference.” In , the Times covered it yet again, in TMagazine: “the rule of thumb has always been that the right ear is the gay one,” the author wrote about his own piercing journey.
Historically speaking, the truth is more complex. Earrings on guys have signified many things over the years, such as social stature or religious affiliation. In his book The Naked Man: A Study of the Male Body, Desmond Morris explains that earring