Apparently the new discerning woman is increasingly worried about the shape of her ear lobes. After years of wearing heavy ear rings, the piercing in the earlobe stretches, leading to an allegedly unsightly sag. Enter a team of dermatologists to repair the terrible damage, a team that claims any other facial work that has been done is aesthetically undone by, yes, the aging ear lobe.
“One patient only wore big, heavy earrings, and part of the reason was that she was trying to cover her stretched-out ears!” Dr. Sobel said. “She didn’t realize that the big earrings were only making the earlobe stretch more. When the hole gets too big it starts to pull the ear down. So we repaired the pierced hole in her ear and injected it, which added volume back, and it looked like her old ear.” This is a common procedure, he added.
I wonder what other kinds of insecurities the beauty industry can dream up that can only be cured with injections of Restylane.
I had my ear lobes stretched by a professional body piercer when I was sixteen or so and only took out the 8-gauge rings this summer when I decided that girly earrings were way more fun (also, work environment, professionalism, blah, etc). My pierced ears are visibly stretched out, and are, honestly, pretty noticeable if I wear any ear rings at all, enough so that co-workers and passersby have commented that it looks like my ear is about to split open. But I don’t have anything on Chef:
And the close-up:
An adolescent Chef had his ear lobes stretched to an inch diameter and wore plugs in them for many years. Because he finds them uncomfortable now, he goes without. Tell your kids: This is what happens a decade after you engage in casual body mod. Bonus: Chef still freaks out the parental units. And me: Sometimes Chef likes to pull a little trick when I look for a lost object. He pretends to help me look for it, unsuccessfully of course. The punchline is when I discover it’s dangling from his ear. My eyeglasses, the telephone, a bike lock, the pen I was just writing with. Romance is a delicate thing.
[Via Jezebel, whose annoying faux-feminist writers also dreamed up an affliction called "vagina arm."]
I’m sorry. But this smells akin to hymen replacement surgery.
If you’ve ever smelled a stretched ear lobe you’d know how accurate your observation is.
Padlock in the ear. I remember those days!
Oh hell, TMI:
I had my nipples pierced for three years (1996-1999), pretty thick gauge. They kept getting infected when i would go on long runs, and so out the hoops came. But man, are they all nasty and distended now. I don’t have pretty nipples. I wonder if I ought to have them surgically altered into the little pencil erasers they once were.
I think the shape/sag/size of one’s ear lobes is a ridiculous thing to worry about.
I’ve pretty much decided to keep my orbitals in indefinitely, although I’ll never up the gauge as my ears just won’t permit it. Jobs be damned; if I can’t rock it with my orbs, it’s not the job for me.
Alright, I’m going to come down as moderately pro the ear fix (although anti- the packaging with the bundle of other insecurities) because of the experience of a family member. My oldest sister wore big earrings (normal sized hole) for decades. Now that she has reached her fifties, she can’t wear any earrings in comfort. The other problem is that they all point down instead of out, even clip ons above a certain weight/size. She’s been talking about having her doc basically put a stitch in to make it so she can wear all her cool earrings again. In her case, it’s not that she’s worried about looking younger or what the hole looks like, but that it’s ceased to be functional for the reason she put it there in the first place.
Binky makes a good point.
I wonder what Chef’s lobes will look like in 30 years.
Sometimes Chef likes to pull a little trick when I look for a lost object. He pretends to help me look for it, unsuccessfully of course. The punchline is when I discover it’s dangling from his ear. My eyeglasses, the telephone, a bike lock, the pen I was just writing with.
HA! Now that’s comedy!
Yeah, the packaging of this is gross, but I can understand wanting to get it if the holes have stretched so that you can’t actually wear earrings anymore, like binky describes.
Gross. I was with my brother-in-law when he got his earlobes stretches. They actually removed the cartilage in his lobes. I nearly passed out watching it.
Upon seeing your comment, I literally thought “OMG!” (Acronym, exclamation mark and all.)
You are my hero. Is it bizarre that when I think of the people who have influenced me in life, you are one of the first that pop up? Especially since I haven’t read your writing for…five years or so? You were my introduction to blogging, but, even bigger, FEMINISM…maybe I would’ve come about it on my own eventually, but I’m glad it was sooner (at 14) rather than later.
Also: Don’t know where I’m at on this. I think it’s really really silly that we have come up with ANOTHER surgery to make you look “younger” and therefore better. But, like Binky’s example, I’d be pretty mad if I’d been wearing super-cool earrings my whole life and then couldn’t (even if the fault was with the earrings themselves).
I thought that stretched lobes were able to grow back to normal. Or are they only able to grow back to normal up to a certain gauge? I know someone who has some big 1 inchers, and he is confident that they will grow back when he decides he doesn’t want them anymore.
After a certain point of stretching they won’t shrink. Chef’s were stretched to one inch, and after about nine years it’s pretty clear they will not grow back on their own. A doctor said they would require surgery to fix. Mine were at a mere 6-gauge and after a couple of years I can now wear normal earrings.