How did you get interested in ear stretching

[xFLAPJACKx]

I was just wondering how everyone got interested in ear stretching?
I have always had a facination with ancient cultures and various other tribes thru africa australlia china ect and just love seeing old black and white photos of people with stretched lips lobes ect and always found it interesting since i was able to pick up my dads encyclopedias that had various information about native tribes and see all these interesting odd people who all seemed to be one with themselves in a kinda euphoric way, I used to see buhdah sculptures my dad whould bring home and see his stretched lobes (Minus his golden plugs) and always find it beyond cool i guess its kinda a dumb question but figured i'd throw it out there

[Hardware]

I had no idea what 'ear stretching' even was at the time I had it done! When I was about 9 years old (in 1991) the big thing was brightly colored plastic earrings and a lot of them were cheaply made. My mom got me a 'pair for every day of the month' pack and began changing my earrings everyday. Well, believe it or not I have severely messed up skin allergies (most likely developed from the 80's when everything was made of unsafe materials and natural selection was at an all time high. Seriously, if you lived in the 80's you know what I am talking about! lol) Anyway, needless to say my ears got irritated and my mom's remedy was Ear Piercing solution, Bactine and hydrogen peroxide (as I continued to wear these crap plastic earrings). Eventually she freaked out when she began seeing a green discharge and a woman with a pierced nose who worked at an accessories boutique (much like Claire's) instructed her to take me to a local tattoo and body piercing shop.

Back then tattoo and body piercing shops were a bit different and many years later I found out that my mom took me to THE WORST shop in town. I remember my mom explaining what was happening with my ears and the piercer explaining that the metal they used was high quality and that irritation was limited. My mom told me to pick out a pair of earrings and so I did, a pair of 10G captive bead rings with light blue beads. I don't remember much of the actual procedure, I do remember the pain and screaming my little fucking head off though. All in all the whole thing was pretty damn traumatic for a 9 year old to go though. My ears healed up eventually but I got made fun of for wearing the jewelry, I told other kids they were 'prescription earrings'

A year or so later my older brother began to bring home tattoo magazines. I would skim through them and see people with earrings like mine (and bigger) with beautiful and colorful jewelry and they were covered in ink. I was obsessed with art at the time so I was hooked on the culture instantly. I think I walked straight up to my mom and said "Mommy, can I pierce my nose?" Mom said no for years and eventually I pierced it myself along with 3 new earlobe piercings when I was 14. Needless to say my mom freaked out and took me to another tattoo shop after she agreed to let me keep them if a professional said they looked okay. I was talking to the piercer (Scott) and I liked his 5/8" earlobes. Scott scolded me for doing my own piercings (but said they looked great for being self done) and we talked for a long time about ear stretching and he thought it was wild that I 'had 10 gauge earlobes before I was even 10 years old!' He gave me all the info I needed to start my path to ear stretching.

I would frequently go hang out in the shop after school to talk to Scott and do my homework, I was a favorite among regulars. Scott would tell me to explain proper piercing aftercare to his clients that wouldn't listen to him. When more kids my age began stretching their earlobes, I was instructing them on how to do it safely and keep them clean. I was also selling tattoo designs to the Seniors of the high school, but I never did learn to tattoo, lol. Ironically 6 years later I became the body piercing apprentice at this very same shop, go figure. As I said before, I feel this lifestyle chose me!

[corazon_de_oro]

^ Wow, your story was really cool to read! Did you have your ears re-pierced at 10G or did they stretch them straight to that?

Anyway, my story isn't too exciting. I had lobe piercings as a kid that were done with guns and none of them ever healed... I had them for about 4 years and they were constantly irritated; it didn't help that I was doing all the wrong things to "help" them either (like twisting the studs and using peroxide... ugh). So I eventually just gave up on them when I was 13. I wanted my ears re-pierced as a teenager and I'd always talk to my mom about getting it redone (still at the mall; I didn't know any better 'til I was almost 18) but luckily I never got around to it. So when I got my first piercing (eyebrow) I really started researching piercings and I learned that you don't have to go to Claire's for an ear piercing... I wanted to go to a professional who uses needles, but I wanted to have more of a selection than labret studs and CBRs so I started looking at jewelry for larger-gauge lobes. So I started reading everything I could find about stretching, and I learned that getting an ear piercing done at 10G was entirely possible and not that traumatic for most people. So I went for it, and six months later I started stretching. =) I just really prefer the look of stretched lobes to super thin earrings that look like they're slicing through the skin. I know my stretches are small but I feel like they suit me and they look much nicer than a standard ear piercing.

[magalo le matelot]

At 13 years old I had a friend that had put 14g navel barbell in her ears and she said to me that she was stretching her ear. I put a barbell in my ear too but my mom took them out haha.

At 15 years old I had my first boyfriend who had 18 mm stretched lobes. I began to meet his friend, and a lot of them had stretched ear (not too big). So I was interested. After we broke up I met another guy who had 1 inch lobes. I decided to get these too because I really liked the look they had, and anyway, I never wore normal earrings; this was too girly for me. And I hated my ears. Stretching would transform my useless 18g holes into something new that I will like.
A friend who had 16 mm lobes lend me some homemade tapers, and my boyfriend (the guy at 1 inch) at the moment buyed me some fimo. So I made my tapers (up to 20 mm) and I began the stretching process. I wanted 20 mm lobes. I had 20 mm lobes in 5 months. After a couple months I dead stretched to 22 mm, and I'm now taping up to 1 inch. I'm really proud of my ears, I like them and I don't regret it. Hope it will never happen!

[magalo le matelot]

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[Uraniumhobo]

5 years old, national geographic, enough said lol

[Nic]

lol when i like 9 i saw a guy with stretched ears and ever since ive wanted to stretch my own ears an finally i did.

[Boffey]

About 3-4 years ago, when i was 11-12. Im only 15 haha. I got into 'alternative stuff' and loads of people from my favourite bands had these 'cool earings' (Which were stretched lobes, before i knew what they were). I had had my ear pierced for not very long so i started to look at them and i didnt have a clue how you would get them, so i looked into it and discovered about stretching. So i asked my mom if i could do it and she said no lol.

About 3-4 months ago, my mate borrowed a 5mm stretcher from someone who had a stretched lobe and said to me that he was gonna stretch his ears, so i said i would too, because i always wanted to, and we went out and bought stretchers and now im at 10mm taping to 12mm.

Not a really interesting story, but hey.

[Hardware]

^ Wow, your story was really cool to read! Did you have your ears re-pierced at 10G or did they stretch them straight to that?

They stretched my poor irritated little ears from 'gun starter' size to 10G and I can still remember the pain! lol course when you are little getting shots at the doctors office is traumatic.
The shop my mom took me to was (and still is) one of the worst parlors in my hometown. I was 9 years old and my mom told me to pick out something I liked, I didn't have the luxury of a good piercer saying "oh sweetheart, those are too big for your ears" and show me my choices in 16G, that piercer just said "okay, lets do it!"

[twosharks]

I must dredge up this thread because I just have to share. I didn't ever intend to stretch my ear piercings in the beginning. I was just a kid around nine years old that noticed that I could stick more than one earring through at a time, often accidentally. Eventually I saw that one of the hoops I'd been wearing in my first lobe piercings had fully turned around. I imagine it was less than 14g, but it amazed me at the time that something so large fit through my ear hole without me trying to make it happen. I had never heard of ear stretching, other than random African tribes that stretched ears and lips and things. I didn't want large holes necessarily, I just wanted to see how many pieces of jewelry I could fit in my holes at once. I wanted to see what I could do over time, it was more of a long term experiment.

It's a stupid way to stretch, and I think the reason it never really damaged me in all that time was that I did it so slowly. I took out earrings when it was sore, and added maybe one every few years. Sometimes I'd take them all out and slowly add them all back. As I got older I met a few people that had access to body jewelry, and learned a bit more about piercings in general. I lucked out and had a good friend that end up being a tattoo artist. She gave me tips and better jewelry. It wasn't until after I was grown that I decided to find out what size my first lobe piercings were, and bought some random steel plugs. One turned out to be a loose 2g, one was a 10g.

The rest were 14g by then (I have a good deal of ear piercings), since I'd decided long ago it's the perfect small size. Now I have a 00g (more like 9mm actually) and a 6g in those first piercings almost a decade later. One of those 14g piercings is now 10g, and possibly another stretch coming up soon. My oldest cartilage piercing is now 12g, and I'm hoping it has one more stretch in it. Maybe not, and no big deal if so. Perhaps I'll stretch this 6g here to 0g, and be able to wear matching sets. Maybe I'll see how large that 10g second lobe can go. I can't ever really tell, I just stretch whenever the urge hits and the time is right, which isn't very often.