"The other night I was out to dinner and a girl walks up, drunk, and asks: 'Can I put my finger through your ear?'" celeb piercer Brian Keith Thompson told R29. "I said, 'Please don't', and then she licks her hand and shoves her finger in my ear."
Of all the visible piercings that one could get, stretched ears adorned with gauges tend to be the rarest is 2017 — and therefore garner the most painfully-obvious stares. As you might expect, especially after reading what Thompson deals with, that's just the beginning.
Unfortunately, this isn't exactly a rare occurrence for the celeb piercer, who works with Beyoncé, Scarlett Johansson, FKA Twigs, and many more Hollywood A-listers. "I've had girls come up to me at bars and stick their tongues through my ears or start fingering my ears," Thompson continues, "You're a constant target." (Ironic fact of the day: Thompson first got gauges years ago to impress girls.)
Thompson attributes the constant attention to the fact that ear stretching and gauges have fallen out of vogue as of late — but those that jumped on board years back are still very devoted. Just don't call it a failing trend: "King Tut had stretched ears, Native Americans, too, and a lot of the Aztecs," Thompson tells us. "In ancient history it was actually quite common." (He's right, even Buddha is believed to have had stretched lobes; now it's been popularized in the music world by the ears of Lil Wayne, Adam Lambert, and Gym Class Hero's Travie McCoy.)
We chatted with Thompson about gauges at his L.A. tattoo and piercing studio, Body Electric, with one thing on our mind: What questions are people with gauges totally sick and tired of hearing? His answers, below... READ MORE