Point me in a direction. I have four days without plans and plenty of Ritalin.
Fruit loop! Ah, we were such scamps, once upon a time.
Not that I need your permission, but thanks!
I know you are an ignorant boob whose world is defined by your preconceptions, but did you read my rant’s footnotes?
I do not say this to brag about myself - just stating facts. Among the peers of my teen and young adult children, I’m the “cool mom,” simply because I acknowledge that teens and young adults are as human as I am, and I rememberthat I was an idiot at their ages, and I am able to stay reasonably current on trends and pop culture, without trying to act or dress like a teenager myself. I am sympathetic, empathetic, and I strive to be non-judgmental. And it works. My kids and their friends know that I will talk to them about damned near anything, and give them credit for having their own minds. In turn, these kids pay me the courtesy of listening to what wisdom I gained through experience. I’m a proper Southern middle-aged lady, but we can discuss condoms and gender identity and the pros and cons of drugs and alcohol, along with the correct fork to use for the seafood course and the best recipe for pecan pie and the cultural significance of the traditional New Years Day lucky meal.
Thanks to many years of dialog, and many years of treating a lot of really great kids like the important people they actually are, I’ve had some success at convincing a few young folks to avoid body modifications with potential long-term consequences. Fine, get a tattoo if you want. Make sure it’s positioned in a spot where normal business attire hides it. Find a reputable studio (I have a list.) Dye your hair purple. Wear fashions that your kids will mock in a decade or two. You’re young. You are simultaneously seeking your own path, and following a crowd of your peers. But don’t make a spontaneous decision at 20 that will cost you when you’re 30 or 40. Ear gauges and implanted horns and visible tattoos need a few good night’s sleep. Marrying, having a child - even more consideration. But I remember. Being a kid is tough. Ear gauges are icky (IMHO) but among the easier bad decisions to fix later…
The Devil made you say that, huh?
Yeah, I think so. My non-mutilated self made far worse choices which I’m still trying to overcome.
As soon as I see some dope with these earrings I immediately shake my head.
I once was shopping at a Pearle when I saw the optometrist (?) came out with the looped earlobes; I walked right out. Im sorry, Id love to have a long hair, a beard, and tattoos all over my body too, but I want to make a decent living. If I don’t get to dress like a freak because of my job, in my opinion, neither do you and the fact Pearle allows this dress shows how low rent a company it is.
Some of the larger ear gauges actually make me sick to my stomach. Blech!
My brother’s nephew has one, along with visible neck and arm tattoos, a Mohawk haircut, a ZZ top beard, and a missing front tooth compliments of his ball bearing tongue stud. He dresses almost exclusively in camo pants and t-shirts that loudly express his right-wing politics.
On the other hand, he’s friendly, intelligent, literate, and a really hard worker. He’s a maintenance worker for a large apartment management company, but his co-workers keep getting promoted ahead of him. These promotions involve interacting with tenants. He honestly cannot figure out why he keeps getting passed up. I can’t imagine being a tenant and having him show up at my door.
The girl I wrote about is saving money to go back to cosmetology school. She doesn’t wear any makeup at work, but for Halloween she went from a cheerful near-teen to a dead sexy Beetlejuice with some white base, black lipstick, and just a flash of gray to accentuate her cheekbones. She has some chops, but if I were a middle-aged woman looking for tips on using concealer I’d think twice after seeing her ears.
And her wispy, 3/4"-diameter nose ring is not off to the side, as fashion over the years would place it, but dead center through her columella, like a hog or Ferdinand the Fucking Bull.* But the repair of that consists of no longer wearing a nose ring.
^ Oh, bitch, bitch, bitch–you’re still not getting Yvonne without a fight! HAVE AT YA!! NO MERCY!!
Look, I offered Bridget AND Julia, and you are still doing me like this?
^Oh.
Well.
That’s completely different.
Never mind.
My uncle, who is now in his mid 70s, has a large scar on his forearm. When I was a little kid, I asked him what it was, as little kids will do, and he replied, “I had a tattoo removed.” His whole demeanor said, “Don’t you EVER get one.” IDK what that tattoo was, and knowing what I do about this uncle, I probably don’t want to.
Back then, he had to have it surgically removed and replaced with a skin graft. :eek:
What I want is Bridget and Julia as tag-team hosts, though Chris is the perfect foil, and they need a stupid guy to push around. I get along great with my ex-supervisor, who is rather like Bridget, and told her the other day that it was a good thing I didn’t know her when we were in high school."
“Why’s that?”
“Because you would’ve divorced me twenty years ago because I’m a jerk.”
She demurred prettily, possibly considering me wrong, possibly considering me nuts.
Was he a concentration camp survivor?
No.
He did, however, get in trouble a few years ago for saying he was a Vietnam veteran, when in fact he’s a Vietnam ERA veteran; all his service was stateside.
A woman has the nerve to do something that makes herself less attractive, in your eyes? How dare she!
Well, if this thread has taught me anything, it’s one of the reasons that young people don’t particularly care for old people all that much.
I suspect this won’t happen to any appreciable degree. Most people who have tattoos and other body modifications like having them. Sure, there’s the occasional exception, but there won’t be any massive trend to reverse it.
Indeed! Thank you for your support. 
Another attempt to chasten me, this time of the “dropzone is a misogynist” sort. Common enough, though “dirty, old man” is closer to the truth, but my main point in this thread, as others have noticed, is that this girl needlessly mutilated herself for the sake of a fashion that isn’t even fashionable. Even repaired, her earlobes will be scarred for the rest of her life. She is limiting her professional and personal horizons by making herself look like a freak, and I object to that regardless of the person’s gender or level of attractiveness, partly because I have done it to myself and feel I have personal experience to offer.
Please read the posts by Lacunae Matata and PunditLisa before replying. I trust your judgement, sven, but going off half-cocked without reading the thread is more Drunky Smurf’s territory.
Eh, you knew it was coming. I got to listen to my grandma lament for years that I needlessly mutilated myself by piercing my ears. “I just don’t know why someone would want to go out and poke holes in their ears” was a common refrain in my childhood.
A quick google search reveals a variety of flesh-colored plugs that are no more conspicuous than, say, a hearing aid, as well as plenty of before-and-after photos of perfectly adequate surgical procedures. There are also lots of flat and other more subtle options that wouldn’t stand out unless the ears involved are truly huge or someone is looking for them.
It’s maybe not the smartest thing in the world to do, but it’s not a facial tattoo or anything. She’ll be fine.
If she’s wanting to be a makeup artist, I don’t think it’s a real issue - here’s a well known Swedish blogger/makeup artist with plugs who doesn’t seem to have limited her potential through this. Here’s another with a septum piercing.
So while it’s not to your taste, in that field it’s not going to be a huge problem. MAC for example has no company policy against facial piercings.
Of course I did–this isn’t my first rodeo. 
But I didn’t write or even outline it until you posted because I didn’t know who would make the triggering post. It was my great fortune that it was you, a person I have known, liked, and respected for many years, so I could push all the guilt buttons!
I’m Machiavellian like that.