What Does Men Wearing Earrings Represent?
Men have worn earrings for as long as civilization has existed. Jade earrings dating to 3000 BC have been found in Southeast Asia. Many of those earrings adorned men, not women. Modern day questions about what earring wearing symbolizes for men are rooted in phobias about sexuality and gender. The basis of those phobias is the belief that gender is a strict binary relationship, that one can only be one or the other, and that anything that does not make it absolutely clear what gender you are takes away your masculinity and makes you a homosexual. Binary genderism requires an all or nothing approach to gender expression. The reality, though, is that trends come and go as fashions rooted in historical necessity fade into obscurity.
