Word: ear
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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This epidemic began sweeping campuses about four years ago. Before that, it only struck occasional girls--immigrants who had a grandmother from the old country living with them or beatniks, whose degenerate living made them very susceptible. Then, like syphilis, pierced-ear illness was something to be ashamed of: nice girls just didn't make holes in their ears...
What makes a healthy, unblemished girl decide to poke holes through her ears? The reasons are numerous. At first, it was a challenge and a sign of being off-beat. The girl who had pierced ears belonged to an elite group, whose members, rejoicing in their radicalness, felt a certain kinship to other piercees. The bond resembled that among owners of Jaguar sportscars, who honk loudly whenever they pass a confrere on the road. Also, ear piercing was a method of rebellion against parental authority. Mother, who had worn screw-on button earrings all her life, was horrified...
There are problems, of course. Every piercee lives in fear that sometime the earring will be yanked through the bottom of her lobe. Ear piercing provides a potential modern analogy of the ancient Chinese tortures, in which victims were suspended by their thumbs. One girl, hiking in the White Mountains, found that her earrings were so long that they kept catching on low-droping branches. Finally, she took to wearing a sailor hat for fear that she might keep walking some time when her earring was hooked on a branch a few feet back...
Potential piercees often fear the actual piercing operation, but it is done skillfully, it is really quite painless because of the lack of sensibility in the ear lobes. There are three main schools of piercing, which differ considerably in price and aftereffects: the antiseptic, the abortion and the sadomasochistic...
...antiseptic method requires that a doctor pierce the ears in his office. Mothers approve of this school more than the others. There are several doctors in the Square who pierce ears, and they charge between ten and fiteen dollars. The pain is usually slight, but since doctors are not used to the job, the results are often not too good. One girl who had her ears perced by the doctor found that the hole from the front of her ear did not quite meet the one from the back. So she allowed the openings to close up, and tried again...