The cause of a bad experience I had was due to me opening my mouth and letting knowledge slip out in the form of correcting my aunt. See, my family is very old school and strict so honestly I’m the blackest of the black sheep in the family. I love tattoos, piercings, and just overall love things that they hate which is really suffocating and constricting. I basically can’t be my own person and know that when i finally take those steps towards expressing myself in physical ways, I will probably be shunned or disowned. My very set in her ways aunt had come in from Texas and she had decided to kidnap me for a shopping trip to the mall, I had wanted to go into hot topic and Spencer’s because they sell tunnels, plugs and a whole bunch of other things. See I’ve gone in with family members before and had successfully bought my plugs without their notice, they are extremely against most body modifications so they have been left in the dark. I had ditched my aunt in the funny and perverted shirts and fake pregnancy test area and had gone to browse the cases full of beautiful wood, acrylic and glass plugs, tunnels, tapers.

She had found me there just after I had asked an employee to get a couple items out where that employee had gone off to get the key. My aunt looked at the items on display to bust out into a judgmental rant about stretched ears, how people are ruining their bodies and that they could never fix their ears, that she wanted me to swear never to do anything like that and "could you imagine how all these people are going to look when they are old, pushing a stroller with their ear lobes touching their shoulders all saggy ". while she had been ranting I had continued looking through the items and casually correcting her about what it takes to stretch, how far you can go before no longer able to turn back, and how to take care of and maintain healthy stretched lobes while having forgotten about the modified employee. What was bad though was when the employee had come back, opened the case and pulled a bunch of plugs I wanted, to than ask me if that was all, my aunt had interrupted saying " that’s not what she wants, she doesn’t have stretched ears silly. She needs earrings" to look up at me, giving me the perfect view of the moment it dawned on her. I was absolutely terrified of the question I knew she would ask because I knew I couldn’t lie and that there was possibility of her going and telling my grandmother. It had gotten very quiet before she had opened her mouth to which I quickly interrupted with a "don’t ask if you don’t want the truth and don’t tell her". I was a mass of irrational fear at what was happening. I didn’t know that she was going to simply tell me I was eighteen, that it was my body and my decisions.

My initial reaction had been mostly annoyance over how someone could say those things but not even have any real knowledge on the subject. I was disgusted at some of her comments but i knew she had all rights to her opinions. Those were her feelings on stretched ears and honestly it couldn’t hurt mine. I love my stretched ears and was terrified of her possibly snitching to my grandmother who had made passing comments about bodily harm if I ever stretched my ears. I’ve been doing it for roughly two years and it’s been my only real expression. I hated that I was afraid of something that shouldn’t even be an issue. That it’s all kinds of wrong to be afraid of another’s actions when your body is your own to do with as you please. I was saddened over how negative my aunt was before I admitted the truth. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, yet it was overwhelming horror at her knowing about them.

I had wished it never happened but looking back i saw that it having happened, really helped boost my need to continue pushing against the limitations and restrictions that I have been bound by. I no longer wish it hadn’t happened. In a way it’s a relief that I didn’t have to hide it from her or make excuses on not wearing stud earrings, she was proud of me for doing something i really wanted regardless of that it could get me in deep trouble. She became even prouder when I vocalized that it didn’t matter if I was caught, I would rather be kicked out than to have to let my ears close up and that I would take a stand and hold firm on it. She told my uncle and he didn’t have an issue with them either, it’s the closest thing I've ever gotten to acceptance. This experience made me learn that I really should have more control over my own body and what I do to it. That it’s not my grandmother's decision if I stretch my ears or get my belly button re-pierced. It was the first time I had a family member bluntly tell me that it was my own decisions. It was reassurance that I wasn’t the bad guy for wanting things they didn’t approve of.