Well, let's see, I got my ear pierced back in '86 because my girlfriend at the time told me she'd give me something "special" if I did it.
I left it in for a couple of years, and eventually took it out when I broke up with the girl. Bad news is, the hole is still there today. The even worse news is, that it was there when I went to Marine Corps Bootcamp.
The Drill Instructors just walked down the line and pulled out folks one by one and said "We're going to find all you faggots and make you pay for joining my beloved Corps."
They thrashed us with calisthenics for a good 20 minutes or so, and it wasn't until later that night we figured out what all the alleged faggots had in common: pierced ears.
They pulled us all out a few more times over the course of the 13 weeks and made us pay. What really sucked is they would say, "All the faggots step forward to be punished." Of course none of us would step. So they'd tell us it would be 10x worse on us if we didn't step forward and they were forced to come get us, but we always just took the punishment.
Looking back on the quality of the sex I got out of the girl, it really wasn't worth it. But I was young and dumb. At least I made it through the Marines without getting a Tatoo.