Today you will see many men wearing earrings – from small silver hoops to studs to mega diamonds. This was not always the case. In your grandparents’ time, earrings for men were simply not available and certainly men didn’t wear them. At the best you could read about long dead pirates like Long John Silver wearing them.
However, native people and aboriginals, both men and women, have been wearing earrings well into ancient history, so from around 3000 BC. Even in the Old Testament earrings for men were mentioned. You can also see male wearing earrings on ancient carved images. The earrings were always attached through holes in the ear lobe, just like today.
In ancient Egypt, for example gold earrings were the favorite choice whereas the ancient Greeks preferred colored gemstones. Earrings were symbols of status, age and wealth.
In so called primitive cultures, earrings supposedly helped to keep evil spirits away. They also helped with ailments. Gold earrings for headaches and also to strengthen weak eyes (gold with emeralds being the best) whereas today we would use eye glasses! Also as mentioned above, pirates and sailors wore hooped earrings.
They were generally very superstitious and thought it would help improve eyesight as well as hearing. Wearing gold earrings also meant that the sailor had either crossed the equator or sailed around the world or even survived a shipwreck.
Earrings for men were popular up to the time of Queen Elizabeth the First in England. Pierced ears also went out of fashion especially when screwback earrings and clip on earrings were created on the 1930s. While in most of Europe even babies get their ears pierced, in Britain pierced ears didn’t become popular again until the 1960s.
Nowadays, men earrings are almost as popular as for women, but not quite. Also gay guy would wear earrings, especially a single one in the right ear.
While this was the case in the 1960s or so and was a sign of homosexuality, today this is not the case. Men and women have the right and the freedom to wear whatever ear jewelry they like.
It also has only been in the last 20 or 30 years that multiple ear piercings became popular and then more for women than men.
Today men can find a huge selection of earrings in many different designs and materials. Some earrings specifically target different groups, for example the hip hop artists and fans. Right now diamond and gold are the most popular materials for earrings for men, but silver and even black earrings are common.
It is important to check if you have any allergic reaction to different metal. Nowadays even most silver jewelry is nickel-free so allergies aren’t a problem. You do have to check though to make sure.
Buying earrings is always a pleasure and you can find them for men in most jewelry stores. You also have a huge selection online. In fact it would be advisable to look at online stores first. You can then at least decide on a certain style and also which metal you would prefer. This might take you a couple of hours but it is research that is well worth it. You might find really unusual designs you like or different combinations of metal and gemstones.
Then you can look in jewelry stores near you or in the local mall and you have more of an idea what you would really like. This way you can also see how they look when you put them on. Shopping both online and offline also enables you to do price comparisons.
Black diamond stud earrings for men are definitely here to stay and give men the opportunity to sparkle just like the ladies.