Kristen Byers

One of my most distinguishing features is my stretched earlobe piercings. I often wonder why people seem to remember me after having met me only once, and my friends tell me, “It’s because you have huge holes in your ears, DUH!”

My parents have never understood why I got into body modification. I’m not sure I know why, either. Maybe it was because the Spice Girls had tattoos and body piercings and I was FASCINATED by them. Then I discovered BME and it was all over. I fell in love with stretched lobes and decided I had to have them.

I started stretching my ears when I was 14, about halfway into my freshman year of high school. At this point, my parents were unwilling to sign for any additional piercings (probably because I was convinced I needed my tongue pierced…glad I changed my mind on that one). I figured I could stretch the lobe piercings I already had.

My lobes were pierced when I was an infant with a piercing gun at some random place in the mall (I know, for SHAME! Blame my parents, not me). Luckily the placement of my holes was decent.

And now, I present to you my pictorial ear stretching timeline, which spans approximately 7 years.

I have been sitting at 5/8″ for about 2 years now. I have quite the collection of plugs in this size, which you can check out on Flickr.

Perhaps I should add a disclaimer here indicating that ear stretching is, for the most part, permanent. I can’t imagine life without my stretched lobes. People often ask me what I’m going to do when I’m older. Well, let me tell you, I CAN’T WAIT! My ears are going to stretch out on their own without me doing any work — it’s going to be awesome. I’m going to be old with saggy 2″ holes in my ears, and I am totally okay with that.

EDITED to show how I hide them when I need to: