Padlock Earrings

[LizSmith]

A few weeks ago my 16 year old daughter started wearing a tiny brass padlock as an earring. (She wears ordinary earrings as well, the padlock is in an extra piercing in her left ear-lobe.) Some of her friends do the same, and I thought it was just teenage fashion until last week I asked her to take it out (we were away for the weekend at a family wedding).

She said she couldn't, because her boyfriend has the only key. Apparently all her friends are doing it, when a girl has a steady boyfriend she wears a padlock earring to show she's "taken". I went ballistic and we had a big argument.

According to her, it's a good thing because it shows people she's in a faithful relationship and doesn't sleep around. It stops other boys bothering her. When I said I didn't like the idea of women being marked as "taken", she rolled her eyes and said "Duh ... wedding ring!". But she can't get it off ... "... lots of people can't get their wedding rings off." But what if she wants to dump him? Duh! She goes back to the little shoe-repair-locksmith shop that sells the padlocks and has it cut off. "Easier than getting a tattoo covered up, right mum?" (Ouch ... she knows I do have a cover-up tattoo over an ex-boyfriend's initials.) Anyway, I lost the argument and she wore her padlock earring to the wedding . Her cousins were impressed.

But am I the only one to feel a bit uneasy about this fashion? I totally understand her "stable relationship" and "more sensible than a tattoo" arguments, but I still lost my cool when I heard that the boyfriend has the key, and I don't know why. Am I being over-protective here? Does anyone here wear a padlock earring, or have friends/children who do?

[Rose-of-London]

You mean your daughter TRUSTS A BOY NOT TO LOSE A KEY? Well, teenage boys are well-known for having tidy rooms, with everything in its place ... so I suppose that's OK ...

Seriously, if I wore a padlock earring, I would get him to unlock and re-lock it every week just to make sure he keeps track of where the key is!

And seriously again, cutting the locked padlock off may not be as easy as she thinks. Google "removing padlock earrings" or go here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxDcEqLqHCQ

and show your daughter the video of a girl called Chrisy having her padlock earrings cut off. After that you'll probably both think a tattoo would have been easier (and MUCH safer).

Admittedly if your daughter's lock really is "tiny" it won't be quite that bad, but then padlocks are intentionally made to be as hard as possible to remove when locked ... just how small is hers? She may be more committed than she thinks.

Still, the heart has its own reasons ... when I was her age, I got a tattoo of my boyfriend's name. And had to get it covered up two years later. But I've never regretted the whole experience.

[LizSmith]

Thanks Rose for replying to a newcomer so quickly!

You mean your daughter TRUSTS A BOY NOT TO LOSE A KEY? Well, teenage boys are well-known for having tidy rooms, with everything in its place ... so I suppose that's OK ...

My sensible girl has thought of this. Apparently he has one key threaded on a chain he wears round his neck, and keeps the other safe at home, so it's not likely he'll lose both on the same day. They've agreed that if he ever does lose one of them, they'll buy a new padlock and start again with two keys. "Trust me, mum. Duh!"

Seriously, if I wore a padlock earring, I would get him to unlock and re-lock it every week just to make sure he keeps track of where the key is!

Actually, it seems he does sometimes unlock it if they're out together and it spoils her look. ( "Can't do that with a tattoo, can you mum?") He allows her a few padlock-free hours and then snaps it back in place when they say goodbye. He decides when unlocking happens but basic rule is if she's out of his sight, she has to wear the lock. Apparently some girls think even this is cheating, and lock ought to be worn 24/7, but daughter is not so hard-line.

And seriously again, cutting the locked padlock off may not be as easy as she thinks. Google "removing padlock earrings" or go here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxDcEqLqHCQ

and show your daughter the video of a girl called Chrisy having her padlock earrings cut off.

Watched video. Swore out loud. Made daughter watch video. Daughter unusually quiet, and starts fingering lock, perhaps to judge its size compared to the ones Chrisy is wearing.

Afterwards, it turns out that she does not know anyone who actually has had a lock cut off. Her friends all said it would be no problem. But they've only been doing this for a few months, no messy break-ups yet, so no experience. Daughter thoughtful, promises to ask around about this.

Admittedly if your daughter's lock really is "tiny" it won't be quite that bad, but then padlocks are intentionally made to be as hard as possible to remove when locked ... just how small is hers? She may be more committed than she thinks.

Daughter's lock is solid brass, about the size of a squared-off 1p coin but much thicker, and a little heavier than a pound coin. It's the kind they sell for attache cases and laptops with security brackets. The part that goes through her ear (the bow? the shackle?) is hard stainless steel and looks quite strong to me. When we had the original argument at the wedding, I thought all we had to do was call in at a hardware shop for some pliers or a hacksaw. Now I've had a good close-up look at it, I'm glad we didn't try that, we'd have turned up late with a very flustered daughter still wearing a slightly scratched padlock.

Daughter says the piercing was done in one go with a 10-gauge needle and sleeper ring. It's a bit behind the ordinary piercing in her left ear (it's apparently always on the left). I did notice when the chunky little ring appeared in her ear around Christmas, but 10-gauge piercings aren't uncommon nowadays and I didn't know then what she was planning ... she says after it had healed it needed to be stretched very slightly for the padlock shackle to go through smoothly, so that's how thick the shackle is, 10-gauge plus a bit. Perhaps someone who knows more about metalwork than I do could say how hard it is to cut through 10-gauge hardened stainless steel.

Obviously getting the piercing ready takes time and planning, and daughter says this is a good thing. You can't just put a padlock in on the spur of the moment ("unlike a tattoo, eh mum?") and you can't be pressured into it by your boyfriend if you haven't already got the piercing. Hmmm.

One more detail about her lock, it has the word "Zone" stamped on both sides. This is not (as I pretended to believe) the boyfriend's gangsta nickname, but the manufacturer's. Even daughter admits this is tacky.

So now we've managed to have a sensible conversation about the whole thing, and she was smiling for at least part of it. I've decided to get off her case now and let her get on with her exams.

But the whole thing still gives me an uneasy gut feeling, and I agree with you that getting it off if things go wrong may not be easy. I suspect my girl is stuck with wearing her earring until her boyfriend agrees to unlock it.

Still, the heart has its own reasons ... when I was her age, I got a tattoo of my boyfriend's name. And had to get it covered up two years later. But I've never regretted the whole experience.

Oh I sympathise! But if she wants to declare "In a Relationship" why on earth doesn't she use Facebook like everyone else? Actually she has, obviously, but ...

I wonder if Facebook could bring in an "electronic padlock" where you have "I love Name" put on your page, and it stays there until Name removes it?

But that padlock through her ear is just so PHYSICAL ...

[Rose-of-London]

Ah. 10-gauge steel might be a job for a fire-station. Isn't that where couples have to go when the role-playing goes wrong and they lose the handcuff keys? (I do NOT have personal experience of this!) They have bolt-cutters and stuff. And I'm sure they'd get a good laugh out of it.

And what does her school say about such unusual earrings? Do they have a dress code?

As for what's making you uneasy, is it the men-treating-women-as-owned-objects sexist look of it? He's treating her like luggage? On that topic, why isn't the boyfriend wearing a padlock locked by your daughter? Or is he?

I wonder if Facebook could bring in an "electronic padlock" where you have "I love Name" put on your page, and it stays there until Name removes it?

I love this idea. And as a fellow tattooed woman, I have another one: an "electronic tattoo", where you pay Facebook £100 to put a design on your page. And it stays there for life, or until you pay Facebook £1000 to remove it. All the drama and expense of being tattooed, with no pain or medical risk! And I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg could use all that money ...

[LizSmith]

As promised, daughter has done some research into cutting off padlocks. All friends have now seen Chrisy video. Nobody knows anyone who has actually had their padlock cut off. However they do know of a girl in another school who has dumped boyfriend but is still wearing lock. Her friends are trying to persuade ex-bf to give her the keys. Daughter doubts they will succeed. Meanwhile girl hiding lock with hair.

Daughter then went to shoe-repair-locksmith shop where her padlock came from. First she pointed out that model on the shelves. "If I locked something with that and lost the keys, could you cut it off?" No problem at all. Bring it in. Then she showed him the lock through her own ear. "So you could cut this off?" No. No chance. No possibility of using tools so close to flesh, too much chance of drawing blood and being sued. (And to judge by Chrisy video, he is absolutely right.) Sure that every other shop would say the same. Suggested going with parents to, yes, fire station. (There is one quite close.)

Apparently none of her friends had thought to ask the second question, probably because they didn't want to say what they were going to do with the lock.

She may be more committed than she thinks.

Oh yes.

Flurry of calls and texts to friends, followed by second wave of calls from friends to bf's to check that keys not lost. Especially from 24/7 girls who haven't seen the keys since they were given their "earring", in some cases two terms ago (when this fashion seems to have started, at least round here).

However, daughter shrugs off these new developments. "So it's hard to get off. Isn't that the point?" She has decided to put it all to one side and concentrate on her exams for the next few weeks. I agree wholeheartedly.

And what does her school say about such unusual earrings? Do they have a dress code?

They do, and it's officially studs only (allegedly for health and safety reasons). But many girls do wear rings and small hoops. Daughter says some of the padlock-wearing girls have been talked to by staff, initially to make sure they are being worn by choice. (She has the impression the staff thought there might have been some kind of girl-gang-bullying-initiation-ritual thing going on.) Once they were reassured that it was the girls' free choice, they decided to downplay the issue and turn a blind eye, since the girls are all in the run-up to exams and about to leave school anyway (if they come back into the sixth-form they can wear what they like). Some girls were informally advised to wear their hair so as to keep the lock out of sight as far as possible.

Also there would have been practical problems. Normally an unsuitably-dressed pupil would be sent home to change, but if nobody at home has the key? In theory they could contact the bf and say "Your girlfriend is suspended until you give her the keys", but was anybody really going to do that just before the exams?

So the girls are wearing their "earrings" in the exam hall, and the school is hoping it's just a passing fad to be forgotten by September (there have been a lot of these). I don't know what other schools are doing though.

As for what's making you uneasy, is it the men-treating-women-as-owned-objects sexist look of it? He's treating her like luggage? On that topic, why isn't the boyfriend wearing a padlock locked by your daughter? Or is he?

He is not. It's entirely a girl thing. I don't know why, and asked daughter. "Because it would look gay on a boy." I don't think this is prejudice. She has discussed it with gay friends, and they too say it would look gay on a boy.

And bf is certainly not a sexist pig. He is always courteous and truly seems to care for her. If anything, daughter is the bossy one in the relationship, from what I've seen. Maybe this is why the padlock thing works for them, kind of evens things up.

And among daughter's friends, it does seem to be the more independent-minded girls who wear the padlocks. Though perhaps the timid ones would like to but don't dare. It's certainly not a sign of submissiveness.

With "Zone" stamped on it, however, it does look like a sign of being luggage. Daughter agrees (and actually laughs). Older brother of friend says it can be ground off and replaced with engraved initial of bf, and she is going to investigate this. But not till exams are over.

an "electronic tattoo", where you pay Facebook £100 to put a design on your page. And it stays there for life, or until you pay Facebook £1000 to remove it.

You are definitely onto something there! And you could have a privacy setting, where you can choose "Everybody can see my tattoo" or "Only my friends can see my tattoo". If you could do that with real ones, I might have had more! I only have one (cover-up on my shoulder) but it is quite visible, as daughter has been reminding me recently.

Thanks for talking to me, by the way. It's been a lot easier for daughter to read these posts and then comment on them than to do it all face-to-face. At least on this issue, which began with a big argument. And your advice has been very helpful.


Anyone else out there have any views on this? Am I being too protective, too tolerant or just too long-winded? It does help to write it all down, if only so that daughter can see what I'm worrying about.

[kilt/skirt/skort]

Strange - NO mention of going to a Locksmith who could have the lock unlocked in less time than anyone else.

k/s/s

[KiltyCol]

Strange - NO mention of going to a Locksmith who could have the lock unlocked in less time than anyone else.

k/s/s

Good solution!

[rawgaiauk]

Good to read it out. Padlock story ....

[LizSmith]

Well now.

Strange - NO mention of going to a Locksmith who could have the lock unlocked in less time than anyone else.

Good solution!

Well, yes, locksmiths, obviously. Everyone involved is well aware of locksmiths. Daughter wishes to make it clear that she is not a complete idiot, which is why, as we wrote,

Daughter then went to shoe-repair-LOCKSMITH shop where her padlock came from

Seriously, guys, I don't want to start an argument with people who have been in this forum a lot longer than I have, but did you really read the post you were replying to?

As for the "... who could have the lock unlocked in less time than anyone else" part, you seem to be wrong. I am no expert, so will just summarise conversation daughter reported with locksmith last week. He did seem to think she was a bit of a damsel-in-distress, so took time to explain exactly why he couldn't rescue her. Perhaps I abbreviated it too much in my previous post, they did discuss non-violent ways of getting padlock off as well as cutting.

Apparently there are four gentle ways locksmiths can open a padlock. First, master key. But daughter's lock is a Zone 10/15/BR/V ( I know because I've just bought another the same) and this range has no master keys. In fact no luggage padlocks have master keys because everybody just uses bolt-cutters.

Second, use keys from another identical lock. But Zone range has thousands of possible keys. It's not like those light silver-coloured luggage padlocks you buy at airports, which often do have same keys. Actually daughter knew this wouldn't work because girls had (unsuccessfully) tried their keys in each other's locks.

Third, try to pick through keyhole. But almost no locksmiths know how to do this with small high-quality locks, it's not in their training because it's tricky and time-consuming, time is money and it's always quicker to use a bolt-cutter on a padlock. And the smaller the lock the harder it is to pick.

Fourth, try to pick through gap where shackle enters body of lock using, she thinks he said, a "shim", like opening a Yale lock with a credit card. He actually tried this on her lock but failed, gap too narrow on a lock this small.

This leaves only violent methods, of which there are many. Cut shackle, drill out body mechanism, freeze lock with liquid nitrogen until brittle then shatter with sledgehammer ... but all involve big tools too close to flesh, he lacks necessary experience and his insurance doesn't cover risk of injury to customer. That is why he advised going to firemen, they are professionals in flesh-vs-metal situations. I think other locksmiths would say the same. They are not willing to tackle a padlock through an ear, unless it's a toy that can be dealt with using pliers.

Having said all that, it's not like some magic device that can only be opened using supernatural powers. It's only a £5 luggage lock, and in a real emergency (MRI head-scan etc) it would be off her in two minutes. Hospitals have bolt-cutters just like firemen.

But it's secure enough that she'll never be able to get it off by herself (ie without help from the grown-up world), and that's secure enough for the game. Because this is a game that the girls are playing, flirting with "mild jeopardy" (as the parental advisories say) and pushing their boundaries a bit, and one of the unspoken rules is "no help from the grown-up world".

So when I wrote "I suspect my girl is stuck with wearing her earring until her boyfriend agrees to unlock it", I was looking at it from within the game, as it were, because I'm now OK with her playing out the game. But perhaps I should have added "... barring emergency situations requiring adult involvement, hospitals and firemen."

[Rose-of-London]

... going to a Locksmith who could have the lock unlocked in less time than anyone else.

... or so you would think. That's what everyone thinks, but picking a padlock is apparently not so easy. (See LizSmith's post above.) That's why locksmiths always prefer to cut the shackle, which is why I posted my original warning that even that might be a problem.

Look again at the Chrisy video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxDcEqLqHCQ . Do you really think it hadn't occurred to Chrisy and all the men around her that it might be easier to go to a locksmith first? If it's true that she put them in to stretch her ear-piercings, she would have been wearing them for weeks? months? - plenty of time to consider the problem after she lost the keys, and to visit all the locksmiths in town. I think we have to assume they did that, found nobody able to pick the locks, and turned to the grinder as a last resort.

Or do you think the video was staged or faked in some way? It seems pretty genuine to me.

And the same goes for all the other YouTube videos of people having padlock earrings cut off - do you really think not one of them had heard of locksmiths? I think the locksmiths had all been tried, and failed.

Strange - NO mention of going to a Locksmith ...

Actually, re-reading my original post, it's true that I didn't mention locksmiths explicitly. But that's because I thought we were already assuming all the stuff I've just written down.

We could really do with some more hard information. Has anyone reading this actually seen a small high-quality padlock being picked? And the smaller the lock the harder to pick, so those big clunky ones they do on YouTube don't count.

[kilt/skirt/skort]

So we are not dealing with costume jewelry !
It was presumed that when you buy locks from a luggage store that are made to lock luggage these are the inexpensive low grade type.
If you are using cyber-space age advanced locks made out of materials that are just as expensive as platinum with a very limited
number of keys made with a multitude of combinations - well now that is a whole nother story !
I sort of picture this like the person who dons a chastity belt made out of the same space age materials with fancy lock and then somehow
the key is damaged; lost or the keyhole is compromised and good golly how do you get this person freed ?
So instead of an engagement or wedding ring on the finger - this senario evolves to wearing an expensive difficult to remove lock on the
ear lobe as a sign of commitment.
Oh well - to each his own and the devil for all of us !

k/s/s

[Rose-of-London]

About the Chrisy video - at first I was a bit sceptical about her story of putting the padlocks in to stretch her piercings; I thought it sounded like a cover story, and really somebody else had been involved (vengeful ex-boyfriend? bitchy rival girl? drunken bet? - who knows ...). But then I found this:

http://www.ehow.com/way_5278542_tips-gauging-ears.html

which suggests, yes, using padlock earrings to stretch piercings ... so there might be hundreds of people out there doing it. It even warns you to keep the shackle really clean (though with shiny stainless steel I can't see that being much of a problem).

Also, I'm sure people wore them back in the punk era (which I remember well). A padlocked chain around the neck was definitely part of the look if you were a punk, of whichever sex, and earrings were the next step. And the whole point was to declare your independence and make the grown-ups uncomfortable, which I think we agree padlock earrings still do.

Speaking of which, LizSmith, how are things between you and your daughter now?

PS

a privacy setting, where you can choose "Everybody can see my tattoo" or "Only my friends can see my tattoo"

Yes! Yes! This idea just gets better and better. And you'd have unlimited space. It's coming up to 45 years since my first tattoo and I'm running out of places I want to be tattooed.

[LizSmith]

Things much better with daughter now.

With hindsight, feeling rather stupid that I didn't notice all this much earlier. But padlock was usually concealed under hair or behind dangly earrings (as much to hide from teachers as from me, I think now). It was only at wedding three weeks ago (seems much longer), with hair up and plain hoops, that I really looked at it properly. Hence argument.

However, got used to it now, especially after two weeks of really hot weather when daughter was wearing hair pulled up and back, and only sleepers in other holes, so padlock very much on show. She has done most exams like this. Declaration of independence! End of compulsory school! Only a pity hot weather ended just when halfterm began. Still, done loads of maths revision. Back to exams on Monday.

Boyfriend collected her for Jubilee party, unlocked padlock and let her spend evening without it. But she was wearing it again when he dropped her off afterwards. Seems normal now.

As for punk thing, that's what I thought padlock was at first, small-scale punk revival. When I started this thread I expected to get comments like "Oh yes we all did that in school". Or our parents did! I thought it was one of those obvious ideas each generation rediscovers for itself, like tan-branding and stuff like that.

[Rose-of-London]

Good luck to your daughter with the exams!

Punk padlock earrings haven't died out, only moved up-market, as I've just found by googling. See here for a supermodel wearing one ...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-O_T-hP8f8lM/T ... g+etro.jpg

Although the blog is called glitzngrime, so we're presumably supposed to be just a bit shocked. Do you think there might be something Freudian about the disturbing effect of a padlock through an ear?

[manoj9585]

In my opinion jewelry is for fashion not to show any relationship kind of thing and your thinking is nice and I think that you should talk with your daughter and her boyfriend as well.

emerald rings