Wearing an ear ring used to be common with sailors, particularly British seamen. The first is that the sailors wore the ear ring so that if their body washed ashore the ring would provide for the cost of their burial. The second explanation is that the ear ring was presented as part of the ceremony when the sailor first went around the Horn. Today, the major justification for a male to get an ear ring is to piss off his father. Perhaps I shouldn't bring up the thoroughly masculine and honorable seafaring tradition of ear rings.
Girls do it too, and they can really drive their fathers crazy.
The fathers are pretty helpless with the girls, but the mothers fight back. Once I had relations with a peacock and I wondered if you might be my son.