Sometimes in life you need to do certain aesthetic things to prove something about your identity. Maybe it’s hiding the greys in your hair by going peroxide blond. Maybe it’s getting a massive Black Flag tattoo on your belly. For me, it was doing something that I waited almost 30 years to commit to, an idea rooted in the kind of outdated rebellion that I probably picked up from a George Michael music video – it was getting my ears pierced.

I wasn’t allowed to get my ears pierced until I turned 13, at which point I decided that it wasn’t cool any more (or at least that was the story I was sticking to – my dad had his ear pierced, so it didn’t hold big rebel energy for me anyway). It was only last year at the age of 29 that I decided it was time to take the plunge. Despite recommendations from chic workmates about studios that “design your ear” for you, whatever that means, I made an appointment at a cheaper, but still clean and respectable beauty centre, for my piercing.

The curated ear: why delicate, decorative piercings are the new tattoos Read more

“I want to use a needle, if possible,” I said confidently to the piercer, having heard that a needle produces cleaner and thus more sophisticated results than a gun. The piercer frowned. “Ah ... why?” she said, with a look of incredulity, as if I had asked her to pierce my ear with the shard of a diamond or a carrot. I was ashamed. I mumbled, “Don’t worry!,” and she proceeded to gun my ears in peace. I was new to this world, after all.

Having my ears pierced once didn’t satiate me. I wanted to feel more dynamic. I know that I am not old, but now that I’m 30 I don’t feel young-young any more. I’m older than I was, and that’s something. About a month ago I decided that I needed to go bigger. I needed the aesthetic currency of rebellion on my head, for all to see. I needed two more holes in my lobes before I was through.

While I know that getting a second piercing (in your EARS no less! Not you tongue or eyebrow or lip or belly button or nipple or butt, if that’s possible) belongs to a definition of rebellion that you’d probably find in a 1950s anti-vandalism PSA, it still appealed to me. I only have one tattoo and it’s too small for anyone to mistake me for a dynamic individual. I was pretending that I wanted the piercings because they looked aesthetically interesting when really I just thought it would look cool – something you should never admit to wanting to be, because it’s a very uncool thing to admit.

Had I really thought that something as shallow as a new earhole would re-energise me?

“I’m going to get more piercings,” I said to people at work, who smiled politely while I showed them reference images. This time I didn’t make an appointment at a light-filled beauty salon with delicate studs on display – my rebellion had a ticking clock on it. Instead I went to the only place that would take me after work – a waxing and piercing chain (what a one-stop shop!) housed in the dark underground level of a shopping centre in the city centre.

“I only got my ears pierced for the first time last year!” I said to the piercer. “Oh really?” she said sweetly, because what do you say to that. Now that I was sitting down on the plastic chair covered by a plastic sheet, I could see that this person was at least 10 years younger than me, maybe more. She had heavy eyeliner, dead straight hair and a big tattoo on her arm, dedicated to someone who had been born in 2006. ‘That was the year I graduated high school,” I almost said, but didn’t say. The piercer asked where I wanted my second piercings and I admitted that I was quite stressed about the exact location, not knowing how far away it should be from my original set. “You decide, I trust you!” I said shrilly, to which she shrugged and got to work. I wondered how ridiculous I seemed to her. In less than a minute she had not only pierced both my ears, but managed to do so while having a yelling conversation with the girl at reception about the shopping centre’s new opening hours. It was impressive multitasking. “Guess what I just did,” I said to a group chat of my friends, hoping to shock them.

It was a few days until I realised what I had done. In my desire for action, my restless need to do something, I had effectively done the much more embarrassing version of chucking on a pink polo shirt, slicking my hair back with pomade and buying a Porsche. You know that episode of The Nanny where Mr Sheffield is trying to prove to his publicist what a young, desirable man he is, so he starts wearing tight jeans and leather jackets and collarless shirts and going to nightclubs (it turns out she’s a lesbian and is more interested in Fran)? Well, that’s what I was doing. Engaging in some sort of age-related crisis that involved me wearing large bolt studs for six weeks and wincing every time I accidentally touched my earlobes. Had I really thought that something as shallow as a new earhole would re-energise me?

I always felt I wasn't clever enough for poetry. But this was like making a new exciting friend | Sinead Stubbins Read more

The thing is, deep down in my rapidly ageing guts, I know that being a real rebel has nothing at all to do with how many miscellaneous holes you’ve poked in your body, or eschewing top 40 musicians, or having a mohawk so tall that it gives the impression that you have been electrocuted (although, that is very cool, I have to say). Real rebellion is less predictable than that.

Real rebellion is when, a couple of weeks ago in Melbourne’s Treasury Gardens, I saw a teenage girl with a sign that said “Compost the Bourgeoisie”, a tiny gentleman in a trilby hat with a placard that said “Thanks for ruining my life ScoMo, you idiot”, and a group of five elderly ladies with canes carrying around a placard that said “Grandmas For Climate Action”. This wasn’t performative defiance involving piercings – it was actual defiance. That’s harder to fake. I found it all so moving that I cried like a baby on and off for about two hours (behind my sunglasses, of course). My large studs and I were shamed.

This week signals that enough time has passed that I can take out the obnoxious studs and can replace them with a more subtle, chic hoop. It’s a pretty big achievement, and I’m glad I’ve made it this far. Perhaps now I’ll get a trilby hat.

• Sinead Stubbins is a writer and cultural critic

• Comments on this piece will be premoderated