I’ve legit never heard of the earrings = harlot thing before, but suddenly the scene in Grease where Frenchie wants to pierce Sandy’s ears makes a LOT more sense to me
Yep! Part of the whole Quaint '50s Retro setting was the idea that piercing one's ears was something bad girls did, on par with drinking and smoking. Plus the concept of doing it at a sleepover, when pierced ears had become normal again by 1978 and one could have it done at a doctor's office or a mall kiosk (though home piercing did still happen- hell, it's around to this day).
TANGENT: The "virgin pin" referenced in the scene, interestingly, was another name for the circle pins popular in the 1950s-early 1970s. I looked it up, curious as to whether the filmmakers had based that line on an urban legend. The idea of girls in the 1950s advertising their virginity or lack thereof seemed highly unlikely to me. But it was in fact an unofficial Thing- though there's a dispute as to the meaning.
One woman who was a teen in the late 50s-early 60s mentioned that she and her peers wore their pins on the left side of their chests, to signify that they were virgins. Girls who had "gone all the way" supposedly wore it on the right. But another blogger of the same age claimed that the wearers weren't even supposed to know the term. Rather, boys used it amongst themselves to indicate that the sort of girls who wore circle pins wouldn't put out before marriage.
What's interesting to me is that the term seems to have been widespread at least in the States, despite having different meanings in different places.
