Left or right?

I've just been out to a decent restaurant with my friend T, and we're wandering the streets together on our way home when we start chatting:

"What do you think about piercings?" asks T.

"What kind of piercings?" I reply, "There are earrings, nipple piercings, prince alberts ... ??"

"Urrgh no," shudders T, "nothing like that! I'm just thinking about getting a little stud in one of my ears :-)."

"Really? Well, I've never really fancied one myself, but I think that they can look quite good :-)."

"I'm still thinking about it," says T, "If I get stud, then even if I take it out I know that my sisters will still notice the little hole when I go home, so I'm not sure!"

"You shouldn't worry about your sisters," I reply, "You've got your own life to lead. The interesting question is, which ear will you get the stud put in?"

"Not sure, which do you think looks better?"

"Right hand side, definitely," I reply mischievously, "it'll look much better on the right :-)."

"Why are you so sure, what's the difference?"

I decide to come clean and admit what I know.

"Well, the right side is the gay side, isn't it?"

"Oh no! Really?" asks T, "In that case I'll definitely have to have it in the left!"

"Or is it the left side that's the gay side?"

"You're not trustworthy are you GB!" laughs T, "I can see that I'm going to have to do my own research on this."

Although I wish that T wasn't so closeted, I know that there's no point arguing about it with him. Everyone has to come out at their own pace.

A few days later, I decide to do some research, to check that my memory about the right ear being the gay side is correct. But I'm in for a shock. According to what I can find on the Internet, I'm showing my age! For example, a year ago Yahoo answers had the following:

Question: Which ear piercing means your gay? The right side or the left?

Best answer: Are you 10 years old? Being attracted to the same sex is gay. An ear piercing doesn't specify your sexuality. Get which ever ear you want pierced, and grow up.

Similarly, the relevent wikipedia article on the subject says

In various Western cultures, piercing the left vs. the right ear alone has sometimes been popularly perceived to be associated with a particular sexual orientation. In the late 60's it was said that "left is 'right' and right is 'wrong'"; the left ear being safe for piercing by straight men and a pierced right ear meaning one was gay. However, due to the lack of uniformity, such generalizations are essentially meaningless.

Although I still wonder. I only know a tiny number of guys with ear piercings, but that includes two straight guys who both have it on the left hand side. Is that an accident? I'm sure that if I was going to have a single ear pierced and I was straight, then even if I was told that the rule didn't apply any more I'd still have the piercing on the left hand side anyway! The key question is, what proportion of straight guys with just one ear pierced have the piercing on the left side and what proportion have the piercing on the right? If the overwhelming majority of them still have it on the left hand side just to be safe, then I'd argue that the rule still applies :-).