Blink and you might miss the star of House of Guinness. Ostensibly, the new Netflix historical drama about the Guinness family is all about deep-rooted rivalries, Irish history, and that rich, inky black stout so many of us gleefully guzzle down at the pub. And sure, you might be forgiven for thinking that the main event of it all is the glittering cast, which includes Anthony Boyle, Louis Partridge, Niamh McCormack, and James Norton. But I’m here to tell you that it isn’t. Because the leading light of this series isn’t a person, nor is it even a particular storyline or a scene. It’s a piece of jewellery: a delicate, silver hoop earring worn in Norton’s left ear, to be exact.
While Norton plays the sly yet swashbuckling Guinness factory manager, Sean Rafferty, the teeny tiny earring steals the show in every scene that features the actor. Maybe it’s the way it catches the light when he’s whispering not such sweet-nothings about horny alleycats to Anne Guinness (Emily Fairn). Or perhaps it’s how it glimmers under the street lamps when he’s in the middle of scheming yet another merciless plot for power. Soon, that earring becomes a totem for something so intrinsically carnal it’s less about how it makes someone look than it is about how it makes them feel: subversive, authoritative, and perpetually on the precipice of danger.
All of it is, quite simply, just hot. And that’s regardless of the fact that Victorian men seldom wore such jewellery; the series is set in 1868, when men were far more likely to be seen donning the likes of cufflinks, lockets, and signet rings. But hey, does verisimilitude really matter if it’s getting you horny?
The tiny hoop earring on men has long been synonymous with sex appeal. So much so that it even has its own lexicon; on the internet, it’s known as ‘the slutty little earring’ – see this Reddit thread about Norton’s, which he has also been seen wearing off-camera. ‘Having a tiny hoop earring is the sluttiest thing a man can do,’ reads one viral Tweet from 2022 with more than 31,000 likes. ‘Once again thinking about Josh O’Connor’s slutty little earring,’ adds another from last summer in reference to the British actor, who regularly wears a silver hoop in his left ear. There’s a litany of other young male heartthrobs doing the same: see Jacob Elordi, Paul Mescal, Nicholas Galitzine, and Tom Blyth.
‘I think everyone was genuinely just quite affected by films like Pirates of the Caribbean and new romantic music in the 1980s, where tiny hoop earrings were everywhere,’ says a 32-year-old male friend who has been wearing his very own slutty little earring since the age of 19 after a girlfriend encouraged him to do so. ‘People tell me it’s hot,’ he adds. ‘I think it’s a tiny bit gender-bending and hints at some sort of devil-may-care attitude. It’s a very non-committal version of “guyliner” and subconsciously implies bravado.’
Clearly, this is the season of the slutty little earring. And Norton is leading the way. In the (almost) words of William Shakespeare, who himself wore a teeny gold hoop: if small earrings be the food of love, play on.
House of Guinness is available to stream now on Netflix.
