Just that there isn't that big a difference visibly between a 20/18g (what ears are normally pierced with) and 14g like what I wear. Even up to a 12g isn't terribly different. I feel like most people wouldn't notice unless I pointed it out. My closest friends didn't notice I had gaged mine until I found an awesome set of green earrings.
It's just that some people are all "OMGEWWWWW!!! Stretching your ears at all is grooosssssss!" (not necessarily on here, some people I've met in real life are like this). What most people don't realize is that many places now pierce with 20g earrings, but most earrings that you buy are 18g, so almost everybody has "gauged" ears. I had a guy come into my work two weeks ago complain about the guy in front of him's gauged ears (they were a 10g based on looks), and about how anything bigger than what they pierce you with was so wrong and how only gay men wear earrings (looong rant from this guy. I was about ready to shut the window on him) and as I handed him his change I told him my ears were gaged and he went got all red and left. I laughed. (story marginally related).
To me, there's a difference between "gaged" and "stretched". Gaged isn't really noticeable, but stretched is bigger things. I know this isn't technically correct, as they're supposed to be synonymous, but that's just how I view it.
And then there's my mom, who refuses to buy food from a cashier with facial piercings (even just a small nose stud or something simple in an eyebrow). She will literally wait in a longer line just to avoid it. And don't even get her started on tongue piercings (which you can't even really see!).
