I will openly admit it – I find tattoos ridiculous and somewhat disgusting. Yes, it’s psychological. Yes, it’s my problem. Yes, people have the right to do what they wish with their bodies. Yes, they should remain legal. (I hope that is enough disclaimers for one posting.)
I can pinpoint the exact source of this revulsion. When I was about six years old, my dad took me fishing, and his fishing buddy’s arms were “decorated” with black ink that had once been, I’m sure, an attractive naked woman, but was now nothing but a black splotch with the trace of a nipple. The woman had aged with the man’s arm – she was sagging, drooping. I vowed never to get a tattoo.
Over the years, I have observed as young women tattoo the smalls of their backs or decide that the way to fully express themselves is to find an out-of-the-way body region to place a butterfly. I once saw a woman with five different (visible) butterflies permanently penned, and two thoughts ran across my mind: A) If you love butterflies so much, is it not enough to visit the zoo on a regular basis? and B) Her poor mother probably took folic acid and vitamin E through 40 weeks of pregnancy to bestow upon her daughter the most beautiful skin possible, and I’m sure every day she took those vitamins so that the images of butterflies could arise. The irony here is that tattoos at one point were this very non-conformist thing to do – and now, well, decide for yourself if sticking butterflies all over yourself is the most unique medium for self expression.
Men ink themselves from head to toe with weird figures too – dragons, Chinese characters, and still, naked women seem omnipresent on arms and legs everywhere. Does a 21 year old really say to himself, “You know, when I’m 70 years old and sitting with my wife of 40 years on our porch with the grandkids, it would be so awesome to have my naked high school girlfriend tattooed down my leg”???
Since moving to Seattle I have desperately attempted to accept the tattoos around me as part of the West Coast culture. I love the open-mindedness out here, the respect with which women and homosexuals are treated, the city’s appreciation for foreign cultures – and yet, at 27 years of age, I am still extremely irritated by tattoos. I recognize that this is a very shallow, irrational, and judgmental aspect to my personality, but the harder I try to overcome it the more these figures irritate me. When I see articles like this one about how it’s becoming the hip thing to do to permanently draw all over oneself, I wonder – why does one have to use his or her skin to express who he or she is? Who we are evolves over time, but tattoos are permanent (or leave permanent scars upon removal when you decide maybe you don’t want a huge rising sun on your back). Expressing yourself through what you do and who remembers you – why not try something like this?
I’m with you Miss Jode-eye.
http://spaces.msn.com/jollymonjamus/blog/cns!8656447BBD74878A!178.entry
I dont mind some tats, however I am allergic to pain so I will never have one myself. Besides I am way to cute and cuddly the way I am! LOL
Here’s a story for you–sad, but true:
My 25-year-old brother already has several tatoos. He wanted a specific one a few years back, but since he didn’t have enough money to get the one he wanted, he cleverly settled for one that he thought was “OK.” No joke–that is how he described it from day one. Well, then he got tired of his little sorcerer/wizard/OK tatoo, so he decided to get a bigger and better one to cover the first. He even designed it himself. Basically, now it looks like the little sorcerer guy is in a prison of tangled vines.
My point is that my brother almost instantly regretted the first tatoo. When I asked him how long he thought it would be before he regretted the second, he said he didn’t know, but that he would just have to design another one to cover it when that happened. My brother’s not a very big guy, so my guess is that there isn’t just enough surface area to match all the regret he’s going to have.
The bottom line for me is this: my grandfather and my brother, two men I dearly love, had/have tatoos. I don’t think that having tatoos makes one mean or bad. I don’t even think it makes people stupid. It just makes them appear that way, and they should be ready to face the judgments of the society when they make the decision to walk into the tatoo parlor.
Having said that, and, being totally in your corner about hating tatoos, I must admit that I read an article recently (I would cite its source if I remembered where I read it.) which stated that one in three Americans has a tatoo. Hmmm. I don’t necessarily feel that it’s being judgmental to say that one does not like the personal choices of another. For instance, I can freely say that I think my mother wears an ugly hat. Nothing wrong with that. The only difference is that my mother can later decide that the ugly hat is indeed ugly. She can laugh about the fact that she ever liked such a hideous thing or that she had the gall to wear it in public. Can’t change one’s mind about a tatoo, though, and that is what makes it stupid. It’s plain arrogance to think that time won’t change our attitudes.
What a long comment. You will probably kick me off your blog. Hope not.
And if you need to be reminded how tastes change, go rent your favorite 80′s movie. I was recapturing some misspent youth yesterday watching Saved By the Bell during lunchtime, and one thought I had was “wow…I REALLY used to think Kelly Kapowski was cute wearing things like that!?!”
Maybe that’s what we should do – Instead of making it flat out illegal as SC has chosen to do, we should simply make people watch The Breakfast Club first, pointing out how horrible it would be to be permanently stuck with one of those hairstyles. In most parts of Philadelphia you’d get beat up daily for having hair like that.
I think the temporary tattoo inks in the article are a really interesting idea. I hadn’t heard of anything like that. I still don’t like pain, and so I’m still unlikely to ever get one, but I do think it’s a brilliant idea, and I imagine somebody stands to make a lot of money over it.
On a completely unrelated note, I do have a personal blog as well as the work one: http://lady-gairfowl.livejournal.com/
Okay, so if someone REALLY felt inclined to tattoo himself or herself, I would be more willing to accept temporary ink. Granted, no one knows the long-term effects of such a thing, but at least people would acknowledge that maybe they wouldn’t want naked women tattooed down their legs forty years from now.
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