A Few Arguments Against Tattoos
An editorial in a recent edition of the New England Journal of Medicine drew attention to the outbreak of skin infection caused by tattooing. The bacteria that cause the infection are of the same family as that which causes tuberculosis. They are difficult to detect, grow in culture, or treat.
The infecting bacteria can be transmitted even where the tattoo “artist” practices the strictest hygiene, for it is the inks that have been contaminated before use from sources such as water. Like one or two other doctors I know who detest tattoos and all that they stand for, I confess (somewhat guiltily) to having experienced a little Schadenfreude as I read the editorial: for doctors are not supposed to feel pleasure at anyone’s illness, however contracted and however much deserved.
If only the American economy had grown at the rate as what the New England Journal calls the “tattoo industry”! The world would be in much better economic shape, for according to the Journal the proportion of American adults who have at least one tattoo has risen from 14 percent in 2008 (already much increased from days gone by) to 21 percent today. Fifty percent growth in four years! Not even China could match it.
Nor is this a merely American trend: a friend of mine, a professor of pharmacology, recently visited a university town in Sweden to give a lecture and was surprised to find that practically all the young people there were tattooed. The small town in France near where I live now has at least two tattoo parlors; I was recently in Gloucester, England, where I counted eleven; and a New Zealand doctor-friend of mine, who specializes in treating adolescents, tells me that half of young New Zealanders now have tattoos. The wife of British Prime Minister David Cameron has a tattoo on her ankle.
Presumably the social significance of tattoos has changed somewhat. In 1913, Dr. Charles Goring (father of the distinguished actor Marius Goring), a prison doctor, published a vast compendium of statistical information about criminals called The English Convict, in which he wrote:
It was originally asserted by Lombroso [the famous Italian doctor, anthropologist and criminologist], and the statement has been confirmed by observers, that the criminal displays an inordinate tendency to tattoo his body – the tendency being regarded as an atavistic revival of the love of ornate display which characterises the savage.
Goring also found that the tattooing among criminals was inversely proportional to their intelligence.
But that was in 1913; educational progress has since been immense. The Journal therefore did not comment on the cultural side of the question, on the sudden mass outbreak of extreme bad taste, but dealt only with its health aspects, for example on the ways in which tattooing might be made even safer than it is now:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reaching out to health care providers, public health officials, consumers, and the tattoo industry to improve awareness, diagnosis, and reporting (through the MedWatch program) in order to develop more effective measures for tattoo ink–related public health problems.
Once the tattoo industry has been successfully reached out to, we can safely predict the next stage: publicly funded programs of tattoo removal. How long will it be before there is an editorial drawing our attention to the psychologically damaging effects of unwanted tattoos? And where Psyche comes, can Soma be far behind? Cost-benefit analysis will clearly show the advantages of tattoo removal, from greater self-esteem to better employment prospects.
***
Related at PJ Lifestyle:
“The wife of the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has a tattoo on her ankle.”
As did Winston Churchill’s mother. I believe it was a butterfly. Now, I don’t really care for tattoos, and think the fad is way overblown. But I’m not going to take any pleasure over an illness brought about by indulging in the fad. That bespeaks its own disease.
“As did Winston Churchill’s mother”
I doubt you can provide a citation for that.
Here is a link. Apparently King George V had one as well:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jul/20/tattoos
There’s a young man at my pool who, amidst a sea of ink, has a large portrait of the young Queen Elizabeth II.
It….would….be…..the Guardian….
<;D
Tattoos used to have meaning or signify an allegience to a tribe or group. Now tattoos are just a meaningless jumble of stained skin that will eventually fade and succomb to the ravages of gravity and old age.
Tattoo ink eventually spreads out and blurs into a bluish- or greenish-black mess.
And everybody who gets older eventually develops wrinkles. The tattoo will look like a design smeared onto an accordion bellows.
Technology will eventually make inks that can be erased and re-activated several times, much like a CD-RW layer. This may have its own health issues of course.
I think nice tattoos are nice. Most aren’t though.
‘Once the tattoo industry has been successfully reached out to, we can safely predict the next stage: publicly-funded programs of tattoo removal.’
Maybe tattoo companies will be sued like tobacco.
A good con should invest in the opposition- in this case, tattoo removal. It’s all the same complex. It also gives us something to write about. We are a part of this too.
‘How long will it be before there is an editorial drawing our attention to the psychologically damaging effects of unwanted tattoos?’
Don’t forget the effects of not being tattooed. Those folks are as “afflicted” as anyone…
Afflicted with what, a stable, well-balanced personality?
My point exactly. Heh.
California’s state government is way ahead of the good doctor.
Yep, they’ve already got such a thing.
“Goring also found that the tattooing among criminals was inversely proportional to their intelligence.”
That is my attitude and finding as well.
Tattooing like body piecing is a primitive practice.
Being a Navy brat, all tattoos ever meant to me was a big sign that said “I got really drunk on liberty at Pearl Harbor in 1957″.
Most tattoos look cool when you get them, but as you age the look increasingly like you spilled cream spinach all over yourself.
Tats used to MEAN something. Growing up in Detroit in the sixties and early seventies, a tattoo meant something, there was a meaningful story or personal achievement behind it.
A glance at someone’s forearm in a bar or a hardware store established their bad ass bona fides. You were a Marine who survived the Pacific Theater. Or if you were younger, you drove the NVA out of Hue. Or you were a full-on Hells Angel one percenter. Or you were an accomplished professional criminal with a coded tattoo…
And the tat got you respect and gave you permission to tell the story (to other people you respected). Today, tattoos are meaningless. They’re aspirational or inspirational. These people haven’t DONE anything. They’re weak and stupid and shapeless and they haven’t accomplished anything.
What they are is plain, simple narcissism.
It’s that inverse correlation thing again. Holds for piercings too.
Yeah. Gosh darn those kids and their tattoos and body piercings and hair coloring and cell phones and rock music and vision correction and personal choices and horseless carraiges and salad eating (which spreads diseases, too, ya know).
Erm, I think the more relevant point is that tats are forever -usually- and are not something you shave off like a Mohawk or discard in the garage with your lava lamp and pet rock. I agree with some that they used to have some sort of special significance — my father was a captain in the merchant marine, and had a collection up and down his arms, mostly nautical themed of course. I considered a couple when I was also sailing merchant marine, but ultimately decided against, mainly for the reasons herein — they are just so common, that going un-inked is the real countercultural uniqueness right now. I don’t know if my father ever regretted his tattoos – I never thought he did — but I know that sometime in the 60s he shaved off his beard when those started becoming the fad too.
When the fad end, and I expect it has already begun …. there will be a lot of depressed people with fading and stretched out tats that display the stupidity and bad judgment of youth. That is hard enough to overcome without tattoos shouting it to the world on your behalf.
Tattoos are a conscious effort to aggressively, pointedly and overtly offend people who have traditional values. There is almost always some degree of hostility involved. Absolution from the intent to offend or to be hostile is granted only to the many very dumb and mindless who follow fads, who don’t know or appreciate anything about values in the first place.
Yeap, I got my tattoo with t he sole intention of offending people. You must be psychic
Quite.
I think the final sentence of the essay has it wrong. Tattoos do not represent low self-esteem.
Rather, they display runaway self-esteem without an appropriate measure of self-respect.
Why must one size fit all? IMO it’s both, with an overlay of fashion.
As ritual forms of mutilation go, tats are relatively harmless.
As art, well…
I still can’t get over the elegance of this argument against tattoos:
“You are an idiot.
“And I’d like to prove this mathematically if I may. Take your current age. Now subtract ten years from it. Were you smart back then? Of course you weren’t. You were a — damn idiot.
“Fact of the matter is, you’re just as big an idiot today, it’s just gonna take you ten more years to realize. Now think if you’d drawn a picture on your body ten years ago. Would you be happy with it today? Chances are, you wouldn’t be.”
-as seen on Red vs. Blue
A retired Chicago firefighter who had a large wolf’s head tattoo removed from his left upper arm told me, “Tattoos are permanent proof of temporary insanity.”
Makes me think of what I told my step-kids when they wanted tattoos: You’re 20 – what seems earth-shakingly important to you today won’t mean a rat’s patoot when you’re 30…or 40. All you’ll have is an awkward story to tell about youthful indiscretion.
…and don’t get me started about those idiots would get tattoos above the neck. Hope you like working at crap jobs, you probably need not apply to the executive suite.
Any Marine worth his salt has tattoos.
Marines and other military, especially in the enlisted ranks, get special dispensation. Still, their tattoos should be modest and related to their service to the country.
Oooooh, I get “special dispensation” from you? That’s awesome. No really, that’s just great. I was going to lose SO much sleep tonight worrying about what some self-righteous, opinionated twit thinks about me. Thank god you’ve given me special dispensation though.
Whew! That was a close one.
Yes, you have my special dispensation to tattoo that gift of dispensation across your forehead in as many colors as you can afford. My granting dispensation was meant to be funny; is there any much higher power in this universe that dispenses? And if so, on what basis is it granted?
Anyone who is a potential employer, customer or landlord has the special dispensation granting authority.
I find it amusing that people get a tattoo to make some “statement”, but then get PO’d when someone thinks that “statement” is retarded.
“I find it amusing that people get a tattoo to make some “statement”, but then get PO’d when someone thinks that “statement” is retarded.”
Here’s the problem with your assumption. And we all know what assumptions do. I didn’t get a tattoo to make a statement. I got them because I liked them. And because I’m a woman I got ones that can be considered “jewelry.” I didn’t get them for you to decide that I made a statement that you think is retarded.
It amuses me that people make all these assumptions about those of us with tattoos and then get POed themselves when people make assumptions about them because they are conservative. Or that they are “whatever.” Assumptions about anyone because of “X,” while a normal process of simply being human, only show how small minded we are. Tattoos have been around for hundreds of years. Thankfully they are becoming more and more artistic. If you don’t like them, fine. But don’t go assuming that those of us who “mutilate” ourselves all fit into one box. Just like all of life, we come in a multitude of flavors.
The statement I refer to is “I do what the f**k I want and anyone one who disagrees can go screw himself”. Every tattooed person I know has that attitude. Maybe you’re different, who knows? But for people who don’t care about what others think, they sure get pissy if someone calls it stupid. I guess maybe I’d be defensive too, if I did something that can’t be undone. No one wants to hear others say they made a mistake that they have to carry for the rest of their lives. Especially if there’s a little buyer’s remorse.
That’s why I think the “statement” is retarded. And if the statement does happen to be in the content of your tattoo – well that’s just double retarded. However, it’s a free country. You can do what you want. But I (still) have the right to call it retarded, and not without reason.
I know who I am, I don’t need to write it down to remember.
The only time I seriously considered getting a tattoo was when I graduated infantry training. Several of us were going to get “Government Inspected Meat” tattooed on our butts. However, back then (1975), the Army seriously frowned on tats. We were told that if we got sick, we could be charged with destruction of government property. No, I’m not kidding, that’s what they said. Times have changed.
Same in ’79 when I graduated Jump School. I may have been the only one of my training platoon who didn’t get inked with an AA or a Screaming Eagle the weekend after. The Army didn’t forbid it, but they sure as heck made it known it wasn’t a good idea.
The hipster fad will pass. I’m thinking cosmetic surgery clinics might be a good investment…
I think the fad among young people for tattooing will fade as the current crop of tattooed youth get older. When everyone’s grandma has an old, faded tattoo, what self-respecting young person will want one?
Goring also found that the tattooing among criminals was inversely proportional to their intelligence.
100 years and still that metric hasn’t changed.
Do any of my employees have tattoos? Probably, but none below the elbow or any that are visible in modest dress. And no pierced ears on guys and no pierced lips or noses or eyebrows on either gender.
When I have been asked why?, my reply is, “When you become the boss, then you get to make the rules, but as long as I pay you to represent my company, you play by mine”
I witness my students struggle to cover their art for job and internship interviews. Some have over done it to the point they cannot conceal. Talk about an uh-oh moment.
I was a supervisor for 38 years of My working career and agree with You 100%!If a tat is showing I do not want them working under Me!!!
There’s a student I see often who has a full sleeve tattoo on one arm, a half sleeve on the other, and lots of tattoos on her upper chest. There’s no way she can hide them and I often wonder what the odds of her getting a good job are.
Probably going into academia.
Although I will admit that the woman on “American Pickers” has attractive tattoos — but I suspect she’d be more attractive, and not restricted to being a saleswoman for an antique shop, if she had no tattoos.
She’s actually a burlesque dancer when she isn’t appearing on the show. But you have to ask, what happens when she gets to the age that the “girls” are no longer able to support her. What then?
Tattoos are a way to express individuality through showing conformity with the preferences (or whim) of the herd.
Well put!
I have a few visible large scars due to a childhood accident. I’ve never even had the slightest desire to get a tat, despite some rebellious tendencies during my youth. I noticed that most scarred-up people I know don’t have tattoos either.
I have a theory that people with scars have all that “individualing” out of their system. And it makes the “enduring” part of the tattoo process a laugh. As I recently read, “Scars are tattoos with more interesting stories”.
I suppose my town isn’t unique, but (especially at Walmart) I seem to see a relatively large number of moms with neck tattoos. When I was a kid it seemed like tattoos were mostly confined to old sailors and carnies.
Sailor Jerry Collins, the famous tattoo artist in Long Beach was an outspoken conservative.
All too common in Israel, which only bothers me because it is a Biblical prohibition (like most of the Bible, only intended for Jews). What’s really annoying is that the Hebrew word on the sings in the malls is taken from the prohibition. (Same for the gossip column in the newspaper.)
And no, the idea that someone with a tatoo can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetary is completely false.
Reminds me of a story of a newly-religious young man going to the ritual bath (kind of a Jewish full-immersion font). He was embarrassed to do so in front of the other men, because his body was covered with tatoos. So an old gentleman told him not to feel embarrased, and showed him he had a tatto also (the number on his arm from the camps).
Tattoo parlours are good for laundering drug money. They can tattoo $3K/month and declare $12K, who’d know different? The fashionable increase in tattoos and tattoo parlours probably correlates closely to the increased legal measures against money laundering.
This is pretty much true of any art form. There’s a material cost that you hope to recoup, but the thing that sells is the creation — so its cost is what your buyer will pay.
There is no bumper sticker on Earth that is so clever, inspiring, or incisive that I won’t be sick of it and ready to scrape it off my car after a few years. A tattoo is a bumper sticker for the body. Q.E.D.
I had tattoos before they were cool and am now in the process of getting the biggest and most visible one removed — on my own dime — now that they are. Forty years is long enough to have to respond to questions like “where’s your truck is parked?” or what ship I served on. Also, now that they are common (in the British sense of the term) I have no wish to be associated with that particular herd. Like a lot of poseur non-conformity, tattoos are now about as counter-cultural as getting your ears pierced.
Speaking of tattoos: When I was clerking for the Arizona Supreme Court in 1973 I was reading the transcript of the cat rapist case of Carl Anthony Thomas. He would sneak into womens’ homes at night and commit his rapes. One victim tesified that the defendant was her rapist. The defense attorney for Thomas cross examined her about the amount of light in the room and how she could be so positive of her identification. She testified there was a street light outside her bedroom window. Were there any curtains she was asked. Yes but they were the gauzy kind and there was plenty of light.
The attorney had laid the trap and was now about to spring it. It seems that Thomas had tattooed his penis on one side with his initials “CAT” and on the other with “Your name”. (Ouch!) He asked whether she noticed anything unusual about his penis. She testified only that “it was so tiny”.
Carl got a couple of hundred years in the slammer and probably died there by now.
Explanation for tats: Monkey see, monkey do.
Try not to be a monkey.
Twenty-one percent of American adults comes to, roughly, 47 million people. The vast majority of the commenters here are making sweeping statements that all 47 million of them are stupid, mentally defective or making a deliberate attempt to offend those with “traditional values”. Can you honestly not see how jaw-droppingly stupid it is to make such broad generalizations about so many people? Do you not see how you’re reinforcing the stereotype of the judgemental, closed-minded Conservative?
Well, we cannot have any meaningful discussion without generalization. The group in question is certainly not monolithic but they all made the same decision and it seems fair to draw conclusions from that. Since you are threatening to come to a similarly broad conclusion about conservatives, I know we agree about this. What is so great about tattoos again?
Besides, if we accept your argument and it turns out millions of conservatives dislike tattoos, who are you to judge?
No, actually, I can’t. Because those 47 million Americans are all idiots – do you not see that?
Half of the population will always be below average in a normal bell curve distribution.
That’s just how it works.
I have two tattoo’s both signifying achievements in my life, and no I am not an idiot, uneducated or otherwise insane, I got them in 1989 and 2001 and both are still in good condition because I cover them when outside so they don’t fade from the suns rays.
One is a dolphin (2001) indicating I made a team deep dive on normoxic air to the depth of 385 feet of sea water, I was at the time along with 3 shipmates trying to break the world deep diving record on normoxic air which was 400 feet of sea water, we wanted to do it as a team and get into the Guiness book of world records, alas Operation Enduring Freedom intervened so it never came to fruitation.
The second is a skull with dive mask, re-breather regulator clamped between its jaws in relief over crossed fins and parachute wings, this was to celebrate my and my teammates achievement of having passed Combat Search and Rescue Swimmer/Diver School.
Both are still look great (No loose skin thank you, that’s what gyms and working out are to prevent) I will probably get the CSAR one touched up this year, both are discreet, Upper left arm/delt CSAR, upper right leg under the boxer shorts area dolphin.
Finally should you ever be rescued by a policeman, fireman, medic, military man don’t be surprised that they are tattooed and as for the ‘Tribal’ comment, you’re right and lucky for you too, its what bonds and binds us together, shame that some of us don’t subscribe to the biggest tribe of all, I am proud to belong to the American Tribe’..
Doc Out
Please refer to avidyanda’s comment regarding those who have “special dispensation” here.
The tattoo phenomenon of the last 20 or so years really is amazing. Cattle at least must be forcibly branded. Today’s herds of “individuals”? They brand themselves. Incredible! This led me a while back to create the following bumper sticker:
Got tattoos? Say MOOOO…. You’re branded.
I didn’t have the nerve to put it on my car though. I like unbroken windows. Plus, I’m in Los Angeles. I don’t like getting shot at. These are the kinds of things to be considered when dealing with neobarbarism.
This bovine tattoo madness is an excellent example of Dalrymple’s recurring theme that today’s desperate striving for authenticity produces, instead, rank inauthenticity. For example, in one essay I recall him talking about how true eccentrics never try to be eccentric. They simply are eccentric. But those who try to be eccentric are doomed to wretched conformity.
Yes, I remember which essay: Exposing Shallowness. It’s his best essay on tattoos. Google for it.
This tattoo rage is also a prime example of today’s normalizing of deviancy. As he mentions in that essay, tattoos were formerly the badges of savages, criminals, and sailors. They’re now mainstream. The race to the bottom continues apace.
George Orwell had several tattoos. He acquired them when he was in the Imperial police force in Burma. Is there any evidence that they affected his long term career prospects?
Quite an interesting example…comparing one of the best writers of the century to the general population, which is comprised mostly of a legion of employees.
It’s not as if I personally hate anyone because of his tattoos. If they actually mean something more than “I was bored and all my friends did it” then that is different. My nieces are both tattoed and I do love them. But in their case they mean nothing. It is a bad and ugly fashion and it does make them look a bit mindless and immature. In a way we are really living in a classless society. Classes exist but they have nothing to do with income. People find their own classes and make sure you now which one they belong to. Doesn’t mean they are bad people. They just lower themselves.
“Once the tattoo industry has been successfully reached out to, we can safely predict the next stage: publicly-funded programs of tattoo removal.”
Wouldn’t publicly funded theatrical make up classes be cheaper?
I bet Hollywood make up artists love it when Angelia Jolie is on set. All those tattoos, all that make up, all that overtime!
Pathologic narcissism manifested as self-mutilation.
Man, I read it twice and must have missed where the article stated how many of the 47,000,000 skumbags have suffered an infection. Was a recall of the tainted ink initiated? Was the tattoo shop identified? How about the cities where outbreaks have occurred? Does anyone know anything other than the stupid opinions of a bunch of jerk losers who don’t like tattoos?
Can’t tell you the joy I feel in my new caree as tatoo removal technician. Remember the ink is toxic and you will wash it out…eventually.
Can’t tell you the joy I feel in my new career as tatoo removal technician. Remember the ink is toxic and you will wash it out…eventually.
LOTS OF PICTURES AT THIS LINK:
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2012/08/archaeologists-discover-2500-year-old.html
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2012
ARCHAEOLOGISTS DISCOVER 2500 YEAR OLD MUMMY OF A TATTOOED SIBERIAN PRINCESS
Tattoos as complex and abstract as any modern design have been discovered on the body of a Siberian princess buried in the permafrost in Russia for more than 2500 years.
Scientist Natalia Polosmak, who found the remains of ancient Princess Ukok, aged around 25, high in mountains close to Russia’s border with Mongolia and China, said she was struck by how little has changed in the past two millennia.
“Not changed”?!?!?
Nope.
Gone backwards.
Tattooed people used to be uncivilized savages, merchant seamen, or freaks.
Now it’s prevalent with our youth.
I hope it’s just a fad, but I fear it’s part of the Gramscian effort [more here] by the postmodern left to dismantle Western Civilization.
SERIOUSLY: I think it’s awful that Angelina and Megan have desecrated their gorgeous bodies and skin with graffiti.
I see think that about 35% of people I see in NYC who are under the age of 30 have tattoos. No telling how many more have tattoos not visible in street-clothes.
I think 95% are Obama supporters.
It is a simple as this: Those with tattoos are desperate for attention.
If you want to stand apart from the crowd, go your own way, be seen to be anti-establishment, then get a tatoo, just like everybody else.
I know this will offend plenty of people, but I think tattoos are trashy and low-class.
And I don’t care if the PM’s wife has one.
After all, you can take the trash out of the trailer park, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the trash.
I smell an investment opportunity. Find a young, intelligent medical student with financial problems. Finance his medical studies contingent upon his becoming a dermatologist specializing in tattoo removal and piercing restoration. Open a clinic next to a large tattoo parlor, call it “Regrets?”
Repeat in Seattle, LA, Atlanta, NY, Austin, Chicago…and watch the money pour in.
At the high point of my 20′s, I wanted tattoos and a motorcycle, BADLY! I wanted to re-invent myself. Full of testosterone, how could I prove to the world (ie: girls!) that I was dangerous, cool, an alpha male? I never got either. I needed my money for books, grad school tuition, travel, life. Tattoos have always been expensive. Three hundred dollars for a simple typical design, never mind something more creative or unusual. As for motorcycles…caskets with wheels was the phrase I kept hearing. But more importantly, as I entered my early 30s, educated and well traveled, the need for “bonafides” like tattoos simply diminished. I had advanced degrees, had lived overseas, became fluent in two foreign languages, and finally working. Ok, so still not quite the dangerous, cool, alpha male to most girls, but ya know….I do alright.
What idiocy.
” for it is the inks that have been contaminated before use from sources such as water”
So the water is what’s contaminated, not the tattoo, not the tools. The ink was contaminated during the process of manufacturing the inks. Do you think that tattoo ink is the only thing this water has contaminated?
Okay, you don’t like tattooing, fine, but using a contaminated idustrial process to chide people for behavior you don’t like is stupid.
Worse, it’s straight up nanny-statism–I suspect you’re a fan of trans fat bans, salt bans, sugar bans, smoking bans, bans on certain types of alchoholic beverages or whatever other bans the nannies want to enact to alter our behavior to something they find appropriate.
Don’t like tattoos? Don’t get one. See how easy that was.
“Worse, it’s straight up nanny-statism–I suspect you’re a fan of trans fat bans, salt bans, sugar bans, smoking bans, bans on certain types of alchoholic beverages or whatever other bans the nannies want to enact to alter our behavior to something they find appropriate.”
I’m afraid you’re quite wrong about all of that. Dalrymple is a conservative and no fan of government interference in people’s lives. You can find lots of proof at this site, which tries to keep track of all of his writing: http://blog.skepticaldoctor.com/
I know Dalrymple is a conservative.
I’m just pointing out that this type of thing leads to the same nanny-statism we decry elsewhere.
Leads to nanny-statism? I disagree. When the tatted and pierced are culled by the process of last-hired, first-fired there’ll be a lot less sympathy for putting y’all on the dole ’cause it’ll be oh so obvious that you did it to yourselves.
Go off much? I’m sorry, but it seems to me to be simple common sense that if you’re making something that will go under a person’s skin (skin being our first and best line of defense against things like, uh, infection), you would make that something with good aseptic technique and aseptic materials. In other words, you’d do your best to make it sterile. Why on earth would anyone think it a good idea to use any old water to make tattoo ink with? No matter how good our water purification system is, it is not designed to make our water 100% sterile because it doesn’t have to.
My dermatologist scrapped a mole off of my left butt cheek. It left a little discoloration. Does that count? I was hoping to be cool.
I ride a bike a lot, bicycle not motorcycle. I once got a grease imprint of the large sprocket by accident on my inside right leg. People complemented me on my “Really Rad” Bike tattoo, It was only a grease print. Since then I’ve come to the conclusion that all tattoos look like a grease spot or dirt on your skin.
“Once the tattoo industry has been successfully reached out to, we can safely predict the next stage: publicly funded programs of tattoo removal.”
Actually, that has apparently begun already. I was talking to a woman a few years back who had actually read the legislation passed to enable Obama’s stimulus package and she said the single item that most disturbed her was 2 million dollars for tattoo removal. I suppose the rationale was that legislators wanted a program so that gangbangers could get their tats removed so that they’d have a better chance of getting a job when they went for interviews. Or maybe they felt that the tattoo removal industry needed stimulating too….
In any case, I really don’t see why the taxpayer was supposed to pay for tattoo removal. After all, the individuals involved presumably paid for the original tattoo out of their own money so why on earth shouldn’t they pay to get it removed too?
All I can think of is that Marx Brothers Movie about a circus with the great song and dance routine, “Lydia, the Tatooed Lady”. But, alas, who would pay to see Lydia now?
Still, it’s nice of them to self-identify as idiots and creeps.
Saves me a lot of guesswork and trouble.
Thank you all, again.
As a child with a seagoing father, I knew a lot of his friends who had tattoos. I never met one who told me I should get a tattoo. All I ever remember hearing from them was that I should never get one and that they, to a man, all wished they had never gotten one either.
It was excellent aversion therapy. I never once, in my entire life, considered for one moment the idea of getting a tattoo. I’ve always felt sorry for those who were foolish enough to have done so, knowing the regret they would invariably eventually feel over that mistake. This was particularly so for the women, who always look so much better without them.
I live in the “non-gated” side of town. I see scumbags everywhere. I’d say 98% of them have at least one visible tattoo. And sorry for being sexist, but it’s worse for the women. If you saw all the fat, loud, trashy, cigarette smoking, 30-40 year old women on my side of town, you’d either be repulsed by the tattoos, or you’re probably one of them. Nothing says white trash better than a big old tat on your arm, neck, back, or calf.
As I tell my 19 year old daughter:
Having a tattoo does not make you a scumbug, but all scumbags have tattoos.
I think Buffy and Skippy aren’t as keen on tattoos as they were 10 years ago. So the “cool” factor may be waning. Be careful that you don’t get an identity you don’t want for the rest of your life.
Well, the comments were much more interesting than the original article. Opinions are like bellybuttons; everybody has one. “Tattoos mean this, or tattoos mean that”. What a tattoo may mean is an entirely personal thing known but to the recipient. Most of the people that I now who have tattoos got one for a specific reason. Most often to memorialize something or someone. Others desire to display a theme. Some simply like the artwork. In order to know why a person has a tattoo, you must know the person. Generalizations do nothing but provide fodder for a comments section. And the comments directed towards the fading, mushy blue/black tattoos are most often seen in jailhouse tattoos, and/or are the work of amateurs. If you don’t like ‘em don’t get one. It goes without saying that if you want one, make sure that you can live with it for the rest of your life.
Whatever that tat means to the one who wears it, what it means to those who see it tends to be its most important meaning.
The most memorable tattoo I’ve seen was on a young woman’s left arm.
My grandmother worked in bakery located across the street from her apartment in the Weequake section of Newark, NJ; this was, in the 1940′s and 50′s, the Jewish section.
I was only about 5 years old, visiting my grandmother when the very gaunt young woman pushed her baby carriage into the bakery and reached for some rolls. There were numbers tattoo’d on her arm! Devoid of expression, she paid for the rolls, and pushed the carriage out the door.
Neither my grandmother nor the other ladies nor my mother commented. Years later I found out what those numbers meant; the horror of that tattoo has stayed with me for over 60 years. Since then I have met other people with similar numbers. Those tattos were the ultimate dehuminization.
Why anyone needs a tattoo escapes me; a smile for everyone and small acts of kindness will let the world know who you are!
Joseph, that was a moving post, and thank you for revealing the secret to getting along with others: “a smile for everyone and small acts of kindness will let the world know who you are!”
It is with profound sadness that I must admit, I too have a tattoo on my left knee. It was a mistake and it was painful, but many of us make mistakes in our youth and live to regret them later in life.
I have always taken pride in my ability to move quickly. I can often catch the dropped coffee cup before it hits the floor or grab the dropped pencil in mid-air, but one day while sitting at my home study desk, my pencil rolled off the desk. I hesitated to catch the pencil to make the incident more sporting before reaching out and snatching the pencil from its free fall velocity of 8.6 meters per second squared. Unfortunately, when I caught the pencil, I drove the sharpened point deep into my leg, leaving me with the subtle tattoo I carry today, 50 years later. It has not faded or lost its pinpoint formation, and it is a great conversation topic in the presence of young women contemplating a tattoo. (I try to discourage them.)
How many of those people with tattoos are gangbangers whose tattoos are a form of tribalism? How many of those in New Zealand are Maori whose tattoos are traditional? How many are people who got tattoos to mark momentous occassions and solidarity like Doc up-thread? How many of the rest are just clueless individuals who thought they’d look “cute” or “bad-ass?”
Not everyone who has a tattoo has it for a bad or empty reason, but I’d say there are a lot of people who who fit that bill. And I know that people certainly don’t think about the risks before they jump in. My alma mater’s football team had a linebacker who went out and got a tat at the start of football season and got one of these infections several years ago. Coach was absolutely livid because he missed several important games due to a completely avoidable and preventable illness.
For men, tattoo’s are an insecure way of showing your “tough” and “masculine”.-that’s why they buy pitbull’s, too.
For women, it is about being accepted by the she-herd and their female fads that are always bouncing around, as well as making other women jealous and for attracting other men.As with men it is a low self esteem way for the insecure sexes to fit in with the other sheep of society.
Individuals of integrity don’t bother themselves with such tribalistic and irrational douchebaggery.
If you really want to sport an outlaw Yakuza image, fair enough. That level of tattooing is quite amazing sometimes and if you performance art is your skin, well knock yourself out.
But a beautiful woman tattooed is like a beautiful building with graffiti (sorry Angelina, but it is true). And most tattoos are unoriginal and boring. Why bother? Then you have potential health risks on top of it? Insanity.
Most people’s tastes change. Why do you think what you thought was great when you were twenty and drunk would we great when you are 40, 50 or older?
It’s threads like this that remind me how deeply even conservative baby-boomers have been indoctrinated into the fundamental Maoist ideal of “the personal is political”.
The personal is NOT political. I think it is impossible for the members of a generation, even the “conservatives”, innoculated with a vicious strain of Maoism to believe that not every action, choice or word has political significance.
We’ll not be free until the last “Square” is strangle with the entrails of the last “Hippy”.
Commence the eye rolling when tattoos start referring to being daubed with ink as ‘body art.’
‘But these tattoos are an expression of me! They make me unique!
Oh yes? How did you come up with the designs?
‘Oh I picked them out of a book they had at the studio.’
Personal graffiti. Nothing more.
Working in the heroin addiction field, I see many 20-40 year olds still self-absorbed 8th graders. The preoccupation with self expression seems to be indicate a tremendous amount of self-loathing. My religious background used to proscribe it. It was a pagan expression on one hand and indicative of the sin of self elevation on the other. They are usually very unhappy, because the ritual is essentially empty and they really don’t belong to anything. I can understand a Marine or other service person. But others are protracted adolescents.
With so many people tattooed, conservatives are going to have to win the votes of even the tattooed to secure our liberty and economic prosperity.
This is not a good start.
The personal is not political.
When I was a teenager, I had long hair and a pierced ear. Of course, the folks who were older than me were pretty much aghast. I try to bear that in mind when I see younger folks expressing themselves in ways I don’t think are awesome.
I used to have a transcription business. A couple of my typists had many tattoos and/or piercings. It didn’t bother me a bit; they weren’t customer contact people and they were productive. The tattoos were a bonus, since I knew that in the business environment where I floated, they were less likely to get hired out from under me. I paid them the same as anyone else and was glad to have them.
I also had one acquaintance who had tattoos on his face, and felt he was discriminated against in his quest to get a job in banking. I laughed at him and called him an idiot, but only because he was being an idiot.
Most of my life, I haven’t had anything to say that I wanted to say for the rest of my life, so I never got a tattoo. These days, I am halfway tempted to get my wife’s name in Chinese (she is Chinese) tattooed discretely on a calf or something. I probably never will; I am diabetic and even more vulnerable than the average fella to problems with infections.
This big quiet thing inside said to me once “Don’t, you’re fine as you are.” So I agreed. Then piercings came in. Again, same thing. It feels fine to never have to look back on them again.
Then there’s that old book that says….oh never mind, you know.
You’re missing the big point: Tattoos are a reliable form of prison identification. The more society resembles a prison, the more otherwise normal people will get tattoos (or just look at the face and skin color and impute the experience and motivations of the tattoo, but that’s less reliable when you’re under the time constraints which emerge in freelance enforcement environments.)
Next to prison, public schools are probably the most tattoo-motivating societies. Peacetime dictates that those tattoos will be more florid and individualized, if there’s great social unrest or civil war, expect tattoos to be more uniform and visible.
(The true tattoo apologist blames the high price of Hot Topic wear, employment history and credentials, and military uniforms for the common man. Not having them is its own form of both social proof and social shaming.)
I have a “tribal” mark. It’s called a receding hairline.
Ol’ Jimmy Buffet really nailed it when he’s said “A tattoo is a pemrmanent reminder of a temporary feeling.”
Amen
No, really: you can’t crap on all tattooed people and expect to win presidential elections.
Republicans, they Thirst for Defeat.
So, you’re calling Democrats stupid?
Your body is God’s temple. Treat it with respect.
And besides, tattoos are just downright ugly. A tattoo on a woman is not attractive, in the least.
Could somebody explain those spools guys are having put in their earlobes? Tattoos are almost attractive compared to this current idiocy.
And the sad part of all this is we may never find out enough about tatoos for maybe 50 years or so to find out if they cause harm, how much harm etc. By then it may be too late. Do people, especially females, know unattractive they
are.