Ok I know this is probably way OT in a lot of people eyes. I hope I don't get hung out to dry for this one. I want to get an idea of what peoples opinions on tattoos are. I have always been givin mixed reactions for my tattoos. I tried to get the idea of why some people don't like them so much. I think its your body and if you decide to cover it with "art", its your place to do so. My father got his first tattoo at 50, now he has three. If anyone wants to show off there tats post pics too. Just too brag I got one yesterday, wish I could post pics of.

I hope nobody find this very offensive. I just want to get people thoughts, so maybe we can all have a better understanding.

I have no tattoos nor do I think I will ever have any. I don't care if people have tattoos or not - they do not bother me with the exception of vulgar ones (probably because I have a little son and don't want him exposed to such stuff).

I do have one question, however. It seems to me that a tattoo you got 20 years ago might irritate you twenty years hence. It is like the old Norman Rockwell of the sailor at the tattoo parlor getting his n-th ex-girlfriend crossed off and the newest one added. How do you deal with that?

Cheers,
Bob Welland

Re: Editing tattoos:

Laser skin treatments - they can "bleach" the tattoo out from under your skin like it was never there.

Had a friend wh had a rose on her shoulder - her new (now ex) husband decided he didn't like it and made her life hell till she went through the treatments to get rid of it.

With new advances, even body art isn't permanent.

Alan

I think if you get a tattoo you should realise someday you may not like it. But do I get a tattoo based on only that fact, no that doesn't make it worth it. I was told once that you will regret the things in life you never did, more than the things you did. I may not like them in time but I go into a place with that in mind. And I know I will have to live with that decision. Par the course, as they say.

To me a tatoo is a sort of "primitive" artistic urge to adorne the body that should be resisted since we've supposedly evolved a bit.....those things on the skin are kinda like exclaiming to the world "Hey, look at me...I'm the same dumbass I was 10,000 years ago !"

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(sigh) I probably should have locked this....

D, I was wondering if you would be nice and not lock this. I guess if both sides of the fence can stay tastefull maybe you can let it go. But its all your call boss.

None for me, but I always thought it would be kind of a hoot to have a decimal equiv. chart or tap drill chart as a tatoo on your forearm.

I dunno, I don't really like them. My attention span isn't really long enough to stick with something like that for the rest of my life. I also just kinda think they're ugly in general. I don't really have a problem with other people having them...it's just sorta like they're wearing ugly clothes. Permanently.

The ones I think are really silly are the ones women sometimes get right above their butts'. I think the Germans have the right of it with those: they call them "asshorns".

-Justin

Not interested myself.....

A while back, in our paper there was a picture of a guy who must have been rather old, well over 70, who was tattooed as much as any kid these days.....all over..... front, back, arms....

In the picture, he had his shirt off.... trust me, I am certain it didn't look anything like that picture back in the day when he got those tattoos...........

I'll stop there, any more and I'd be "over-sharing"......

my son is a touring hard rocker and has tats all over on his legs, arms, hand, etc. I really dislike them, but not much I can do about it. At least he got rid of the lip and nipple rings! yuck!

MM, just out of curosity, have you ever considered exactly *why* tatoos are so appealing to you ? They are "cool" is not good enough...WHY are they "cool" ? Or is this one of those deals where the answer is "I dunno, they just ARE" ?

I wonder if the pain one has to suffer to get one has anything to do with the appeal..."I suffered thru it man, but ain't she purty ?"

Course in the end, it's one of those "who cares" sorta things...no biggie really...do it if you must...I just don't get it, that's all.

AKA the "tramp stamp", or "California license plate".

I think tattoos are a matter of personal choice. Some people have a good sense of what looks good on them and wear them well. Other people look like walking graffiti. I've seen plenty of tattoo art in my life and it seems to be quite popular around where I live.

One thing always struck me was that a tattoo is permanent. What a person has inked into their hide is there to stay as a rule. We have one guy here at work who had a simple Navy tattoo from his younger days. His family evidently took some exception to it and as he moved along in life he tended to be self conscious about it. The result was he had it lasered off. Health insurance did not cover this tattoo removal and the guy said it was costly. Aside from that it was painful. The end result is a patch of skin where the pigment is different, so it is obvious something was "erased".

Another guy I knew had laid down a motorcycle. His knee was a mess. After the surgeons got done, he had some scarring and the knee worked after a fashion. That guy went and got some hardware like fishplates, strap hinges, bolts and oil-holes tattooed on the repaired knee. It was kind of humorous.

We had this really nice young girl working as a seasonal employee at the plant. She was a long-legged thing who used to kid me about my putting on my chaps and jacket to ride my motorcycles to and from work. One Monday, the girl failed to come in to work. She didn't come in until Thursday of that week, and was on crutches with a big dressing and kind of splint on one leg. I asked her what happened to her. Her answer was she had gone for a ride packing as passenger on her boyfriend's "crotch rocket" (her words). They had wiped out on a patch of gravel and laid the bike down. She had been wearing cutoffs and a tee shirt. Her leg got a colossal case of road rash along with some deeper injuries. After things healed, she dressed up the scarring with a flowering tattoo. It was making the best of a bad situation, I guess. I asked her what she thought of my wearing hides to ride in the summer and she said I wasn;t so crazy after all. As for the tattoo art, she had the legs and the artist did a good job, so it looked good on her.

We had this other young girl who worked as a seasonal employee. She was a whole 'nother story. One day, I was in my office when she came in to empty the waste basket. I noticed she had a cutoff tee shirt on and her upper arm looked to be a mess of ointment and scabs. I asked her what went on, and she told me she was going to be "in a bridal party". Turns out she had the groom's name tattooed on her arm, and she was a bridesmaid for the gal who was marrying him. Sooo, she had to get rid of that tattoo in a hurry. The fix was to have a hideous looking bouquet of flowers with heavy coloration tattooed over the groom's name. It looked like something lifted off a comic book page but I guess it did the trick and kept the peace.

I can recall over 25 years ago, going to an "Easyrider's" swapmeet. A number of tattoo artists had set up temporary shops and were busy tattooing. I got a beer and stood by. Best show in the house- all these cute young honeys were getting tattooed in some otherwise private and painful places. At the time, despite the atmosphere, I got philosophical. I looked at those young girls, maybe 17 to 25 years of age, and saw their seemingly flawless skin and nicely formed bodies. I kept thinking how perfect a well devloped woman's body is and how it seemed wrong to mar it. It seemed like they were getting indelibly marred with the tattoos. I stood there drinking my beer and wondering how long it would be before they decided they didn;t want what was now permanently on them. Some were getting "Property" Tattoos with their old man's name and club colors. They were probably too dumb or too young to realize that was likely to change.

A couple of years ago, I stopped for breakfast in a small cafe on a backroad. The lady at the counter had some hard miles on her. Partying, cigarettes, and years had put more lines and furrows on her than a plowed field. I looked at her arm, and there was a much-blurred tattoo of a motorcycle club's colors. It was a hard-core club, so I won't name it. Suffice it to say the lady caught my gaze and asked me quietly if I knew what I was seeing. I told her as much. She sighed and said something to the effect that it was all long past and something she wished she didn't have on her arm. It may as well have been a link to a previous life. She and I talked about all kinds of stuff- bikes and runs and whatnot. She fed me a hunk of fresh pie on the house and I was on my way. Left me wondering what she must've been like years earlier. One thing is for sure, a tattoo done in one's youth all too often winds up as a sorry looking blur of ink on sagging, wrinkled flesh.

As for me, I have never been tattooed. When I was a young buck, my folks had made it clear that if I did, I would be disowned. As I got older, it hit me that what you put on yourself is there to stay. Then there are the religious and cultural aspects. My family lost a number of relatives int he concentration camps and had relatives who survived- all of whom were tattooed with number son their arms. As a kid, I saw plenty of Holocaust survivors in the neighborhood I grew up in with those tattoo'd numbers. The result was that getting a tattoo was not something our people did. As I got older and worked heavy construction, and rode Hogs, the idea of getting some unique tattoo would come up from time to time. However, my roots invariably over-rode any urge I had to go get inked along with my buddies.

Now I am 55 years of age, a family man, professional engineer, and still riding Airhead BMW motorcycles and Hogs. I still get kidded by guys at the powerplant as to when I might go get inked. Meanwhile, my wife has a variety of friends who are somewhere around 50 years of age. A number of these ladies have gone and gotten tattooed- backpieces, and mainly small tattoos on their shoulders or ankles. A few also got navel rings. They have the bodies to do it, so not a bad thing to look at. Must be a midlife crisis. Meanwhile, a lot of these ladies are the mothers of my son's buddies and classmates. My son, at age 17, shakes his head and wonders why anyone's mom would go out and get inked. Maybe he's wiser at age 17, or maybe his perspective will change when he is my age.

Best tattoo quote ever:

"There are only 2 people in life who care about your tattoos: you, and the employer who's not gonna hire you!"

-=[ Grant ]=-

Not anymore. I know a cosmetic surgeon who makes big $ every year in tattoo removal. Does it one day a week when he is not in the OR.

The results after 3-4-5 treatments are near perfect. Hurts a lot worse than a tattoo I hear.

Could be wiser, but more likely the 50 year old mom's getting tatooed is precisely what will put a huge damper on the fad. If mom is doing it, it's no longer "cool" and therefore of less interest to the younger set.

My tattoos appeal to me because its another form of expression. To me its my own little piece of art, instead of being in a musuem I can wear it everyday. To some they choose to express themselves by what they wear, drive, do in there free time etc. To me its a way of decorating my skin by means other than jewlery, clothes, hairstyle etc. My tattoos are away of expressing something about myself. They have deep personal meaning to me and I can have and look at them everyday. Like the battle scars my friends grandpa used to show us they tell a story about me. A story I tell without talking out loud.

I look at the growing trend to get tattoos as humorous myself. The number of people who jump on a fashion trend is amazing. What is sad though is unlike getting your pony tail cut off, throwing away your Beatle boots, or pulling your pants back up where they belong, getting off the fashion train of tattos when it runs it's course is a little more difficult.
Many who think they are cool now, or are exercising their right to decorate their own body, will one day realize that the people of power in the real world, simply don't appreciate the artwork, and will not accept it in their front offices or boardrooms.
Many a hippie of the 60's who is successful today, cut his hair, exchanged his holey bell bottoms for a Brooks Brothers suit, and washed the flower painted on his cheek off.
Try washing off your tat.
I am all for personal rights, but don't understand the logic of doing something permanent that could undermine your potential success later in life.
One of my sons finally learned the lesson, when he stopped dressing like a "banger" he found good employment much easier to obtain, and those friends, who were truly friends, accepted his change in dress.
Just the difference between a politically correct dream of "everyone should accept me as I am" and the "real" world.
My 2 cents
AL

Modern trend ummm. I've always liked tats since I met a biker when I was a litle kid. He told me about how everyone of his tattoos was like a book telling the story of his life. Like a chapter symbolizing something each tat marked an important chapter in his life. His tattoos all had meaning to him whether or not other people liked them. I feel like that, I don't care what other people think about the choices I make about my body if it has meaning to me.

That's a good explaination...I like that...doesn't make me want to go out and get a tattoo, but at least does explain the phenomonen somewhat.