What do you think about tattoos?

[joeea]

IMHO, tattoos are a sign of short-term thinking.

There's nothing worse than old tattoos.

 

[MRG]

I have none. DW has one that is special to her, it's ok by me. I like some, including full sleeves. We go to the hot springs on a weekly basis and see lots.

I'm not going to judge anyone based on what they decorated their body with. That would be like judging them on their choice in clothes.

 

[Beldar]

I don't understand what the wearer is trying to communicate by the art work to others (if there is even a message, or if it's just a personal preference, like a clothing choice).

Now body piercing is a definite turn-off for me

I suspect visible artwork or piercings definately limit ones employment opportunities.


_B

 

[erkevin]

When people ask me why I dont have any tattoos, I reply "I voted for Reagan twice"
In college, in the 80's, tattoos just werent a thing.

 

[aja8888]

Stepson fell madly in love with an old high school flame after they both got divorced from original spouses (at around 40 years old). They took an expensive Hawaii honeymoon and both came back with big heart tats on each of their upper arm area with each other's name in the heart area. I almost gaged and DW was speechless.

Now that the marriage of two years is over, both still bear the branding of the short lived marriage. LOL

I have no tattoos but do have lifetime scars where several operations had been completed. DW has none either, at least I haven't found one yet!

 

[Tailgate]

My wife got an ankle tattoo several years ago.. Chinese letter that supposedly means ‘Wisdom’.. a few years later we asked a Chinese gentleman to confirm that translation. He looked at it and said it says ‘broccoli chicken’.

 

[OnIslandTime]

I'm not wild about tattoos mostly because I can't imagine anyone deciding to "wear" the same thing for the rest of their life. When I was in high school those puffy looking stylized mushroom prints were everywhere...clothes and junk jewelry...all the girls had (or wanted) the pink mushrooms with the white dots for a pendant. Had tattoos been popular, many would have opted for just such a tat...yuck!


When my kids were younger they each mumbled about tats; about the same time a friend's wife started wanting one, because she found out each of her grown kids had one. My suggestion: get two years worth of a tattoo as close to the one you might want as possible (temps look very realistic). Apply one in the desired location and reapply as necessary...continuously...no matter what comes up for the entire two years. At the end of two years, if you still imagine that you want that tattoo, buy another two years worth and go again. I think my kids realized that it was likely within two years there would be some situation where they would not want to reapply the temporary tattoo. My friend's wife actually bought two years worth of butterfly tats for her ankle. She applied one and never reapplied another. I made sure that that info got back to my kids...so far (age 29 and 27) they don't have any tats. Interestingly, both of their fiancees (sp?) has a tattoo; DIL-to-be has a bible verse on her side to commemorate the passing of her cousin and SIL-to-be has a big catdog cartoon character outline across the top of his back (I can't remember the story, but I'll bet beer was involved).



My other observation: If it is fat and you tattoo it, now it's fat and ugly.


YMMV

 

[rodi]

As some one who's a 'young boomer' (or really old gen x) I used to be shocked by tatoos... but by the time I retired a few years back it was *not* a barrier to employment in a professional (engineering) environment. Many of the 20-35ish engineers had tatoos. They didn't hide them. the stigma of tatoos (except on the face) has definitely lessoned.

I laughed at loud about tatoos not aging well. I spend a lot of time at the beach in a military town (so lots of retired service members who are older and have old tatoos....) There is a lot of truth to saggy skin tatoos not being attractive. But then again - older people in general look saggier than young people - tattooed or not.

I don't have tatoos... but I still don't look good on the beach. Doesn't stop me... I've stopped caring what others think.... especially if it's a good boogie board day.

 

[ocean view]

I have both sleeves done. They are each 1 large piece of artwork from the wrist to the shoulder. Each one was over 10 grand and took over 100 hours each. It takes 2-3 weeks of healing after every session (~5 hours give or take) so you can imagine how long of a process it is.

I didn't start on them until I was in my 40's and didn't have any before that. I guess that I'm just old, stupid, and now broke. [emoji20]

I actually have people from all walks of life on a near daily basis ask me to lift my sleeves so that they can see the entire pieces. Other people are clearly disgusted by the artwork and have expressed their opinion on the matter to my face. My response is usually the same "thank you for your input, have a nice day."

Thanks for sharing this. I’ve always wondered about time and cost involved, but never felt comfortable asking a stranger. If you are comfortable sharing, I’d be interested in hearing about how you decided what images you wanted in your artwork.

I know tattoos are not for me, but I don’t have a problem with other people having them. I have always wondered, though, why one would get a tattoo somewhere that they themselves cannot see without a mirror.

 

[street]

I don't like them and would never get one.

 

[rdy2go]

I find them ugly and disfiguring. I have never seen one that I thought was attractive and hope that my daughter never gets one.

 

[aja8888]

My wife got an ankle tattoo several years ago.. Chinese letter that supposedly means ‘Wisdom’.. a few years later we asked a Chinese gentleman to confirm that translation. He looked at it and said it says ‘broccoli chicken’.

LOL...could it also mean "Low Carb"?

 

[Scrapr]

I have both sleeves done. They are each 1 large piece of artwork from the wrist to the shoulder. Each one was over 10 grand and took over 100 hours each. It takes 2-3 weeks of healing after every session (~5 hours give or take) so you can imagine how long of a process it is.

I didn't start on them until I was in my 40's and didn't have any before that. I guess that I'm just old, stupid, and now broke.

I actually have people from all walks of life on a near daily basis ask me to lift my sleeves so that they can see the entire pieces. Other people are clearly disgusted by the artwork and have expressed their opinion on the matter to my face. My response is usually the same "thank you for your input, have a nice day."

DFDUBB

I like some of the sleeves. The colored sleeves look interesting. (But I'm not doing nutting...I'm a scaredy cat) Can you share why you did yours? Jilted lover? Mom stretched out on one arm & Dad on the other? I'm just goofing but I'm interested in the why and the process

Mrs Scrapr has a couple dots on her abdomen from her cancer radiation. Does that count? Should I encourage her to get a belly job?

 

[timo2]

Apparently tattoo ink can collect in Lymph Nodes

from the article: "researchers from Germany and France used mass spectrometry and X-ray fluorescence to check the skin and lymph nodes of four tattooed and two non-tattooed human corpses. They found tattoo ink in the lymph nodes and elevated aluminum, chromium, copper, iron and nickel levels in two of the four corpses with tattoos and elevated levels of titanium in all four. In fact, the lymph nodes were tinted with the color of the tattoo and contained nanoparticles (really small particles) of toxic tattoo pigment elements.

While it's unclear how having such particles in your lymph nodes may affect your health, this is a sign that tattoo ink travels a lot further than originally expected."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucel...ize-and-not-in-an-emotional-way/#30b35f37273b

 

[travelover]

I don't like tatoos, but really hate body piercings, especially nose and tongue. What the heck are they thinking?

 

[tmm99]

I have a strong aversion to tattoos, but I come from Japan, a country that is most unfriendly to people with tattoos. In Japan, traditionally speaking, and probably even now, tattoos are for yakuzas and thugs who belong to criminal organizations. You are not allowed in some business establishments (i.g. public baths, onsen hot springs, some hotels) if you have tattoos. Japan used to brand prisoners with tattoos ages ago too.

I personally shudder at the thought of people mutilating their body by inking their bodies. I imagine most of them regret getting something so permanent on their bodies.

Having said that, I have seen tattoos done in Japan. This guy's tattoos were totally different from the ones I've seen here in North America. I think they use much thinner needles in Japan, or maybe his was just a more expensive tattoo job. The whole thing looked more detailed and each line was very, very thin and crisp.

 

[tmm99]

A kid I know got a large tattoo of Apple's logo on his back when he was maybe 20 years old because he was a huge Apple fan. Do you get paid by Apple for the advertisement?

 

[chilkoot]

Whenever I see tats or piercings I assume the subtext is that someone wants attention.

So I ignore them.

 

[tmm99]

Whenever I see tats or piercings I assume the subtext is that someone wants attention.

Same goes for brightly-colored hair with one side of the head shaved off. I see a lot of those lately.

 

[Amethyst]

Most of them have invested lots of $$ and discomfort in their tattoos, so it stands to reason that the pictures mean a lot to them, and they would appreciate being admired. I've never met a hostile response to a friendly question about body art.

But I suppose people eventually forget that they are walking illustrations, and fall back on our usual human dislike of being stared at by strangers.

I won't get one, but I love to look at them. I want to ask, " will you roll up your sleeve so I can see the rest of it?" but I don't. I hate to stare, but some tattoos are really cool. Do the people with tattoos care if you try to really look at them?

 

[RobbieB]

I don't care one way or the other. Do what you want to do.

I don't have any and none in the plan. I'm not into pain.

 

[DFDubb]

Several have asked how I landed on the designs of my sleeves. I don't want to get into too many specifics because I've shared financial information on this site and I'm almost positive I have at least one family member that does research here.


For me, I simply loves the arts, but have zero artistic ability. I look at it more like wearing an expensive painting. I had each sleeve done by different artists. Both are "famous" in the tattoo world. For 1 I had to drive 4.5 hours each way for each session. The other I had to catch a flight for each session and would do 2 long back to back days each session which was an excruciating experience lol. I had a general blueprint or theme that I was able to communicate to each, they then spend sometimes months drawing out the stencils and such. 1 was 6 months from the time I put a deposit down to our first session, the 2nd one was over a year. There is a lot of trust involved and I encouraged both to push the boundaries with both technique and style. After a lot of time and money both came out incredibly IMO.


Good work will also age well, but it does require effort. I take really good care of the skin on my arms and use the same very high end products as my wife. I also now try to stay out of the sun as much as possible and wear sunscreen almost at all times.


I've never had any problems getting a job, nobody interviewing would know and I just recently got a new job with a new company. I'm in engineering for a mega corp that builds heavy industrial equipment and I've moved up steadily throughout my career. I have sometimes met co-workers out for drinks and they all generally get a kick out of it if I show up in short sleeves. Nobody can ever imagine that for me.


I'm a member of a very uppity country club, we have members who play for the local NFL team, so this place is exclusive. I'm one of the better golfers at the club and generally highly regarded by most of the membership, my wife even more so. I'm an equity shareholder so I get to vote on all issues. They put up a vote to enact a new rule about no visible tattoos, which was clearly in regards to me getting them after being invited for membership. Fortunately the membership voted my way, but it would've been awkward had they not because I would've had to be grandfathered in. People love to judge, but that's their problem, not mine.

 

[aaronc879]

I don't have any and don't plan to ever have any. I consider it a turnoff on women generally. A small butterfly on the ankle is ok but if you have a large tattoo on your side, arm, or leg...no thanks.

 

[TriumphTR3fan]

Tattoos are often a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
As a part of my job before I retired I occasionally escorted clients to tattoo removal sessions. These were persons that regretted having the tattoo because the art often limits employment. Some were gang related.
Removal is done with lasers that usually remove the tattoo over several sessions. Usually there is a healing period of at least six weeks between each treatment. Removal is expensive but there are clinics that will do them on a sliding scale depending on income.

 

[Nemo2]

Colombo, Ceylon, almost 60 years ago, aboard the P&O ship SS Oronsay.........crew member (deck hand) we had become friendly with was sporting a new tattoo.

Covering all the upper arm, elbow to shoulder, a dagger & thistle, and above the haft, in an arc, the letters SCOLAND.

Oops.