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You absolutely have a right to your opinion, no matter what. What I am trying to explain is why I disagree with the foundation of your opinion, or, to put it another way, the idea that it is okay to consider someone inferior because they value different things than you do.</p>
<p>Now you might well have taken umbrage about my use of the word “inferior” here, but that is the implication I have taken from several different posters in this thread and others. “Thug”, “bad taste”, “bad judgment”, “criminal”, and “drug user”… all of these point to the idea that someone with a tattoo did not just make an isolated “bad decision” (more on that later) but has something inherently or consistently wrong with them that makes considering them a “lesser” person acceptable. In your case, you are assuming, seeing my tattoos, that I have bad judgment, when at worst you have only the evidence of a single “bad decision”. I think Hyundai’s are really bad cars, I don’t think that people have bad judgment because they bought one, and try not to presume that it was even a bad car for them.</p>
<p>And as to the idea that a tattoo is a “bad decision” your presumption in making that call is that my desires, values, and concerns are the same as your desires, values, and concerns, and that is one hell of a presumption. </p>
<p>You may be concerned about tattoos affecting my ability to get a job - I am not. My tattoos are not visible when I am in work attire, do not depict anything that (if they were exposed) would indicate problematic personal beliefs (i.e., no swastikas), and are not especially uncommon in my particular field of employment. My wife has a tattoo on her forearm, and it was no obstacle AT ALL in getting the professional job she wanted, because it was actually related to that job, relatively subtle, and (importantly) was in no way indicative of her job performance. That job, by the way, involves extensive interactions with the public, and she has fielded comments on said tattoo from children, adults, scholars, and donors. None have ever complained.</p>
<p>You may be concerned about the permanence - I am not. I do not pick tattoos based on flash decisions during drunken revelry. They are all tied to majorly important things in my life that will still be majorly important decades from now. The permanence is to me a good thing.</p>
<p>You may be concerned about the aesthetic - I am not. I like what I like, and if other people don’t like the way I look that is fine. If I don’t think those shoes go with those pants, I don’t say the person has bad judgment, I say I would not have done that, because I know nothing of their judgment, I just know that I would have made a different decision.</p>
<p>You may be concerned about the health risks - I am not. There has never been a documented case of HIV transmission during tattooing, and the rate of Hepatitis infection is on the order of a dozen cases a year (out of millions and millions of tattoos, and about 13-14,000 total annual Hepatitis infections). And I pick my studios very carefully regardless.</p>
<p>You may be concerned about the pain - I am not. Maybe my pain tolerance is higher than yours, maybe the pain is just not worth it to you. I don’t know, and I don’t care. It heals.</p>
<p>So if you want to say “I would not do that” I have absolutely no problem with it. If you want to say “I think all tattoos are ugly” I will be curious as to the reason, but that is fine too (I personally dislike all cowboy boots!). If you think all tattoos are a “bad decision” then I think you are doing both of us an injustice by making your personal value structure the only acceptable standard. And if you generalize that one “bad decision” into “bad judgment” then you are condemning me as a person based on a single event or issue. And that is not cool.</p>
![http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Swastika-seoel_(xndr).jpg]File:Swastika-seoel](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Swastika-seoel_%28xndr%29.jpg%5DFile:Swastika-seoel){kind=link}
