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<p>There’s a way to find out why someone chose to pierce and/or tattoo himself or herself. You can ask. I imagine different people’s reasons are different. It does seem odd, as romanigypsyeyes points out, that you can’t imagine any other explanation than the one you brought into the conversation, despite the fact that numerous people on this thread have shared reasons that don’t square with your assumptions.</p>
<p>Hm. Feel sad for folks happy with their choices living productive lives because you don’t like their tattoos?</p>
<p>That implies some kind of privileged position. But we’re all in this leaky boat together , as a long-term CC poster likes to say.</p>
<p>My family felt sorry for me for becoming a college lit professor instead if a lawyer. They thought I was giving up significant income. But I made this decision to make myself happy, and it did!</p>
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Why? Because you are better able to make decisions for them? Why should my getting a tattoo make anyone else sad? </p>
<p>The pain is not that bad, is temporary, and is (to me) one of the smallest considerations in getting one. Remember that if you have never gotten one, you really don’t know how bad it hurts. Just try to realize that millions and millions of Americans have multiple tattoos, so it should be clear that the pain-to-value ratio is pretty low for those people.</p>
<p>And as for the permanence, so what? For most people, that is the goal of the tattoo. Could I regret that decision? Sure, but there are many decisions that I could regret, that doesn’t make all or even most of those decisions bad.</p>
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Can you at least acknowledge that there ARE other explanations? I mean, I don’t ski because I think it is too expensive and too dangerous, but that doesn’t mean that I think all skiers hate money and are suicidal. I instead acknowledge that the appeal and drawbacks are different for than for them, and that for most of them the decision to ski is not an unreasonable one.</p>
<p>sewhappy: I have been trying to understand your world view. Do you imagine some sort of baseline norm group and then deviations from that norm, like tattooed individuals and:</p>
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<p>Could you elaborate on how you imagine these groups see themselves?</p>
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<p>This sounds like you don’t see these groups as outside the norm. Except irrevocably “different” is an interesting choice of words. Does that mean any of these groups can change their minority status?</p>
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<p>I can’t say that having piercings helps me to fit into any of the sub-cultures I operate in. With most of the groups I operate in, you’d be hard-pressed to find a real consistent common thread outside of certain interests. (For the majority of my friends and I, that would be things typically labeled as nerdy.) </p>
<p>Aside from that, I can’t say that we’re really shocking anyone, either. I can tell you just by looking around my the graduate students in my classes that many sport some piercings or tattoos, some even extensive. Others have differently colored hair. This apparently did not phase the professors who decided to work with us even after going through interviews (though I will admit I did not wear my eyebrow piercing to my interview, out of pragmatism, but when I showed up in fall with it my grad advisor did not bat an eyelash). </p>
<p>Ultimately, my explanation? I like the way piercings look. I like the cool jewelry I can wear. Tattoos can be beautiful works of art as well, and as for fun colored hair… Colors are awesome! I love bright colors.</p>
<p>In my middle-class suburban neighborhood, I occasionally see the same guy driving around in a late-model Rolls Royce. I’m a hardcore capitalist, but the prestige overkill of that vehicle looks pathetic instead of impressive. It appears to be a desperate effort to get attention. I look at tattoos and piercings the same way…desperate, pathetic efforts to get attention.</p>
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Or perhaps he is just an enthusiast - I am not personally a fan of post-40’s Rolls but I would not rush to judge someone who was. Or perhaps there is a personal attachment to that car. Who knows?</p>
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So you look at something different and immediately latch on to the worst interpretation you can think of? How charming. I am sure you have made no decisions that anyone else could possibly interpret negatively.</p>
<p>Maybe he likes cars? Maybe it was inherited from his parents? Maybe… just maybe… he’s doing it for himself and not for you!</p>
<p>“So you look at something different and immediately latch on to the worst interpretation you can think of?”</p>
<p>What’s the “best” interpretation? Their skin looks soooo much better with ink blots? A bunch of hardware sticking out of their skin is such a fascinating and original form of self expression?</p>
<p>* It appears to be a desperate effort to get attention. I look at tattoos and piercings the same way…desperate, pathetic efforts to get attention.*</p>
<p>It’s interesting that you see someone driving a car as a plea for attention.
It’s also telling that you see external body adornment also the same way.</p>
<p>I’ve observed that when someone has an issue with someone else- whether it is their nose, their job or their spouse- it actually says more about how the first person feels about * their nose, their job & their spouse*, than it does about the person they were commenting on.</p>
<p>So I’d have to ask you- why do you think you aren’t getting enough attention?</p>
<p>I’m not sure why older adults ever get a tattoo. But I bet a pretty fair proportion of the teenagers and young adults who get a tattoo do it for the same reasons that people in that age group take up smoking: because it carries a faint sense of rebellion and because they think it’s somehow cool.</p>
<p>And like the smoking, a lot of them come to regret it later when they grow older and smarten up and their sense of what’s cool grows up.</p>
<p>Fortunately for the smokers, it’s considerably easier to stop being a smoker than it to stop being a tattooed person.</p>
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Well, I would start anywhere other than where you did.</p>
<p>Let me give you an example.</p>
<p>My first tattoo was a dated grave marker. I got it because I did not ever want to forget the loss of my best friend, and what it meant to me, and I felt (and still feel) that it helps to make his memory a more constant and positive part of my life. I don’t care if you see it. I don’t care what you think about it. It is for me. If you can see it, it is because I wanted to be able to see it outside a bathroom, and any affront to your sensibilities are simply collateral damage.</p>
<p>That may not be the interpretation that jumps out to you at first, but “It had personal meaning to that guy” is pretty easy and a heck of a lot better than “That guy is desperately and pathetically trying to get my attention.” For that matter, what makes you so special tht he would try?</p>
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In some cases, yes. For most people, that ink is distinctive, covers many imperfections, and tells you about the individual. Heck, I think in most cases that makes their skin look better. But I prefer individual honesty, however poorly it is expressed, to the most exquisitely expressed conformity. That’s just me.</p>
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As opposed to trying to make your skin, and face, and clothing look like everyone else’s? It may not be the most[/] original form of self-expression, but it is more effective than a cool tie or this season’s “in” dress! And I would rather see a half-pound of studs and loops on a person’s face than an expression of smug disapproval.</p>
<p>*: Historically, it is in fact one of the oldest ways of distinguishing people, as some of the oldest mummified human remains discovered show evidence of tattooing.</p>
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<p>I’ll say it again, I know many adults who have gotten tats to cover up scars left by their ex-SOs or rapists. I work at a shelter with abused women and children and yes, to them, their skin looks better with designs of their OWN making over ones that they had no control over. And yes, sometimes that is on their neck, face, etc. It doesn’t always hide the scars, but it gives them a way to take BACK what was taken from them- mainly, their ability to control their own appearance. </p>
<p>My tattoo is for a family member who was taken from us at far too young of an age. My cousins and I all have similar tattoos (with our own special flair). Frankly, I don’t care what you think of them. They are special to us. It was not a spur of the moment thing and we don’t use them to get attention.</p>
<p>Does anyone else recall the following dialog from an episode of House, MD?</p>
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<p>Im 18 i have one tattoo very meaningful to me. I am a peer tutor at my school just received high honors again this quarter. Won my school spelling bee last year … I think because your generation hasn’t seen anything like this your not open to it … Just like i donto like the same movies my folks like…
im an honest student hold a steady job on weekends and im not getting tattooed for attention its on my upper shoulder its where you can’t really see it in a tshirt so how is that classified at an attention plot… As far as drugs… If your a parent asking these questions you’d be surprised i honestly can say my out of my public school 85%of kids have done it … Including my self … There is no need to judge by hair style you are no better nor worse that someone who judged skin color </p>
<p>Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using CC</p>
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<p>You need to inject ink into your skin to make a permanent picture on your skin in order to remember a friend? You see, that in itself is deeply sad to me.</p>
<p>And the scoldings directed at me on this thread are a little histrionic. I am by no means in favor of regulating or forbidding people to mark themselves up and pierce themselves as intensively as they wish. </p>
<p>But I do think it’s a sad and pointless trend.</p>
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Need? No. Chose. I chose a tattoo because it would make his presence greater to me. And I greatly resent your tone in this instance. You do not get to choose how I grieve, and the implication that I am somehow inferior in my capacity for grief or rememberance is offensive. </p>
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You are prejudging and deriding a large segment of society that includes many of us on this board, and declaring that our decision in this matter makes us lesser or “sad” - I have seen nothing that I would consider histrionic in this instance.</p>
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I think no one is making you get a tattoo that you might consider sad and pointless, and that your derision is far worse. Also, it is a “trend” that has existed across the entire world for the entire course of known human history, so it has outlasted nearly every other form of self-expression known.</p>
<p>With regard to post #314: I was not a faithful watcher of House, tk21769, but I do not gather he was exactly a role model for good lifestyle choices. </p>
<p>And comments like this one make me scratch my head:</p>
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<p>See, cosmicfish didn’t say he or she needed to inject ink to remember a friend. He or she said, “I felt (and still feel) that it helps to make his memory a more constant and positive part of my life.” This is not tantamount to saying he or she “needed” the tattoo to remember. What makes you jump to that conclusion, sewhappy? I daresay most people who have lost a loved one don’t “need” anything to remind them of their loss. Cosmicfish used a tattoo to help him or her cope. You’re obviously entitled to feel “sad” about this, but I don’t understand why you altered the sense of what cosmicfish said. </p>
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<p>Well, fortunately for the person who gets a tattoo, they haven’t started a habit that brings with it the risk of serious chronic and fatal illnesses (I get that tattoos are not risk free). I won’t argue that it’s easier to get rid of tattoos than to stop smoking for someone who’s motivated. At the same time, I’ve never seen “stop being a smoker” and any variant of the word “easy” in the same sentence!</p>
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<p>I’m no personal fan of tattoos from an aesthetic point of view, but conceptually, is there a difference between that and (say) wearing a piece of jewelry that commemorates a loved one? I wear a diamond solitaire necklace which has personal meaning to me, as the stone was from a now-deceased loved one and is one of only two physical mementos I have of the person. A good friend of mine had a late miscarriage and wears a beautiful pearl ring she designed in honor of the baby she lost. I have another friend who lost a baby to a brain tumor and her husband has the baby’s picture tattooed on his chest. I mean, I think my necklace and her ring are classic and elegant and I think the tattoo of the baby is unattractive since there’s no ink-on-skin I’ll ever find attractive, but that’s merely my aesthetic preference – the sentiment is the same, no?</p>
<p>Sigh. As I’ve stated. My reservations on extreme tattooing/piercing are based on (1) the physical assault on the body that it entails, resulting in pain and even at times infections and medical consequences; (2) the permanence of the physical alteration, often performed at a relatively young age and quite potentially a future source of embarrassment and even anguish; (3) the underlying attitude that would lead a person to subject themselves to (1) and (2) for the trivial and superficial purpose of altering their outward physical appearance.</p>
<p>Now, does this mean I’m going to actively oppress excessively tattooed/pierced people?? Uh, I have better uses of my time.</p>
<p>But nothing, absolutely nothing on this long thread in support of extreme tattooing/piercing has moved the needle (no pun intended!) for me on the issue. I think it’s just misguided, foolish, somewhat reckless . . . but on the positive side gives such people an excellent method of identifying themselves to the rest of the population. So overall I guess a good thing!</p>