Tattoo-Allure or Animosity

photo by Flickr user mre770

Imagine standing at the grocery store checkout counter loading fruit, cat food and toilet paper onto the conveyor when a girl approaches and asks if it is OK to look at your tattoos, adding rather boldly “I guess that’s why you got them in the first place, huh?” Many people assume that enthusiasts get tattooed so that others will look at them. This would be an incorrect assumption. Even though there are as many different reasons for getting a tattoo as there are people who have them, more often than not it has less to do with ‘other people seeing it’ than most people realize.

Tattoos are intensely personal, including the actual experience of having them done. Each one has special meaning and symbolism, perhaps representing transitions in one’s life, important people, spirituality or accomplishments. Tattoos can be more lighthearted, too, carrying less emotional weight, but the knowledge that something is going to be on your body for the rest of your life tends to force you to pay attention to your reasons for choosing it.

For the most part, society no longer demonizes tattoos or the people who choose to wear them, though there are still many naysayers who continue to live in a closed-minded fugue where those who seem radically different from themselves are feared, or at the very least, written off. Getting tattooed is certainly not for everyone. People who are afraid of the judgments of others are less likely to be tattooed than people who aren’t easily swayed by others viewpoints and opinions.

Tattooed individuals may be considered wild or masochistic, brave or daring, but rarely are they branded as thieves or ‘bad people’ anymore. Some may consider those with tattoos as being rebellious or just plain crazy, but it seems that with the steady stream of quality tattoos showing up in movies, television and on the backs and arms of celebrities, the association of the art form to the criminal element has been largely abandoned.

Photo by Flickr user bucaorg

Tattoos have become an accepted art form, and a beloved art form to those who create them and those who choose to spend their lives wearing them. Tattoos have become so popular in recent years that snubbing an individual who has tattoos might mean snubbing your doctor, or your child’s magnificent third grade teacher. People from all professions and all socioeconomic classes have gone under the gun.

So many people love and appreciate tattoos as works of art, that being treated with derision for having tattoos is becoming much less common than being greeted with curiosity and even admiration for the fact that you have made such a decisive and permanent statement with your body. Because of the allure of tattoos, most people look, some ask questions, but all are somewhat intrigued.