What do you reckon about tattoos?

Speaking as someone with a number of tattoos:
I love my own. They have a personal meaning to me, were thought about long and hard, and I researched the artists who were going to make these permanent marks on my skin to make sure that they were both talented and safe. That also meant that they were not cheap, and one of them took over 3 years to complete.
That doesn’t mean that I like all tattoos as some are not to my taste, but just as I wouldn’t comment on someone’s personal sense of style, dress, or taste in music, I also wouldn’t comment on their choice of body adornment.
For me, it’s nothing to do with who they are, just the same as if they have no visible tattoos would not have a bearing on it either.

Aged 60 and proud owner of 4 tattoos - 2 shoulder, one wrist and one foot!!

I really don’t like tattoos. However discreet ones are okish. My two granddaughters who are in their twenties ... one has quite a few and they are not attractive especially on the front of her ankle, the other one has bucked against the trend and hasn’t got any (that are visible?) neither parent has any, neither do I. They are not exactly classy on older women. I hope the trend dies out soon ....

MissAdventure

Like marmite ! I love both marmite and tattoos. My daughter is covered and I love her whatever. I also love all my tattoos and each one is about a special person in my life. After this lockdown ends I am having another - words this time .

I don't have any myself. Neither do my children.

However I have absolutely no problem with people who wish to have them. It's none of my business.

And I always remember the first time I saw a girl in a video with Justin Timberlake . Cry Me a River.

There was the most stunning girl showing her back and she had what are now known as tramp stamps, (horrid term).
Anyway I thought it looked stunning.

As for looking grim and saggy as we age, I look grim and saggy most of the time and not a tattoo on me!

Their tattoos will look much the same as the rest of their saggy old bodies, I can confirm.
Tattoos, or lack of, make little difference to the overall look.

Do these young folk have their tattoos ever think about what they will look like after 40 or 50 years? When the skin gets saggy and baggy, what will their tattoos look like then?

No I don't like them!!

I married a tattood man and it didn't bother me.
What I have said before about other subjects still stands here.
We should all do what we want to, - as long as it doesn't hurt other people.

Well Jonathon Van Tam has said that one of the things he’s going to do when lockdown is over is get a tattoo. If it’s good enough for JVT ..........?

Some people hang their art! Some like to wear it. I wear mine proudly. Stoicism (I'm a 60s baby) maybe part of my generation too. However I'm still the wild one and that won't change.

First tattoo at 22. 2nd at 40 after I left the ex in 2000. Many years later, 16 more and yes you read that right and I will have more. Waiting for the tattooist to reopen as I missed the one last year.

Don't have to say but I will however I have never come across anyone who doesn't like my tattoos, even people who wouldn't have them.

Mine are NOT horrible ones They are all pretty ones and symbolic.

Even the Welsh dragon on my arm is surrounded by daffodils with my late husband name on, obviously his memory, who is my 2nd husband, soul mate, best friend and the dad he didn't have to be to mine.

Others include another flag (Greek) our spiritual homeland, flowers, roses, butterflies, autumn leaves, daisy chain, bracelet dedicated to my late mom, dolphin, birds, ribbon with my grandchildren and children names on.

My favourite is the angel praying over a sleeping baby in a crib on my back with wording above.

Oh I have long hair dyed deep purple, look 10 years young than I am and yes I wear statement clothing. Though I don't wear all the piercings I used to have anymore LOL

There is nothing conventional about me and it won't change ?

As I said earlier, I dislike tattoos and would never have one, but each to their own. The tattoos that really make me cringe are the ones done on the inside of the wrist where the skin is very thin and the blood vessels are visible. Surely this is extremely dangerous? I just detest the thought of that tattoo ink going inside body!

I don’t have any and I must admit to not liking them. To me they look like bruises! Skin is the largest organ in the body, why damage it. I know someone who lost his beloved dog and had a tattoo of him on his arm, he loved it but I thought it was awful, looked like Winston Churchill! My DIL has a little unicorn tattoo, that is quite pretty but I still don’t like them. I feel the same about body piercings! That’s another thread!!!

janiepops Wow your foot tattoo is beautiful. I love the colours, very artistic.
Tattoos are a personal choice and if you like them get one and if you don’t then look away.

AmberSpyglass

The self mutilation aspect is interesting - I self harmed for years and have some lingering scars. When I was considering a tattoo, I figured that since I already had permanent markings on my skin I might as well get some that looked pretty.

Or perhaps began to tell a different story about you?

All human history is the recording of and telling of stories in one way or another. Why not our own individual history on our own skin?

The self mutilation aspect is interesting - I self harmed for years and have some lingering scars. When I was considering a tattoo, I figured that since I already had permanent markings on my skin I might as well get some that looked pretty.

TerriBull Read your posts with interest (as always) and was stuck by your mention of stoicism in relation to your son, and therefore felt his getting the tattoo may have been more than a symbolic memory of his brother and might be about externalising the pain of that grief, literally wearing his heart on his sleeve? The change since would fit. Not trying to psychoanalyse your son, just feeling for him and you - such a huge loss.

I've never had a tattoo, got close one drunken night in Amsterdam but mercifully I ducked out. Not because I'm particularly against them per se, but not on me. I have a weird phobia about ink (even washable ink) on my skin and would have freaked out had I woken up sober with a tattoo. Husband has one, he doesn't regret it as such but says if he could go back in time he'd not have bothered.

But people like him are 'randoms' - one tattoo, on a whim, no big regrets. I believe some people see it as an art form, as in living art and an outward expression of who they are and what they represent as a human. It seems to me that seeing it that way it's good to accept that like all things it's an evolution and for some people it's an important method of self expression. But I tend to be very accepting of other people as long as they are decent humans, what they look like is wholly irrelevant to me. But that's me.

As a form of self mutilation (as some have described it) I'm not so sure that should be a cause to condemn it - human beings have been altering their appearance in physical ways since they first stood on two legs, so you could argue it's in our nature as a species. In fact an absence of doing it is almost more interesting - if you consider that it was always a way of telling others who you are and what meant something to you, in short being open, then does it follow that we have been socialised not to show our true selves now? We can present many different 'faces' to our 'tribe' by the use of make up, clothing, hair colour, accessories etc. The art of disguise? A tattoo is a permanent statement of what means something to us and who we are. I think those who see it that way may not ever regret them.

Sorry, bit of a ramble - but yet another really interesting topic that probably needn't be as divisive as it is.

Why any woman wants to look like a masculine sailor god only knows

That’s exactly my type, Kandinsky, so thank god they do!

Wanders off to add Lea DeLaria to my evergrowing list on the crush thread

I always told DC that the day they got a tattoo was the day they left home. Some years later, after leaving home, DD has a rather pretty Charles Rennie Mackintosh design on her arm and DS has some ugly thing on his. I can only hope they stop there. A tattoo is well up in my list of things to never do.

the oldest known human to have tattoos preserved upon his mummified skin is a Bronze-Age man from around 3300 BCE. Found in a glacier of the Otztal Alps, near the border between Austria and Italy, 'Otzi the Iceman' had 57 tattoos.

Common as muck. It's a fad and I'm sure a lot of people will regret having one.

My sister has a couple of beautiful large tattoos - she has a giant butterfly going over her shoulder to the top of her chest. The other one is around her hip and we both agreed TMI on that one lol! They look fine on her - were done by an excellent tattoo artist and were extremely expensive. I really dislike the rush to judgement for women, in particular, choosing to have tattoos. That is a very old fashioned attitude and one I do not subscribe to. Yes there are plenty of awful-looking tattoos out there, on men and women both, but I have also seen lots of lovely artistic tattoes on both sexes. Like piercing, its a matter of personal choice and expression - sorry some of you cannot see it like this.