Ink


Long before the Japanese inspired art sleeve tattoos were made popular by big biceped police officers , home made tattoos were the prerogative of tough little sailors, regular old lags and of riff raff
There is nothing more creepy than a bad tattoo.
Years ago I once had to bath a psychiatric patient who suffered from a general paralysis of the insane ( for those that don't know GPI is a particularly nasty dementia caused by untreated  syphilis )
He was a former sailor who was covered in home made tattoos, most of which where depictions of the sexual abuse and degradation of women.
I hated washing him. I hated the feeling of his skin. I hated reading the "I fucked Delores" statement on his skinny breastbone and I hated looking at images of big breasted women tinged blue/ white by hypoxia and paper thin old skin.
I wore gloves when I bathed him , not because I was worried about the syphilis.
I felt dirty touching him because of the tattoos.
On his forearm was a line of small daggers. These I was told was a visual representation of the number of men he had stabbed during a lifetime of crime.
There was, however one small tattoo that reminded me that this little terrier of a bad guy was in some way human
Over his knuckles was dotted the inked message
I 🖤 My mum

103 comments:

  1. Whoa. What a contrast. I wonder how he treated his mum, and if his mum still loved him in spite of himself.

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    1. I didn't like to physically touch the abusive and degrading comments which were made worse by the fact he chose to tattoo himself with such nastiness..
      tattoos became thus linked together

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    2. I wonder how his mom treated him. Before any tattoo was done.

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  2. Tattoos on faces absolutely terrify me, I just can't deal with them at all.

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    1. The full veil has the same effect on some

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  3. I'm not a fan of tattoos, and here in the little (US)town I'm from, the majority of the people who have the most tattoos are also complaining that they can't find a job. Best tattoo I ever saw: I LOVE MY WIFE. They guy said so if they got divorced he could get remarried. They did, and he did.

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  4. Some patients make you cringe.

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  5. My ex boss wouldn't employ someone if he spotted a tattoo. Of course he never gave that as a reason. Personally I can't stand them on either men or women.

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    1. I think certain tattoos suit certain psyiques

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    2. I'm so tired my spelling is wosrse than ever

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    3. One of my sons is a boxer and has tats all over his arms... I can't abide them but it is his choice.

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    4. See the person not the tat

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  6. I'm not a lover of tattoos, women more than men. When I see a beautiful young lady with flawless silk skin, with tattoos up her arms and legs it makes me cringe...
    ~Jo

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  7. i love tattoos. i have 7.

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  8. I don’t like tattoos either .... I always think that they look like they need a good scrub !!!! I can understand your feelings about bathing that guy. .... at least he loved his mum ! XXXX

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  9. My grandad had tattoos on his forearms, and both of my daughters have chosen to have them. The elder has 2, the younger has 10. Some people just don't like any kind of tattoo, on anybody, but if they choose to 'other' my daughters because of the tattoos it is their loss. They are missing out on knowing kind, caring, hard working young women, who just happen to like having tattoos.

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    1. Anonymous8:38 pm

      Employers owe your daughters nothing. Is your daughters loss if they choose to deface themselves. I would not employ anyone with visible tatoos. If you wan,t a respectable job play by the rules. Wan,t a job in police don,t commit a crime etc. Jac

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    2. I think that reply a little harsh.
      But There are certain professions that perhaps don't lend themselves to multiple tattoos ..

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    3. Anonymous9:57 pm

      Sorry was not meant to be harsh. Guess i,m not pink and fluffy. The world owes no one anything!. Anyone going for a job needs to climb over hot coals to beat the competition. First impressions last! Jac x

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    4. And you have an important point to share x

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    5. Did I say that employers, or the world in general owe my daughters anything? I merely commented that some people would choose to 'other' them. That doesn't just apply to the employers that I didn't mention. In your prickliness, you appear to have put your own spin on things.
      Both of my daughters are employed. One is a teacher at a high school in a leafy area of Cheshire. The other works front of house in a high end restaurant in Manchester. Neither have ever had problems gaining employment, so clearly your 'rules' don't apply everywhere.

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    6. Like everything should be
      Every case looked at on its own merits xx

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  10. Anonymous7:27 pm

    My friend, really no, not me! once danced and then had a drink with a boy at the Tottenham Royal Dance Hall in the early 1970's, she liked him until she saw he had a tattoo showing a broken line of dots on his neck with a small knife to one side saying 'cut here'
    She called me over to show me it, the look of horror on our faces must have said what we though.
    We made a hasty exit and didn't go back for a couple of weeks!
    This was way before 'tats' were popular with young people!
    Tess xx

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    1. Ah, the Tottenham Royal. That's where my parents met. I went there a few times in the 70s. Perhaps we met.

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    2. Anonymous8:33 pm

      Ohh, don't want to hi-jack John's blog but YES, small world.
      Royal on Thursday, Lyceaum on Tuesday, all Tamla Motown and Soul music playing, danced all night.
      Never went to Wigans Casino, wished l had,
      Sorry about this John!
      T xx

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    3. Hijack away dearheart xx

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  11. I don't think you can be indifferent about tattoos. You either love or hate them. I'm afraid it can prejudice people's opinion, but it seems so can anything. I can't say that I find any tattoo adds to a person's attractiveness and I can't understand why anyone wants one. Each to their own I suppose.

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  12. I like small discreet tattoos, like a small bird on someone's neck. But I don't understand huge tattoos that cover people's arms or chest or back. It just seems like desperate attention-seeking.

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    1. I am divided...the sleeve like the one I have shown has a charm ,

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    2. I love a bold sleeve on young skin. It's the aging part that bothers me

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    3. Immediate gratification

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    4. I jokingly refer to mine as half-sleeves. When I was a teacher, I wore button-down oxford shirts and trousers.

      My great-grandpa came to SF as a Swedish longshoreman. He had sort of Popeye-like tatts on his forearms.

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  13. I'm sure that patient's going to turn up in my nightmares tonight.

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    1. Of all of the patients I ever nursed he was by far the creepiest .. In retrospect he reminded me of the baddie in Cape Fear

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  14. I have three tattoos myself. I got my first one in 1980 because I didn't want to be a "good" girl anymore. Of course it didn't change me.

    I had an elderly patient in the last couple of years, she was in her eighties and was covered in tattoos, something I had never seen before. Turns out her son was a tattoo artist and she had let him practice on her. A mother's love:)

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    1. In the end " to each their own " must be the mantra ...

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  15. My grandfather was a US Marine Drill Sgt
    Of course he had tattoos! lol
    I am thankful that my relatives in the past were not forced to have numbers tattooed on them ...

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    1. Yes , another side to the tattoo debate

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  16. Anonymous8:29 pm

    Tatoos in my opinion just make people look cheap. Defacing beautiful skin with slogans. Sort of jailhouse and council house schemey. Would not employ anyone with a visible tatoo. If they do not respect themselves they would not me. Friend got married in a beautiful white dress but whole picture ruined by her numerous horrid tatoos!. Jac x

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    1. I'm not a lover of them, but the sleeve as shown above does have a certain power and charm

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  17. My daughter who is a Doctor of Philosophy, Chancellors Fellow etc. Has both arms tattooed they mask the scars she has from self harm when a teenager. I am proud of my daughter and of her images on her arms.

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  18. That little tattoo made him seem a bit more human to you? A sentimental cliché tattoo?

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    1. No it didn't , it just made me think I guess

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  19. Tattoos are so conformist (these days). I feel sorry for young people who follow this trend in "transgression"- it's so faux. No, I don't think it's my loss to not get to know these sheeple.

    But I can't forget the one sweet girl who had a tattoo that I would love to have. I came across her on a walk in Manhattan, on 34th Street and Madison Ave. near the Morgan Library on a beautiful Summer evening. It was exhilarating to be in the City, a rare outing from my suburban life on Long Island. And I walked past a darling young couple, she in a Summer frock and he seeming to hang on every word she was saying, and as I passed I noted that she had a tattoo of Sputnik on her ankle.

    I pointed to it and said, "Little Traveller!"

    And they both laughed and hugged each other.

    I love that little basketball-sized man-made object.

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  20. Why would you wear the worst of your being on your skin, and not the best?

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    1. Some people wear their bile on the outside

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  21. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. My grandfather was a USMarine Sgt
      Of course, he had a tattoo lol
      I,too, like the small discreet tattoos, something like those I have seen on Japanese men or women.

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  22. I work in a home improvement retail store and I see 'em, those people who don't know the difference between art and disfigurement.

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  23. My friend put a bandaid on her little ankle tat every day while she taught children. I have found that many people use tattooing as a way to let out overwhelming emotions, similar to cutting. I adore tattoos but don't have any... two kids instead and also a fear of what psoriasis would do to any...

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    1. Now this is vital and important and typically the comment is hidden away ....... you have something important here

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  24. Nowadays homemade tattoos are usually indicative of a stint at the penitentiary -- i.e. "prison tats."

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    1. Apart from sailors it was always so , I think

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  25. I just hate tattoos but probably something to do with my age. Perhaps I should have one to bring myself up to date a bit more.

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  26. I quite like tattoos. My father had tattoos from being in the infantry during WW2. I have two myself. I'm always interested in hearing the stories behind people's tats. Often they are quite profound and meaningful. (And sometimes not, but those cases are rare, I find).

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    1. Profound and meaningful but for the RIGHT reasons

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  27. If have 3 small tattoos and all have great meaning to me. This whole discussion reminds me of when I was teaching and on a Character Education Committee. This was in the early days of when students, male and female, were dying their hair wild colors. The principal had a real problem with that and wanted to have those children expelled from school. What did that have to do with character? These were kids who felt just a little bit different and wanted to express it. We were trying to "teach" good character, yet he wanted to judge the students based on their hair color? Same with tattoos. There are all kinds of reasons people don't get hired that have nothing at all to do with their ability to do the job - too fat, too old, etc. along with every racist reason. I believe we should live and let live.

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    1. The whole post was about the power those abusive tattoos had on me.....not about tattoos per say
      I love the sleeve tattoos, they are works of art, but my point was about just how aggressive some can be.....

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    2. Understood. I guess unfortunately he was really expressing what was inside of him. And it's frightening when people seem to be proud of things they've done that most of us find morally wrong.

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  28. I cannot imagine why anyone would put a permanent tattoo of anything, even something beautiful, which they could be sporting for 60 odd years. I hate them and really hope they will go out of style fast.

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  29. I have a small yin/yang tat as do my twin granddaughters. it was their idea when they were 16 to get matching tattoos so that when I died they would have something permanent and personal to remember me. they let me choose the design which I chose because it has personal meaning to me, a symbol of balance. we had to wait til they were 18 to get them. my daughter and her husband each have several tattoos. lots of negative comments here about tattoos but of course everyone is entitled to their opinion. like them or don't but I find it offensive that some of the commenters judge a total stranger's character based on their like or dislike. some people consider their body a canvas and they choose to wear art. how on earth does that make them dishonest, creepy, or disrespectful. judge not lest ye be judged. there are those who use tattoos like the patient in your care and gang members whose tats tell exactly who they are but I have a friend who was in prison for defending himself from an attack (long story) and he has some of those 'prison tats'. you could judge him negatively as has been done here but you would be extremely wrong about him. you don't know what people have to do to survive in prison.

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    1. Ellen, you have a good point about prison tats,
      But the chap I'm talking about used his tattoos so negatively against women in such a violent and totally visual way....
      The shame he was that he was demented
      I so wanted to ask him why he had the tattoos he gave himself

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    2. Yes, and I agree with you on that particular person. easy to judge his character when he displayed it so proudly. my comment about judging wasn't directed at you but at other commenters who dismiss out of hand anyone with any kind of tat.

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  30. We can't help but think how some of these "beautiful" tattoos will look when the skin is aged, wrinkled and sagging.

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  31. If a student I had in school made a vulgar comment, I've been known to ask " do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"....

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  32. What a wasted life. Saved only (maybe) by a tribute to his mother. I wonder how much of a mother she had to have been to have spawned such a horrible son. A terrible
    memory for you, John.

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  33. I remember that when I was a little boy, our neighbor was a sailor. He had a nice physique and also, I discovered some tattoos. He left the navy and became a civilian and one day I noticed a nasty patch on his arm. I asked my mom and she said he had his tattoo removed. I couldn’t understand then but I guess there was a stigma attached to it.
    I have several. The main ones are covered by clothing at all times. I really don’t worry what they’re gonna look like. When I’m over seventy and age does it’s thing I’m sure I won’t give a flying fuck as to how they look. 😎

    XoXo

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  34. I see a lot of older patients whose tattoos are past their prime. Not a pretty site. It is enough not to get one.

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  35. Barbara Anne4:31 am

    Oh, having seen many tattoos on various patients in my long years of emergency room and surgical nursing, I have to say beware of getting them in locations that will change (stretch, sag) with weight gain/loss or aging. It was odd seeing the elderly with ancient tattoos. I tactfully said nothing about the tattoos to these patients as it was their business, not mine.

    Our older son's view is why not decorate yourself? He and his wife each have several tattoos. Their business, not mine. :)

    Hugs!

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  36. My middle granddaughter's partner has tats all over his arms, chest, neck and back (& probably elsewhere) & I was pretty taken aback upon first meeting him. I'm afraid I thought he was scary looking and I judged him pretty harshly. My g'daughter has serious medical issues and this gentle soul has been her advocate and cared for her with such lovingkindness that I learned again to not judge a book by its cover. I find I am more open to people with tattoos and like to ask questions about why they got them and what their art means and I've heard some wonderful stories. But I would still never get one.

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  37. I don't like tattoos. I find the fashion very 'sheep-like', yet they all claim to be individuals. I once met an elderly tattooed Glaswegian lady on a beach in Ibiza. All the images had 'melted' into each other, and she looked as if she was covered in bruises. I suspect there'll be a lot of those around in 40 years time.

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  38. I remember many years ago nursing a patient whose skin was completely covered in tats of girls' names. Just as well he was unconscious (in ICU) as we nurses gathered around him looking for our names. I was on top of his right thigh. Heh.
    The only parts of his body not covered in girls names were his face, which,fortunately was blank and his willy,which was not blank, but had "redheads" on one side, and "all for love" on the other! I always wwonder just how much "love" he got with that body!


    5:49 am

    Please prove you're not a robot

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  39. As an old lady I would not dream of getting a tattoo, but when I see a young person with an artistic tattoo I appreciate the art that went into it and I will always give them a compliment.

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  40. I know lots of lovely people and some have tattoos and some don't.

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  41. I am an older person and 'got' a small tattoo some years ago to celebrate my divorce! I felt such a rebel, having been a teenager in the 60's and never having done anything then apart from marching in a 'ban the bomb' protest. It would seem tattoos are a bit like marmite - either love it or hate it! Very interesting comments. Ro xx

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  42. I'd have been thinking about all the poor folk he had passed his STD onto!

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  43. Our daughter had a tattoo when she was going through the distressing time of losing her hair due to Alopecia. It seemed like something she could do while going through something awful she had no control over.

    My husband hates tattoos but to this day doesn't know his beautiful daughter has this one even when she went on a transatlantic crossing with him and wore swimming costumes !
    Our daughter spent a year in New Zealand and a few weeks in Bali and came home with a tiny wave tattooed on her wrist which can be lost under a watch or bracelet if need be. My husband has seen this one !

    Our son had just had a lovely sun image tattooed on his upper arm, husband not impressed ! I'd quite like a little one but probably will never get round to doing it !

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  44. Heloise9:19 am

    My Dad got a tattoo when he was doing his National Service. He was quite shy and did it "to fit in."

    He has been ashamed of it all his life and keeps his arms covered even when it's a blisteringly hot day. For some reason, he couldn't have it removed by laser.

    Anyway, he made all of his daughters promise never to get tattoos and we've stuck to it. I did - in a rebellious moment - consider getting a small tattoo on my derrière. I'm delighted now that I didn't: the cute little dolphin of my youth would now be the size of a blue whale.

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  45. Yeuck! Just yeuck. I don't envy you John with some of the things you have to deal with. And yet you are so sane!!!

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  46. The word "tattoo" is Polynesian. I wish that tattoos had remained a ritualistic Polynesian art form - connected with South Pacific belief systems and rites of passage. Here in the modern western world they seem like emblems of egotistical self-indulgence, shallowness and social decline.

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  47. Heather10:42 am

    My sister in law has been a nurse for over 40 years and has said before some patients have made her skin crawl but you just have to be professional and get on with the job. My husband was in the RN for 30 years, no tattoo. I have a dragon on one shoulder blade, I had it 're-inked' last year. I would love a compass and leaf for each grandchild on the other shoulder. Some tattoos are real works of art but being older, I'm not a fan of them on faces.

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  48. I can understand why you felt that way about your patient.

    I've got six tats and I love them all - got my first in my early 30s and now (mid 50s) I honestly can say that I'll be getting more once I decide what I want and find a good tatooist. :)

    I've also waltzed into plenty of Board and Committee meetings in two different professions with them clearly on display. The only reactions they've ever provoked is polite enquiries as to where I got them and what they mean. The more disconcerting thing I found was when people occasionally stroke my arm because they've notice the tats and think they're lovely and want to touch them!

    If someone didn't want to employ me because I have tats that's their choice (and their loss because I'm jolly good at what I do) but if they're shallow enough to judge someone because of what they look like rather than who they are, how they live and what they do - then *shrug* that's their loss.

    As for what I'll look like when I get older? I'll be a kick-ass slightly eccentric, madly gardening, cat owning, wrinkled old lady with tats. :)

    I'm a huge fan of bodily autonomy. No one has the right to tell you want to do with your body - whether you wish to keep it unblemished or whether you want to cover it with tats and piercings - it's your own choice no0ne else's.

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  49. Anonymous2:28 pm

    I had a co-worker who wanted a tattoo for her fiftieth birthday and was looking for suggestions. Mine was to get a small rosebud on her breast - she would have a long-stemmed rose by her sixtieth!

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  50. One friend got a star tattoo near an eye. She is seventy now, and the star has stretched into a blurr. She defends it. LOL

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  51. When I turned 40 I wanted to do something different and permanent to remember this milestone. It just so happened that my nephew just turned 18 that year and he convinced me (not too difficult a thing) to get a tattoo with him. I was not to tell his Mom, my sister, till after the event. He got a large unicorn on one of his calves. I got a small Chinese symbol next to my ankle. His Mom was NOT happy one bit!! It was my plan to get one every 5 years. Well, I did when I turned 45. Two former high school students wanted to come along as well. We all got one! Seems I liked having company when being tattooed......as I have missed getting any more since then.

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  52. Wow. I do wonder what kind of mother he really had and what that relationship was like. THAT would have been a very wrenching job to have to do. I still find tattoos sexy at times. I regularly considering having myself inked (no do-it-yourself) by a true artist, but I change my mind so regularly that I know I'd immediately be bored with what I did. Also, since moving to the Costa del Sol, I see way too many horribly trashy tourists with tattoos. THEY'Ve put me off it.

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  53. Perhsps its just a mid life crusis thing

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  54. As Mitchell just said, I do like some tattoos and I think I would get one, but I know myself as I change my mind a lot too. And I have seen a lot of bad ones....

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    1. The one in the photo is quite nice mick

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  55. Yikes. I think I'll just enjoy the big-biceped police officers. :)

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