any comments or opinionson the aesthics and health related features of tatoos and piercings?

juicin' john

I think they are fine if they are tasteful and somewhat discreet.

Vinny

I've never been a fan of tatoos, sorry. Green/multi-color, whatever, I think they totally screw up a good lookin' body.

Unless you are a pro wrestler in the WWE, I say no, especially for women.

I'm sure the ink is not very health friendly as well...

The tramp stamp? What is that all about? Completely gross...

Piercings? Eh, I can take 'em or leave 'em, as long as they are not real excessive/over the top. Tongue, multi-ear/multi-eyebrow/others - no...

I have both and so feel comfortable saying that they are both completely ugly and ridiculous. My tattoo is very discrete, a beautiful design, well done, yadda yadda yadda, who cares. Still stupid. The inks are full of metals and other unhealthy stuff that basically goes straight into the blood stream and pollutes your skin forever. I will have it removed eventually, I'd rather have a scar.
Poking holes seems like the lesser of two evils, you can fill the holes with things made of wood, stone, amber, bone etc. But there are meridians that run all over the entire body, energy lines, blood vessels, etc. It's foolish to mess around with those body circuits. Add to that the fact that the body continuously rejects whatever foreign material is inserted into a body piercing by coating it in sebum (which, by the way, smells of rotten stanky cheese, how sexy is that?) on a non-stop basis and there's a message straight from the source about how welcome this practice is.

I've been very frank with my children about how unpleasant the results of these choices have been for me, fingers crossed neither of them makes the same mistake.

Oh, and I waited until I was 30 for that tattoo, chose symbolism with personal significance, etc. A few years later I hate it. Ok, I hated it 2 years later. I always say I should have had a tshirt printed. Dumb dumb dumb dumb.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2010 07:21PM by coco.

Don't have a tattoo, but am considering getting a couple of small ones as personal id. Don't find piercing, beyond ears, appealing. IMO, unless it's a cultural thing, it's mutilation for exhibitionism's sake, although there are probably exceptions. I knew a fellow in college who was quite pierced and was a lovely, lovely soul. It seemed superfluous; his personality was sooooo interesting. I often wondered whether he wasn't unconsciously keeping people at bay with piercings or making up for some imagined inadequacy. Just didn't get it.

I feel that people who are really into it and get their whole bodies covered are less repulsive to me than a single tattoo. They really turn my stomach. What I am seeing a lot are tats on the neck and I think that's pretty trashy. Please forgive me if anyone reading this has one! I think one good thing about message boards is that it allows venting without going up to someone and telling them it in person! I heard that the Jewish religion prohibits tattoes and I almost agree that it is defiling the body. Plus, it looks godawful when you are all saggy and that tat is faded on that papery skin. Yuck!

JuicerKatz: "Tramp stamp" LOL!!!!!! I forgot that one! As a forty-something woman, I know this is somewhat generational, as many more younger men and women have tats. When I see "mature" women (some even in their 50s) with ankle and shoulder tats, I wonder what is up with that. I mean, can't you commemorate whatever it is with a pendant instead of a permanent brand like they do with cattle? Is it just following the herd? I think it's pretty much about that.

Ha ha, Coco! A tee shirt instead of a tat? That's a good one! It's refreshing to hear someone who got a tat now regret it because I think to myself that there have to be people who feel like you. That's the problem with fads: they die out. Blue hair can be re-dyed; not so easy to remove tats. Or at least not so cheap as dyeing one's hair.

That's exactly why I waited for so long before I got one! I mean, I was 30, that's really old for a first tattoo. I figured holes heal so I've poked many in myself over the years but ink is forever. If I'd gotten one as a kid I'd have Garfield's Pooky on my a$$ I'm afraid. Come to think of it, that would be way smaller than what I ended up getting so maybe waiting was a mistake for me. A teeny teddy bear would be simple and inexpensive to have removed.

coco

you talk about piercings as being disruptive to the meridians

what about a simple ear piercing - u know..where u put a single earring

i was wondering if even THAT is disruptive

and if the body rejects it

even if it does

i'll still have earrings

cuz they look so nice

When I got my ears pierced for the first time, I got two holes on each lobe because it was a new thing to do at the time. I felt so adventurous and rebellious. Ha! I don't regret having one hole per ear, but wish I hadn't done two.

Luckily, I've never wanted a tatoo.

Here in New Zealand, a small number of Maori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) have traditional tatoos. On women it is on their chin up to the bottom lip. Maori men can have a full facial "moko" as well as tatoos on some other body parts. It was startling to see a moko at first, although now I appreciate their cultural significance and find them fascinating.


My favorite raw vegan

Trive,

Those Paific Islander peoples' tattoos are gorgeous to me, because they are culturally significant. There's almost nothing tackier to me than to see some white guy gym rat with one of those Polynesian armband tattoos. I automatically think, "poser." Apologies to anyone reading who has one, but, really, why?

poser

pos er

p o ser

posseur



see what people imitate

and know their deepest desires

they have to express it

some

how

or they will just bust

la_veronique,

Heh?

i have 6 tatoos, (no tramps stamps lol) don't regret any of them

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Trive, I wonder what is used for ink? These days it might be done in a shop with the same stuff that's in my skin but what would traditional tattooists have used in the past I wonder.

I think the art itself can be very beautiful but find the art applied to human flesh a bit repulsive. Maybe it's some aversion to marred or blemished skin as being somehow unhealthy or even diseased, but I don't like it. By the same token, I think it's great that some people feel strong enough in their likes, convictions, and points of view to display them prominently and permanently.

I got my ears single pierced as a teen. I never thought twice about it until in my late 20's I went to visit a distant relative who was totally disgusted by it. I kind of chuckled because most of her objections were the same ones I would have toward nose tongue and other body part piercings. Societal norms play a huge part in reactions to piercings and tatoos.

Coco, im not sure about the Maori but many primitive tattoos are done with a paste made of ash, Also I have to say, I don't like most tattoos either, not quite to the extent some seem to dislike them in here, but it does tend to affect my opinion of a person at least a little bit, in a negative way, it can depend on the tattoo...I have one friend who gave himself a tiny happy face tattoo with a needle and ash paste, that one I kinda like...lol... piercings, I don't really mind except gauging, I find gauging kind of disgusting...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

what is gauging and what is a tramp stamp and it is hilarious that someone would disapprove of a single piercing because a lot of people disapprove if you DON'T have a single piercing in your ear.. most girls have their ears pierced when they are babies

tamukha

i meant that even if the guy at the gym was a posseur
cuz he had a maori tatoo

it may mean that he felt a connection to the spirit of the people or what they represented to him ..e.g. way of life...
and so by this means
you can have a window to their values

This is gauging, warning, i find it extremely gross, so dont click on the link if your gonna get pissed off for seeing something gross,lol...
[modblog.bmezine.com]
[www.hearingaidsattrade.co.uk]
^ almost more disturbing in some ways...lol

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

oh, and a tramp stamp is a tattoo right at the base of the spine give or take...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

hey curator

thanks for explaining what a tramp stamp is

i won't open the link
because
knowing myself
visuals tend to stick in my head
and unless they are visions that i wish to see
like an ocean of tulips
i'd rather not

thanks anyways

My ears are gauged, that means stretched to fit a larger earring post if that makes sense to you Ver. So I could wear a little bit of pipe looking thing (called a flesh tunnel which is a disgusting name, eww!) in my ear, you could see through it. That sort of body jewelry is made of a special kind of metal that doesn't bother even sensitive skin. I could wear earrings (made of any kind of metal) that fit through the holes, like hoops, without that metal touching the inside of my ear hole because it was covered by the tunnel. Some people put really bit tunnels and plugs in their ears but I had the smallest kind that will still fit another earring inside them so now that I've taken them out my earring holes have shrunk back up to a regular sized pierced earring hole.

My tattoo is also on my lower back though It spans across from side to side about a foot. It's very pretty but really, I'd like it much better as a piece of wall art or a t-shirt.

The only tattoo I've consistantly liked for years and years are a set of stars a friend has on her foot and ankle that she inked herself with a thread wrapped needle and india ink. She did it during a time of massive emotional upheaval as a sort of self therapy and I have always loved them so much. She's a beautiful person though so that may affect my opinion.

Curator, so the tat has to be in a certain place to be a tramp stamp? LOL! I thought 'tat' and 'tramp stamp' were interchangeable! Is that second link for real? It actually seems like it's a form of self-torture, like cutting. I really don't understand the motivation for it beyond garnering attention and trying to piss off others. The first link doesn't really bother me; I have seen people with those. I just think they look ugly, though. Even something different can still be beautiful but I guess I need alterations to look nice in order to make sense to me. In the case of tribal art, it has symbolism so there is automatically meaning attached to it unlike this kind of thing.

Tramp stamp - [en.wikipedia.org]

I saw this a couple of months ago - talk about insanity!

Prison inmates tattoo the whites of their eyes...

[www.breitbart.tv]

This is my favorite example of body art maybe gone too far[but who's to say, really?]:


[www.odditycentral.com]

coco,

Most ta moko (Maori body and face markings) are now done with tatoo ink; however, in the past they were carved with uhi (chisels) that left grooves. Pigments came from burnt trees mixed with fat.

Here's a quote from Captain Cook:

The marks in general are spirals drawn with great nicety and even elegance. One side corresponds with the other. The marks on the body resemble foliage in old chased ornaments, convolutions of filigree work, but in these they have such a luxury of forms that of a hundred which at first appeared exactly the same no two were formed alike on close examination.


My favorite raw vegan

I've always wondered if tatoos and piercings were subconcious reflections of the shots we get as babies and kids. Sort of an expression/acknowledgement of the pain we felt so we could bring the memories of the pain out into the open and get some closure.

There is also the fact that most of us got our skin cleaned right after birth and that cleaning is supposed to feel like rubbing sunburned skin, we might be detoxing that experience.

I have both including a full sleeve...you don't like it...turn your head and don't look at me...I plan on more when money allows.

I don't like them and never got one, thank goodness.

**************

The Truth About Tattoos

Health Risks, Toxicity and More

[planetthrive.com]