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Tattoos and Attitudes
Old stigmas never seem to die…
Let’s talk tattoos.
In this day and age, one wouldn’t think that tattoos are a big deal. It’s pretty common to see people of all ages sporting some kind of body art. Still, just in the past week, I’ve seen negative things on social media and here on Medium about tattoos and people who have them. I won’t go into detail or call anyone out, that’s not my thing. But as someone who loves her tattoos, I felt compelled to respond to the pearl-clutching.
Now, I understand that a few generations back, tattoos had a negative, or even sinister, connotation. That is, unless you were a soldier. For some reason, tattoos on soldiers were acceptable. Otherwise, it was assumed by many that you were a low-life, a carnival worker, a gangster, someone who had been to prison or was involved in seedy or nefarious doings.
Ugh.
That’s what these posts I saw were implying. One was asking where the real ladies were because, apparently, real ladies don’t sport tattoos, multiple piercings, leg chains, waist beads (yes, really), etc. There were tons of likes and shares so even if it was generated by a bot, a lot of people agreed with it.
Ugh. Again.
What is possibly news to many people is that tattooing and other body art has been around for millennia…
