In this thread about body decorating the common question “But what will that thing look like in X years?” keeps popping up.
I’m not so sure about the rest of you, but when i’m 60 I expect I’ll be wrinkly, droopy, and dry. I certainly am not betting on being a sexy grandpa…
Do people really hope to be astheticly pleasing at 60?
I think when you get a bit older you are more aware that some senior citizens stay reasonably in trim and some look like dilapidated wrecks. I’m still in my thirties, but I have expectations of looking decent and gettin’ it regular when I’m in my sixties, and I make choices today that are designed to keep that goal within the realm of feasibility.
I’m not opposed to the idea of body art, and have considered getting inked several times. So far, I’ve yet to settle on a design that I’m confident will be in accord with the man I will grow into in the next twenty or thirty years.
When I see someone with ten percent of their skin in a prominent place dedicated to a poor reproduction of the album cover art for a genre band that’s enjoying their 15 minutes of frame, I quickly conclude that that person has not considered that they might conceivably live long enough to grow and develop as a human being. I feel embarrassed and sorry for them.
I think that’s a pretty natural reaction.
Hmn, I agree. However… I don’t see how a bad tat is going to detract from an old body.
If you stay fit and trim and maintain your body art the same you maintain yourself, it will look as good as it did the day you got it.
If you put on 30 pounds, your ass sags, and your ink turns blue, what makes the ink so terrible in comparison?
People don’t hope to be anything at 60. They don’t think about it until they’re 60.
I’m 61 this month. I’m not asthetically pleasing to people who are 10-30. Probably.
I’m probably not as unpleasing to people who are 40-50. I’m definitely not unpleasing to people who are 50-70.
It’s all in the eye(perception) of the beholder.
So… can we agree that nagging someone with fresh ink about it’s appearance at 60 is simply silly, if not annoying?
I do.
The gym I go to has this guy on staff - look at the 80-84 age group, #1 in the 56kg class. He beats guys up to the 77kg class.
He does not look a day over 55. He motivates me ten times more than some 25 year old with six pack abs.
For me, that depends on the ink. For me, a “good” tattoo is one that’s going to look fine on an older person. I’ve seen them – I know they’re out there.
The schmuck I know who got “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” tattooed on his bicep in cheesy script sometime in the mid-seventies and then went straight to work drinking unreasonable amounts of beer and spending all his free time sitting on his fat ass for thirty years? Not such a great idea. Now, if he’d[list=a][li]Remained true to his twenty-year-old self’s plan of being a ‘cool’ bar tough for the rest of his natural life, andHad the foresight to consider that a lyric from a top 40 artist that would be remembered by posterity much more as a gay icon than as someone that “tough” (and thoroughly homophobic) louts like him looked up to, and picked a similar sentiment without the unfortunate (from his perspective) connotation of “great big queen…”[/list]…then I would say that his tat was the cat’s ass, and any concern about how it would wear was unfounded.[/li]
Same with the grandma I know who has, on her back, “Live Fast, Die Young, and Leave A Beatiful (sic) Corpse” written in “Irish”/Metal lettering, over a tasteful drawing of a corsetted, bewigged skeleton raising a bottle while clutching a pistol. Cool.
People who have tasteful , arty, and thoughtful tats that wouldn’t look out of place on someone who’s over their “I’ve moved outta my parents place and I’m wild/sexually available/dangerous/big into a current musical trend/enthusiastic about illicit substances/etc?” More power to 'em, I say. They’ll have nothing to regret.
I didn’t get my tattoos because I thought they’d make me look better (for a sampling of why people get tattoos, see my July 6th “Who is your tattoo for?” thread). In fact, I knew full well that they would be a turnoff to many people, and that I would have to be conscious of them in business situations. But I haven’t cared what anyone thinks they look like for the past 11 and 7 years – why would I care in 30 more?
When I thought about someday being a grandma with tattoos (yes, I thought about it before I got the first one), what I thought about was whether the subject of the tattoos would still be meaningful to me at that age. The answer, both times, was “yes.”
That’s my viewpoint too. I seriously doubt that I will be wearing the same slim-cut Levi’s that I wear now at 24, when I am 60! If I was to get a tattoo in the small of my back now, I wouldn’t be wearing the kind of clothes that would reveal it at 60.
Also, I find it impossible to hold the concept of me as a 60 year-old woman in my head - I just can’t. I can see myself at 35, maybe 40 if I think very hard - but 60? I have no idea what I will be like.
Well, hmmmm. I don’t have any tattoos, but I have a pretty good idea of what I will look like when I am 60. That’s two and a half years from now. Wrinkly, droopy, and dry doesn’t sound like me at all. It is quite possible to be a hot chick without being a spring chicken.
But, of course, I may be hallucinating, what with the senility and all. 
“Silly?” Hah. Try “deliberately annoying.” I say that as somebody who plans on getting a tattoo or two in the nearish future. If I live to be 60 and an old tattoo is my biggest problem, I’ll be doing pretty fucking well for myself!
If the skin sags, I guess that looks bad. Fading ink is something you can correct pretty easily, I thought, by getting it touched up every decade or so.
Back to the topic: if I keep my weight down I think I’ll be okay at 60. I was once told I’d be a handsome older man.
Heh…what comedian was it who had the routine about that butterfly you get on your right breast when you’re 20 turning into Mothra when you’re 60?
When I got my first two tattoos an older female friend of mine was horrified. “What are you doing to do with that when you’re 60?”
I’m going to look at my full leg tattoo, grin, and remember that I had a hell of a good time and met some great people along the way. I once told my artist that he had given me a reason to keep my legs in shape.
Well, hopefully by the time I am 60 modern medicine can rebuild my body using nanites or something, so that I look the same as I do now, minus maybe 10-15 pounds of fat. 
I expect, at 60, to look almost identical to how I look today. Except for the extra 62 days between now and then.
Do people really hope to be asthetically pleasing at 60? you ask. Sure, why not? Age is not ugly. A pleasing appearance, for any age, is possible.
Worrying about how a tattoo will age is reasonable for some because it can interfere with your enjoyment of the tattoo and/or your appearance.
For example, my cousin got a tattoo of a yin yang symbol on her inner upper thigh back in her college days. Unfortunately her thigh isn’t quite as toned as it used to be and the now oval tattoo shouts that to the world. If she didn’t have it, her thigh would be unremarkable and no one would notice anything but a perfectly fine thigh. Instead, it bugs my cousin because it reminds her that her body isn’t what it used to be and makes her feel self-concious and uncomfortable about her appearance.
In some cases aging effectively steals your tattoo. My aunt’s tattoo is now just sort of an unattractive mottled blob. Upon further study and a good bit of smoothing and stretching, it is revealed to be a little skunk. In a sense, age took her tattoo away and exchanged it with something not so nice looking. So I would definitely go with conventional wisdom on which areas age better for the purposes of tattoing. For me at least, I’d want to enjoy my tattoo in as good condition as possible, for a nice long time.
There’s no need to rain on a newly-tattooed person’s parade though. It’s rude and hurtful; besides, what good will telling that to them now do? I will think to myself that you might regret that wreath of flowers tattooed around your belly button after a couple of babies and a few decades. I’m only human!
Yep. I wanted to get a rabid gnat tat on my boob…until I thought about it for awhile. It’ll end up looking like a damn dragonfly when I’m older. :o
Well, I’ve got three years to go.
Lemme get back to you on this one…
My parents both turned 60 this year. They both look damn good for their age. Nothing wrinkly, droopy, or dry about them. You can be wrinkly, droopy, and dry when you’re 60 if you want. I plan to inherit my parents’ good genes. 
Wow, all these threads about tattoos, it was only a matter of time before somebody posted this thread. Well, since I got my first tattoo when I was about 20, and I think I got the last one when I was about 36 or 37. I’m 43 now, (well 44, my birthdays in 2 days) so I’m 16 years from 60. With one exception my tattoos look about as good as of the day I got 'em. The exception you ask? The first one I got.
Dateline, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, reverse osmosis water purification training. One squid in a camp of 20,000 jar heads. The last night I was there, some of the Marines I was going to school with invited me out for cocktails (I think they’re exact words were "we will drink ya under the table, swabby). After a couple of hours, I said something about getting a black panther tattoo, and one of the Marines was going to get another tattoo. The place is this guy took me to had female tattoo consultants (basically glorified strippers) to help you pick your tattoo. To make a long story short,while waiting for my turn I got pretty drunk. :wally But that’s okay, the artist was drunk too. :smack:
I thought about getting it fixed at first. It’s not that bad, just a little sloppy Then I decided against it to remind me to never get a tattoo when either party (me or the artist) is under the influence.