The “cherries” motif has been borrowed from whatever vintage era it came from, and is all over the place: I’ve seen it on handbags, shoes, women’s apparel, and all over Hot Topic. It’s also a common enough tattoo (SFW) that I’ve begun wondering if it has some secondary meaning. I know the word “cherry” describes virginity, but since tattoos are forever and cherries aren’t, I’m guessing that’s not it.
Anyone want to spill the beans?
Sheer guesswork, but they resemble male gonads. In addition to advertising the virginiity / Lolita angle you mention, perhaps the meme is akin to the plastic gonads for your pickup’s trailer hitch http://bumpernuts.com/ .
I swear y’all are trying to make me hate cherries. I almost puked when I heard of the slang meaning.
They’re pretty. Shinyyyy! And the fact that they usually come paired is intriguing, plus you can wear them as earrings. So many shades of red? Mom, why is this one red but its twin almost black? Oh, look, I found a set of triplets!
They’re the summer. Eating in a shadowed area, while just a yard away the sun does its best to burn the grass so it can then burn the floor, you’ve eaten your salad (not hot but also not cold) and your steak (not hot but definitely warm) and then here come the cherries, out of the icebox, so cool! You hang one pair from each ear, and your father, keeping a perfectly straight face, does the same with his, then tries to hang another from his nose but he can’t, he keeps trying until you start laughing, so hard it hurts, and meanwhile your idiot uncle who is always trying to pull practical jokes wants to know what’s so funny but he didn’t see it and you don’t tell. You eat the first few cherries so fast you barely taste them; then, once you’ve gotten over that initial rush of cold, cold pleasure, choose the next one carefully, one that’s not been bit by birds, perfect, all the same color, and pop it in your mouth without biting, relishing how the touch and taste of it change as it warms up, how the juice starts leaking out… and then, just when it feels like the juice is about to overflow your mouth and your mother is starting to give you The Look, you bite into it and go on eating.
They just trying to spoil the summer, these people… you’d think the only sin is lust!
I’d say my favourite fruit is strawberries, but since they came up with the Plastic Sea in Southern Spain and Morocco, those have been looking better and tasting less every year. Cherries remain, so far, perfectly yummy.
Oh, and then there’s the Pacha chain of nightclubs, which contrary to popular thought was not born in Ibiza but in Valencia. They grow cherries there.
I like how cherries look. This tattoo beats the hell out of little cartoon characters. Which I can hardly wait to point and laugh at those when the owner of that tat is in his or her 70s.
Remind me not to tell you what I think about strawberries - yowza!