Has anyone studied the effect of second hand tattooing?
first of all, because I change my mind too much. I ourgrow things quickly and I’m still very much growing as a person. I’m also a compulsive desktop-changer (and livejournal layout changer and style changer…) There is only one thing I can almost guarante will still mean something to me when I’m ninety and that’s ballet. but when I have to quit dancing, having a tattoo will only make me sad.
Ballet is the other reason. Ballet and theatre, really. I have to be able to change who I am for the benefit of the audience and a tattoo is something you don’t want to see on a ballerina.
a) Hate needles, b) can’t decide on anything to get, c) just don’t feel the need to.
Henna is pretty, though.
You’ll want a magnetic bumper sticker holder. You apply the bumper sticker of your choice to the holder, then stick it to a steel part on your car. If you have a plastic bumper (many newer cars do) you’ll have to put it on the trunk. If you have a Saturn you’re just screwed. Other than that, they work really well, and you can’t even tell it’s not a normal sticker unless you look close.
I completely disagree with your statement… actually the link you posted disagrees also.
As someone who has struggled with self-injury for a number of years I feel that body decoration/modification is very different from self-injury. I’ve had several piercings done simply because I liked the way they looked. With body mods - it’s mostly suffering through the pain for a cosmetic result. Self injury is USING the pain to obtain an emotional result.
I’ll end my thread hijack and actually answer the question…
Why not…
I think I’ll change my mind in the future and regret getting inked. It would have to be to commemorate a once in a lifetime experience… I have the idea that if I ever make it to the Olympics (for speedskating) I’d get the 5 ring symbol tattooed on my ankle with the year underneath.
Here’s some things that seemed like a good idea back in the seventies:
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here and here
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Did we look like idiots? Of course we did. But before you laugh, remember this - at least we were smart enough not to make it permanent.
Yeah, I’ve never seen a hippie with a stupid tattoo. 
Good awful tattoo story: One of my former co-workers (the one who’s now in jail in Singapore for trying to smuggle marijuana) decided to get an outline world map tattooed on his back, which he would then fill in for each country he had visited. Unfortunately, he went the bargain-basement route and got a tat that was not only very sloppy-looking, the inker left off Japan, the co-worker’s home country!
Another coworker was reading this over my shoulder and contributed his own: a friend of his dad’s got a tattoo in honor of his military service. Everything was fine until a friend asked “hey, doesn’t ‘Airborne’ have an ‘e’ at the end?”
Yes. But the S at the end of UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS is not only silent, it’s also invisible.
I actually want a tattoo but I’ve never had the cash and the guts at the same time.
For the last few years, I’ve know exactly what it’ll be. I want a ring, as narrow as possible, on either the fore or middle finger of my left hand. It will consist of two parallel black stripes, very thin. Between them will be a central flower and two flanking flowers. The flowers have four petals and a coloured centre. The petals are sort of flame shaped. Linking the flowers are very tiny vines with dark green leaves.
____________________________________
O O O
-------- O0O -----O0O-----O0O------
O______O_____O________
Sort of like that, if you can imagine that the dashes are little vines and the whole thing is about an eigth of an inch wide.
I want the centres of the flowers to correspond the the birthstones of my sons. Eldest in the centre, middle on the right, youngest on the left. The petals will be medium blue. The flower itself is a design that I’ve been drawing since I was no more than eleven. It ties me to my own childhood and is something that has always continued with me.
I want the ring to be small enough that if I need to cover it, I can wear a wide, plain band, like a friendshop ring, over it.
The problem is, besides cash, that I’ve heard fingers hurt like a bitch. Plus, I need to find an artist that I trust to do such fine work. I’m not even sure it’s possible, in the scale that I want.
Oh well, someday…
Oh, rats! It looked okay when I layed it out and posted!
Mod!!! HELP!!! Either fix it or delete that part, please? Thanks!
I’ve thought about it, but there’s nothing, no image, picture, word, symbol that I thought “I’m going to want that on my skin forever” or even “this is who I am, right now.”
If there were, I’d probably get one. I watch “Miami Ink” and I see the tattoos people get and the reasons and I think “huh, good for them.” But I have nothing that moves me that much.
Hell, I have a hard time buying jewelry - for much the same reasons (“will I like/want that tomorrow?”) and if it’s bad, at least I can hide it in a drawer.
There’ve been moments where I’ve been close - but I changed my mind. I’m glad I did, those would not have been the right one.
Proportional fonts suck! :eek:
Somebody has to do the research. Get me Ms. Jolie, and I will take one for the team. 
Even if I had the desire, I wouldn’t. I donate blood to the Red Cross as often as I can. If I were to get a tattoo, I’d be ineligible to donate for a year.
As a Pitt alumna, I briefly flirted with the idea of getting a panther pawprint tattooed on my butt.
Then I thought of what the panther pawprint would look like after gravity had a couple of decades to do its dirty work on my butt.
I remain tattooless.
More seriously, I can’t imagine getting something about my body permanently changed because it happens to be fashionable now. I’d consider a henna or other temporary decoration, but nothing that won’t wash off eventually. I won’t even use permanent coloring on my hair at this point, I’m sure not letting anyone put anything permanent under my skin…
That’s it for me, too. When I see young 20-somethings in the locker room with their fashionable tribal tattoos or bicep chain tattoos, all I have to do is look across the aisle at the guys in their 50’s and 60’s with tattoos faded and distorted and now rather sad instead of fashionable. And then I snicker.
Also, there was some dismay at the Y among some of the gymbots after Wedding Crashers came out. Seems it’d never occurred to them that Vince Vaughn joke about tattoos on the small of the back might be applied to their cool small-of-the-back tattoo…
Because I don’t want the shame of a Salvadore Dali-lookin’ melt-down on my body when some 23-year-old orderly is caring for me in the old folk’s home. My son is heavily tattooed and while they’re pretty good for the most part, I don’t like the fact that they’re there forever.
What if you got “Persistance of Vision” Tatooed on your back? Considering everything is already melting, 50 years probably isn’t going to be able to hurt it much.
(Wimper, ouch, wimper) Oh, and I’ve seen them 40 years later. That rose on the breast becomes a Hollyhock.