Except for the ones who pass out and wake up later with “I LUV YOU MATILDA” on their ass…
I’m gonna get creamed for this but… are you, or will either of you ever be in a job situation where this might be frowned on? Musician sounds like a safe bet. A ring tattoo is probably easy to remove so you have leeway in your decision. I would want to see actual ring tattoos to see how they look (I was trying to flex my ring finger to see how it would flex). You could also have different designs inked on different fingers to give you more choices.
RahRahMah - to answer your question, tattoos break down into age groups and social groups. If you’re 20 and enjoy live music in a bar, more acceptable. If you’re 40 and line dance, less acceptable (note the lack of definitive verbs).
Personal opinion, I don’t like any permanent affectation of style. That would include clothes, hair style, tattoos and piercings that can’t be visually undone. Old age is not kind to young fancies.
RahRahMah – short answer: do what makes you happy. If the first thing on your mind is ‘will someone else be turned off by this’ then you probably don’t really want a tattoo anyways.
My personal journey towards getting a tattoo has practically been life-long. I was the type of kid who always colored on themselves, I would draw intricate designs in permanent marker, I would draw people with spots, stripes, birds and flowers on them. When I was baptised at 8 years old I was given a cross. It became a very important reminder of my faith and my beliefs. I have worn that cross every single day since then. I knew that someday I would lose it or it would break, so I’ve known since I was about 10 or 12 what my first tattoo would be.
Yes, much of tattooing deals in aesthetics, and lots of people get them just because they look pretty, but it’s been my experience that those kinds of people usually end up regretting their decision later in life.
Magiver, you’re right to say that visible tattoos can affect your employability, but like anything else in life it’s a matter of opportunity costs. Not all people are going to be satisfied giving up the same things, and to me I know that my tattoo is more important than a job that might turn me down because of it.
Also, I would not be so quick to generalize among the age / social groups. Once you actually have a tattoo, all sorts of people open up to you about theirs, and you’d be shocked and surprised at all the so-called ‘straightlaced’ people around you who are hiding a little art.
I don’t think I’d care what people thought about it. If I saw a woman with a nice design I would probably ask her about it and it would strike up a conversation. The only thing I worry about is how long-lasting it would be.
I knew a couple who had tattooed wedding rings. IMO, it was pretty cool, as it fit in with their personalities much better than jewlery would. I would have to ditto the idea that it should be a simple design - especially if your husband (or you, if you are unlucky) has hair on his fingers - that can really obliterate the finer parts of an intricate design. The only problem for the couple I knew was that the guy helped his friend lay a patio one summer, and in the process of working with all that concrete the inside of hos ‘ring’ wore right off. The outside was just fine, and he got a new inside put on without much troubel, but something to keep in mind anyways.
As a hijack, I am thinking about getting my second tattoo. I have been thinking about it for over a year, and I’m sure about the design. I want to put it on my calf, but on the side (so it would be esentailly on the side of my knee). But, browsing through BME, I only see tattoos on either the back of the calf or the ankle. What gives? Will it look dumb?
No I wouldn’t, I know a lot of women who sneak one in to be naughty.
I would say the age thing is closer to the mark. As you get older I think the desire fades a little (no analogy intended).
I knew a couple who had tattooed wedding rings. IMO, it was pretty cool, as it fit in with their personalities much better than jewlery would. I would have to ditto the idea that it should be a simple design - especially if your husband (or you, if you are unlucky) has hair on his fingers - that can really obliterate the finer parts of an intricate design. The only problem for the couple I knew was that the guy helped his friend lay a patio one summer, and in the process of working with all that concrete the inside of his ‘ring’ wore right off. The outside was just fine, and he got a new inside put on without much trouble, but something to keep in mind anyways.
As a hijack, I am thinking about getting my second tattoo. I have been thinking about it for over a year, and I’m sure about the design. I want to put it on my calf, but on the side (so it would be esentailly on the side of my knee). But, browsing through BME, I only see tattoos on either the back of the calf or the ankle. What gives? Will it look dumb?
Damn, sorry about that.
Stay off the calf. Too much muscle movement. A small one that follows the ridge of the foot, maybe a small rose. Try flexing your foot and see what rinkles. Not there! Try a temporary tattoo to see what looks good where.
I seem to remember getting lick-tattooed by a hoard of drunken women (actually I don’t remember much but the tattoos pretty much spoke for themselves).
Back to the thread. Take your time to chose the right one.
RahRahMah, I don’t think having tattoos has ever hurt my ability to meet guys. In fact, I’ve met tons of cool people, male and female, because of my tattoos. I’ve also had a lot of really drunk guys try to impress me with crappy artwork. Be prepared to accept that some people are going to make assumptions about you because of it, and that some of them will not give up their assumptions no matter what, but also know that those people aren’t the ones whose opinions you should care about. I once saw a t-shirt that read, “The only difference between people with tattoos and people without tattoos is that people with tattoos don’t care if you have tattoos.” Pretty much sums it up in my experience. XJETGIRLX is right on about all the people you wouldn’t expect to have them, that you’ll find out about once you get yours. I know a lot of 40-ish women (and older) who have them, and who have gotten them within the last few years, so I don’t think chronological age has as much to do with it as it used to.
meyer, I have one on the side of my calf. It begins about 3 inches above my ankle and ends just below my knee. It’s an Indonesian design, from a woodcut of Garuda and Vishnu, that I got because I have a good friend of Indonesian ancestry who lives in Europe. It’s one of the few pieces I have that I didn’t design myself, but it had personal meaning to me nonetheless because of my friend, and it happened to be the exact right size and shape to fit there. Have the artist put the stencil on and if you like the way it looks, get it there. As long as you have a good artist, it’s hard for a tattoo to look “dumb” unless you put it someplace it absolutely doesn’t fit; you don’t want to put something huge and round on a skinny arm, for example. If the piece you want is about 3/4" across and you want to put it in the middle of a sizable calf muscle it might look a little lonely there, but if you like it, go for it. I don’t have a photo of mine on this computer, but I’ll check tomorrow and see if I have one around the house that I can scan.
I wasn’t gonna post, but what the heck. I am 49 1/2 and got my first tat at age 40. My parents thought I was absolutely nuts! I got my second one a few years after. I waited almost 20 years before finally going for it. My daughter and I went together for our first ones. The second one is definitely the better of the two. One on the outside of each ankle. And yep, for me, the pain was worse over the bone.
I agree with previous posts - it depends on your own pain tolerance - everyone is different.
RahRahMah - if someone “doesn’t like you” because of a tatoo, they probably are the type of person that would find something else to not like, if you didn’t have a tatoo. I don’t just tell new-met people, oh by the way, I have tatoos. But this is how I am, take it or leave it. There are plenty of folk out there who don’t/wouldn’t care one way or the other.
I think that’s a great idea! Yes, it’ll hurt at first, but after a while it will likely start to get numb and the pain will dull a bit. The area will be sore for a few hours afterwards, but I think it’ll be well worth it…
TATTOOS ROCK YOUR FACE 
I have a few 
Fleshy bits did seem to hurt me a little more (as noted by couple of other posters) - with the exception of the one up the back of my neck (looks like it is laced up) - the outlining on that hurt a bit. Then again, outlining and fine work always seesm to hurt more than shading
See, I’m a major baby (especially after reading these posts!). Mine’s shaded and on a fleshy area, and the darn thing hurt. It wasn’t awful, but I thought on a bone would hurt more…
I have very large, very visible tattoos, and some people are initially a bit put off by it (but not by any means all, or even most). 99% of them get past it pretty quickly and just think of me as “charmingly eccentric” (in my line of work it’s very unusual), and some who were initally a bit put off or skeptical have dated me after they get to know me. There will always be a few who can’t get past it, but I don’t think I would have wanted to waste my time with them anyway. If they can’t get past a little ink in the subdermis, their loss.
I don’t want to talk you into something, though. Don’t do it until and unless you can do it with no reservations.
… and if you have to make reservations, the tattoo parlor is too expensive.
hee-hee 
May I stand up and advise against the waiting period? I also, however, advise against getting something that means a lot to you. I have a happy smiling sun on my ankle, and I hadn’t given it any thought at all before I walked in to the tattoo place. I love it, it’s cute, it’s positive, and there’s pretty much no way that I could have some shift in perspective that would make me really unhappy to have that tattoo.
If I had gotten something that related to a particular ideology I held, or a design that I had thought about for a long time, chances are that in a while I’d feel really differently about it. As far as mine goes, I don’t really think about it. It’s like a birthmark or something. It’s just part of me.
I am considering going in and having an artist draw up some different ideas for expanding it in to a band that goes all the way around my ankle, but I’m not decided on that, and I kinda hate to part with the cash right now.
LC
May I stand up and advise against the waiting period? I also, however, advise against getting something that means a lot to you. I have a happy smiling sun on my ankle, and I hadn’t given it any thought at all before I walked in to the tattoo place. I love it, it’s cute, it’s positive, and there’s pretty much no way that I could have some shift in perspective that would make me really unhappy to have that tattoo.
If I had gotten something that related to a particular ideology I held, or a design that I had thought about for a long time, chances are that in a while I’d feel really differently about it. As far as mine goes, I don’t really think about it. It’s like a birthmark or something. It’s just part of me.
I am considering going in and having an artist draw up some different ideas for expanding it in to a band that goes all the way around my ankle, but I’m not decided on that, and I kinda hate to part with the cash right now.
Oh, and I didn’t find it very painful when the artist drew the outline, but when he colored it in I was definitely biting my lip. Still, the time I got my hair braided in speed-dealer-style cornrows (don’t worry, I only left it in for one night), it was way more painful. If you are not faint-of-heart, you can see a picture of that by copying and pasting this url in to your address bar. Clicking won’t work. http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/somnio/cornrows.jpg
LC
The waiting period is more for deciding whether to get it done at all, not what to have done. You can wait a year before you decide, and then decide what to get - right?