I think it's coz that's about the only rebelious thing some of them will dare. In a historically restricted place, or certain traditional gender expectation, tat might be a huge thing. Or, they just want to feel rebelious. Who knows and cares, really...and I am talking about super straight laces moms I have noticed in public pools or lines, but who knows what crazy stuff they really do in their real and private lives.

I don't care if people have it or not, some of them are beautiful, but personally I have opted out, for esthetic reasons, for cliches it brings and because I have been too long in an environment where it was so automatic. Every big rebel there was had a tat, my music teacher in fact, didn't have an inch of non tatted skin, all over his face and skull, too, his arms, torso, legs, probably. Everybody in communes, within friends, etc. just thought it was a thing to do, probably showing off what they think of social norms. I dislike shortcuts like that, and prefer not to give away certain attitudes. I'd feel corny, falling into stereotypes, too symbolic. I also like playing in bands, pretty ugly hardcore stuff, and not looking it at all, none of us. Nor anyone ever guessing at work, etc. I played in freaky outfits, Pilgrim with Amish hat was hillarious, a tat would ruin it.

I look at some old tattoes, on lovely pregnant ladies, how it stretches, and how unatural and very unesthetic it looks on somebody who is beautiful with prego glow, incubating another life, and permanent, stretched stuff just somehow does not make sense there..I think they (tats) can be gorgeous, but not for too long.

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"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

I asked myself the same question when I started going to a local 'badi'. So many women who got tatoos, there is nearly no one WITHOUT a tatoo :-)

It makes you automatically staring at the person cause you want to see what kind of tatoo she got.

I remember reading about this many years ago; cool to think google was able to get me a scanned copy of the article.

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Well, Kittster...

These days, I feel like I am the original one for NOT having a tattoo...

Mais, exactement, Nil. How ever I misspelled it, hahaha.

I like being different, but not obviously.

With hanzi/kanji, be not only careful about the positive things one tells you but also the negative.
The caracter on the t-shirt in Treverus' message f.ex. means of course pork in traditional chinese. But it is also the chinese zodiacal sign pig. They don't make the difference between different kinds of the same familly (pig, swine, wildswine etc.) And there is nothing wrong having your astrology sign tatooed.
It's complex, often ambiguous and unclear because isolated caracters are contextless.

I don't know... I think more people don't have tattoos than have French horn tattoos, for example. Type "French horn tattoo" into Google and see how many results (that are actually tattoos of French horns) you get. I personally believe that tattoos should be personal, but if someone wants to pick a dragon off the wall because they think it looks cool, who am I to argue?

Oh and by the way, in my Google search for French horn tattoos, I found this!





Certainly worth the effort.

I bet French horn looks great.

I wouldn't want to see it on places that can possibly expand, though, makig it look like a weird spaceship ...But it's up to anyone, pick whatever they want, it's their body.

Both of my gay female friends have fancy tatoos, that I actually enjoy looking at very much, but when I found out, I thought it was such a cliche, too. They probably think a chick playing bass is the biggest cliche, too, so we are even

This was definitely something I took into consideration! It's why I went for the shoulder, which was definitely more painful than a fattier area, but made more sense in the long run.

"Why do you have LUDO tattooed on your wee man?"

"Oh, that's my souvenir tattoo from Llandudno..."

Awesome. It's big! (you realize you just IDed yourself, rite?)

One girlfriend has a fancy egyptian ring around her upper arm, looks like a bracelet high up, I have only seen it on her and men, and then the other has an image on inner side of her wrist, it's cute.

Hahaha....

You just made me think of my Cockney friend, who unwisely pierced his nipples, just to have that ripped off in one giant rave party people accidently pulled on it.

At least tats are relatively safe. Unless one thinks of all the hygiene things when being tatooed, etc.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

Not that I'm a tattoo freak - but those seem like the Henri Rousseu (?) approach to flesh art ...

There are far better out there ...

It looks like Tracey Emin !!

My analysis of this thread so far comes to two conclusions:

• EF has once again proved it is an great forum for stereotyping and generalising about the swiss population (unfortunately the title says "swiss women"...are they swiss or have we scientifically excluded foreign residents and visitors beyond doubt?)

• Tattoos are no issue...ink yourself out till you're blue in the face (hopefully not literally)...but best wait until after you turn 30.

why a french horn?

The worst is when they have tattoos in chinese or Japanese that they cant read and dont know what it means, especially bad if it says something like my baby was born on a picnic table or something...

Kamarate... I'm usually not a fan of tattoos, but I must admit it that your French horn design is really nice! I definitely like the art nouveau style MUCH better than those tribal designs that are so common...

But I actually do have to agree with the OP that, in America, tattoos are/were often associated with bikers or white-trash. Or at least they use to be. Now, though, I think they've become quite common even among the sorority crowds, etc. I think it comes down to the design itself. Some are really beautiful, but some are just cliche or plain trashy (or perhaps "cheesy" is the better word?).

What I never really understood, though, is how so many people seem to revolve their egos around the number of tattoos they have. I guess it just seems silly to me to be competitive or so prideful about such a thing. My other "problem" with tattoos is that many of the people that I know who have them have spent sooo much money on them and yet barely have enough money to feed themselves or their kids. Maybe I'm just a bit conservative in that sense, but I suspect that a lot of these people have much better places for their money to go?

Well, as the saying goes... "To each their own." And as long as it's not my body that you're injecting ink into, then by all means...

I just hope that my baby doesn't grow up to feel that he "needs" them.

Thank you for that link!! Hahahaha!

Another idea for a cat tat....

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