tattoos and piercings, do they have a meaning for you?

by memario 42 Replies latest jw friends

  • memario
    memario

    I would like to thank everyone for their thoughts. I did it!! You can check it out at the new thread called I DID IT!! take a look with pic.

    http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/139093/1.ashx

    thanks

  • hillary_step
    hillary_step

    Smiles,

    I have a pair of eyes on my right shoulder.

    Chernobyl?

    HS

  • nvrgnbk
    nvrgnbk

    Smiles,

    I have a pair of eyes on my right shoulder.

    Chernobyl?

    HS

    Thanks for the smile, HS.

  • hillary_step
    hillary_step

    My neighbors son lives in Korea and visits his family each Summer. He is a banker or motor-cycle gang member or something like that.

    Last year he appeared at a barbecue that my ever-gregarious wife invited him to and proceeded to strip off his shirt, it was quite chilly at the time so I wondered why he was doing this and for a moment thought that he was unable to handle the imported beer that he was quaffing and was making a play for another of our guests. He claimed to be warm but it soon became obvious why he had unclothed himself with such glee. A huge Phoenix rising from the ashes of his belly-button was tatooed on his chest. He asked me what I thought of it and I replied that as long as it did not try to drink my Scotch it could stay.

    This chap is very tall, but a little overweight and very hairless, so it became an interesting study in human locomotion watching the Phoenix rise and fall every time he took a breathe. I became so fascinated my wife began to worry about my sexuality. Eventually, thank the Lord it began to rain and we all retired indoors at which point I insisted he clothe himself before he sat on my 300 year old armchair.

    Anyway, he arrived again this year for his summer vacation and I saw him picking up the mail this morning, without his shirt of course. I was shocked to see that the Phoenix, in concert with his now ample left breast, was drooping heavily as if it were asleep. In fact it looked rather pale and ill, no longer proudly rising from the ashes but diving nervously for cover.

    The moral of the story? Well, if you have to have a tattoo, be prepared for a changing and ageing body when you choose a design. Or keep your shirt on.

    HS

  • BizzyBee
    BizzyBee

    Just to weigh in - yeah, I guess I'm an old codger. But I have to agree that, from a distance, they look like you've got grease on your ankle or shin or back or breast or shoulder. I want to say, "Hey, you must have rubbed up against something dirty" but I get closer and I realize they've rubbed up against something tacky. Without political comment, just from an aesthetic point of view - they look gawd-awful - like grease or dirt that shouldn't be there. Didn't Saturday Night Live do a skit on this - what a tatoo would look like as you age and your skin starts to go south? Hilarious! A choice you made at 20 or even 30 - on your body at 50 or 70 - yecchh!

    I got bike-chain grease on my hands after a long bike ride/flat tire this morning - could not wait to wash it off. I cannot imagine living with that feeling of grime year after year. Even if it is in the shape of a greasy 'flower' or 'butterfly.' I got news for you folk - a flower or butterfly it ain't.

    BizzyBee of the "Going to take a shower now" class

  • nvrgnbk
    nvrgnbk
    and I replied that as long as it did not try to drink my Scotch it could stay.

    This chap is very tall, but a little overweight and very hairless, so it became an interesting study in human locomotion watching the Phoenix rise and fall every time he took a breathe. I became so fascinated my wife began to worry about my sexuality.

    LMAO!

    Some amazing writing there.

  • BizzyBee
    BizzyBee

    Just like baggy pants, bad spelling and grammar, bad breath, dirty teeth, and any other outward signs of being ill-kempt - tatoos announce a lot about a person. It is your right to do it - but if I were hiring for a job where a credible presence was important - anyone with tatoos would go to the bottom of the list. They just show immaturity and bad judgment.

    BB - of the "Ready to be crucified, but don't really care" class because "look who's doing the crucifying!"

    Peace out

  • nvrgnbk
    nvrgnbk

    Tattooing has been a Eurasian practice at least since Neolithic times. Mummies bearing tattoos and dating from the end of the second millennium BC have been discovered at Pazyryk on the Ukok Plateau. Tattooing in Japan is thought to go back to the Paleolithic era, some ten thousand years ago. Various other cultures have had their own tattoo traditions, ranging from rubbing cuts and other wounds with ashes, to hand-pricking the skin to insert dyes.

    [edit] Purposes

    Tattooing is a tradition amongst indigenous peoples around the world. Tattooing is a tradition amongst indigenous peoples around the world.

    [edit] Decorative and spiritual uses

    Tattoos have served as rites of passage, marks of status and rank, symbols of religious and spiritual devotion, decorations for bravery, sexual lures and marks of fertility, pledges of love, punishment, amulets and talismans, protection, and as the marks of outcasts, slaves and convicts. The symbolism and impact of tattoos varies in different places and cultures, sometimes with unintended consequences.

    Today, people choose to be tattooed for cosmetic, sentimental/memorial, religious, and magical reasons, and to symbolize their belonging to or identification with particular groups (see criminal tattoos). Some Maori still choose to wear intricate moko on their faces. In Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, the yantra tattoo is used for protection against evil.

    A memorial tattoo of a deceased loved one's initials

    [edit] Identification

    People have also been forcibly tattooed for various reasons. The best known example is the ka-tzetnik identification system for Jews in part of the concentration camps during the Holocaust.

    Tattoos are also placed on animals, though very rarely for decorative reasons. Pets, show animals, thoroughbredhorses and livestock are sometimes tattooed with identification and other marks. Pet dogs and cats are often tattooed with a serial number (usually in the ear, or on the inner thigh) via which their owners can be identified. Also, animals are occasionally tattooed to prevent sunburn (on the nose, for example). Such tattoos are often performed by a veterinarian and in most cases the animals are anesthetized during the process. Branding is used for similar reasons and is often performed without anesthesia, but is different from tattooing as no ink or dye is inserted during the process.

    [edit] Cosmetic

    When used as a form of cosmetics, tattooing includes permanent makeup, and hiding or neutralizing skin discolorations. Permanent makeup are tattoos that enhance eyebrows, lips (liner or lipstick), eyes (liner), and even moles, usually with natural colors as the designs are intended to resemble makeup.

    [edit] Prevalence

    Tattoos have experienced a resurgence in popularity in many parts of the world, particularly in North America, Japan, and Europe. The growth in tattoo culture has seen an influx of new artists into the industry, many of whom have technical and fine art training. Coupled with advancements in tattoo pigments and the ongoing refinement of the equipment used for tattooing, this has led to an improvement in the quality of tattoos being produced.

    During the 2000s, the presence of tattoos became evident within pop culture, inspiring television shows such as A&E's Inked and TLC's Miami Ink. The decoration of blues singer Janis Joplin with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast, by the San Francisco tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, is taken as a seminal moment in the popular acceptance of tattoos as art. [1] .

    Lower back tattoos are more common among young women.

    In many traditional cultures tattooing has also enjoyed a resurgence, partially in deference to cultural heritage. Historically, a decline in traditional tribal tattooing in Europe occurred with the spread of Christianity. A decline often occurred in other cultures following European efforts to convert aboriginal and indigenous people to Western religious and cultural practices that held tattooing to be a "pagan" or "heathen" activity. Within some traditional indigenous cultures, tattooing takes place within the context of a rite of passage between adolescence and adulthood.

    A poll conducted online in July 2003 estimated that 16% of all adults in the United States have at least one tattoo. The highest incidence of tattoos was found among the gay, lesbian and bisexual population (31%) and among Americans ages 25 to 29 years (36%) and 30 to 39 years (28%). Regionally, people living in the West (20%) were more likely to have tattoos. Democrats were more likely to have tattoos (18%) than Republicans (14%) and Independents (12%); approximately equal percentages of males (16%) and females (15%) have tattoos. [2]

  • BizzyBee
    BizzyBee
    Some have experienced that such bodily transformations have a liberating effect on the mind.

    ...drivel...O! sorry...

  • nvrgnbk
    nvrgnbk
    Some have experienced that such bodily transformations have a liberating effect on the mind.
    ...drivel...O! sorry...

    Sorry back at ya, BizzyBee. That's what I've been told.

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit