A couple weeks ago Girlie had a friend over and we were sitting in the kitchen discussing nothing in particular when she said she wanted to get a tattoo of something. I groaned and said why? Look at Girlie, she's such a pretty young thing and she goes and fucked up most of her back with a stupid elephant and beads... and the other tattoos on her wrists and ankles aren't doing her any favors, other than making her look like a graffitti'd wall in East Austin.
Her comeback kind of surprised me, considering she doesn't have any on her yet. She went on a jag about "how come we females have to live with men's pre-conceived notion of beauty?" I think the sentence surprised her and she laughed and got up to break the tension in the room. Maybe there is something to that, but I don't really care about all that. To me, it is more important to look presentable, if that is what you got. I am not trying to be a dick, but if you are going from one shitty minimum wage job after another, covering yourself in "art" makes you less desirable for the people in power, you know, the ones that hire and fire people.
I will admit that I am a little sexist in that it doesn't matter what a guy does in regards to his look. Guys coming out of school will get all sorts of shitty jobs, I did carpentry and worked in a warehouse, mostly with ex-felons, eventually you mature and pursue a proper career. Young women do different types of jobs when they have no skills, mostly in front of people, such as a cashier, receptionist, waitress. I am not saying this is the only thing they can do, but if Juan and Sally start at the same day at Wendy's, Juan is not going to be taking your orders and Sally is not going to be in the back moving 50 pound bags of frozen fries or taking out the trash, don't bullshit yourself. The pretty girls get put where customers can see them.
Now, I am not totally narrow minded, a small tattoo of a heart or a flower can be cute on a girl. If it is placed on an ankle, or maybe on the shoulder, but not the big massive projects, those scream to me I enjoy working for minimum wage. I heard a comedian compare women to a Lamborgini, created by God, nearly perfection. A tattoo is then equivalent to putting a bumper sticker on all that beauty. It might as well read "I'm with Stupid", and trust me, he will be there.
To sum it up, everything we do labels us as what we are. I can't get away from being Hispanic, Fat, a Parent, a Son, an Austinite and that is just on the surface. In high school, being in band meant I was a geek, being smart made me a nerd, going to college meant I was trying to be more. Later in life, admitting to liking the strip clubs made me a perv, acting like an octopus at the strip clubs made me a handsy perv, and so on. Why would you think that adding a tattoo is not cause for a new label? People are going to say tattoo= easy, or tattoo= whore. It may not be true, but you can't cover yourself like a coloring book and then be weird when people stare, you are causing the staring by chasing and becoming different.
If you want to be "normal", leave your shit alone. If you want to attract attention, good or bad, and not up to you which kind you get, then start with the skin art and the piercings. When society smiles or frowns at you, don't get mad, say "yeah, that's what I wanted."
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