I've never had a tattoo and never had a desire for one. Jimmy doesn't have any either, and is wont to quote his father, that tattoos (and piercings) are for jailbirds and gypsies.
I don't agree with that view. Maybe it was true when Jim sr was young, but times have moved on.
I don't have strong views about tattoos, and I certainly don't have a 'moral' standpoint about them. I certainly don't think they are a sign of a 'loose' woman, and, even if they were, I would be more bothered with challenging the patriarchal approach to female sexuality than worrying about the semiotics of body art.
I know there are people who have lots of tattoos, maybe cover most of their body with them, perhaps even their faces. I don't like what this looks like and I can't understand why they do it. But, and I must emphasise this, it really isn't any of my business. They're doing no harm to others, and I doubt very much I would turn somebody down for a job solely on the basis of visible tats.
I presume that many people have tattoos in places where I would not (normally) see them. If they're visible only in changing rooms or beach wear, then as far as I'm concerned, they're hidden.
I suppose I am intrigued by women, especially young women, who have tattoos on their arms, backs or cleavages. I assume for many it is because of fashion, and because of fashion, I assume it is because they want to enhance their appearance.
It was something I first started thinking about last year. I was at an opera house, and saw a woman dressed up in an evening dress. I certainly wasn't wearing anything like as posh, nor were most people I saw, and there certainly wasn't any stated dress code.
So, we can assume this woman wore the evening dress because she wanted to look (and feel) good. Turn it into a special evening out, a bit of class, stylish, and so on. Perhaps she was dressing mainly for herself, or for her companion. But, surely, also, one of the purposes of dressing up (and doing the hair and make-up) is to get passers-by thinking - she looks nice, stylish, classy, whatever. And she did.
Until she turned round.
The dress was cut in a low v-shape at the back and skin between the shoulder blades was clearly visible - along with about three quarters of a large tattoo. She was in her mid-to-late thirties and I guessed that maybe she had got the tattoo ten or fifteen years ago, when she was grungy, and she was still stuck with it now, older and wanting to dress up (but why the deep v-back, then?).
A few weeks ago I was at a wedding. All of the women had nice dresses on, many of them looked very good, some of them looked great. Not chavvy, not posh.
What really struck me time and again, was the really nice dresses, often on nice figures, strapless, spaghetti straps, cut away, skin-revealing, as is right for summer. And on many of them, tattoos, again often half-obscured by the material.
I've seen it round work and on the Tube and buses, too. Women wearing nice floaty slight summer dresses, sleeveless or spaghetti straps. And the tattoo. Maybe bifurcated by a strap, or peering out from a bodice. To me they look like blemishes or dirt.
And it makes wonder. If one is wearing a posh frock or a floaty dress, part of the reason is to project an image, to look stylish, to be aesthetically pleasing. It ruins the look to wear trainers or an anorak, or carry a ruck sack, even though we end up doing so when in transit.
These are The Rules, most women (and many men) know them and either follow them, or dress in a way that doesn't invoke The Rules. I'm sure most of the women in those frocks would die rather than accessorise them with under-arm hair, and would want to cover up bingo wings and operations scars and de-emphasise big bums or tubby tummies.
Maybe it's just my perspective as a rare untattooed woman but while I am aesthetically indifferent to tattoos with casual wear, I have never seen one which doesn't detract from the look of formal wear. I wonder whether the women with the tats frown at them peering out from under the dress, as I frown at the prominent stomach and the operation scar. Or do they treat it like my burns scar, still visible (just) in certain lights but not enough to influence how I dress.
* jeans, shorts etc - I would be happy with someone wearing smart trousers/skirt and shirt/blouse; I'd probably expect a tie from a man unless the tie-less shirt looked like a definite statement of style, which would also be reflected in haircut, shoes etc. Or if they were dressed neatly in non-Western clothes. I wouldn't be concerned about a woman without make-up or tights (depending on the weather).
** 'expensive' being relative: regardless of your means, I bet the dress you only wear a few times costs a lot more than the trousers you wear three times a week
images from the internet
