soraya

I look at my tattoos as part of a process, so I don't favor one. I love them all, because I just like being a tattooed person.

Interesting and creepy experience. I cover up most of the time, but sometimes my half sleeves show. I’ve only had two photo requests, and they were quite different. One, a young woman just came up to me at a street arts fair and rather abruptly said “Can I take a picture of your tats?” First of all the word “tats” turned me off immediately, and secondly she already had her phone out like it was a foregone conclusion that I would say yes. I just politely said no, I’d prefer not to have my picture taken. She seemed rather miffed. The other time, a woman approached me politely after a workout at the gym, asked about my sleeves, and was quite nice and respectful. She asked intelligent, and I think sincere questions, and I answered them to the best of my ability. It was very comfortable, and I voluntarily pulled up my sleeves to show her the extent. At the end, she asked me if she could take a picture. She was very polite, and almost apologetic, and I said yes. So for me, it was all about context and feel. I’m pretty private, and this has only happened twice, but I’m more likely to say yes if I judge that the person is sincerely interested, and not just collecting pictures. I’m that way when people ask me about my tattoos. I love to talk about my tattoos if a person is sincerely interested and not creepy.

This is a really interesting topic! It was touched on from a bit of a different perspective here. For me, it is not an either/or thing: I’m buying both product and experience. When decided to get my first tattoo I thought I was buying a thing, and it never occurred to me that it might be an experience, except that I was going to experience pain. But after the first one, I realized that I could take the pain, and was actually glad that it was painful, and I had defeated the pain. I liked being in this weird shop where everybody there had, or was getting artwork on their body, and I liked being in the middle of that, and becoming part of that. It made me feel very alive. And even though healing was annoying, I actually liked that I had to take care of it, to be careful with it, go through the itching. I viewed it as part of the process of accepting the tattoo into my body. As I got more, I began to see it more as an experience rather than a thing. I came to like the planning, the anticipation, the preparation. Every time I decided to get a tattoo it was like deciding to run a marathon, where you make a commitment months in advance to prepare and train for the event. You go through the process, culminating in the event, and even have a aftercare process. Like a marathon, a tattoo is really a total body and mind experience for me, and I love all of it. I also think that the tattoo experience goes beyond the event. There is also the experience of being a tattooed person. I got tattooed later in life, and I am otherwise pretty mainstream, so I’m something of an oddity in my world. I’m different, people notice me. But I like that experience of living just a little differently. I feel like that is part of what I bought too: a different daily experience of living with tattoos. So I would give the nod to the experience part, but only by a hair. But fortunately we are in a world filled with really fantastic tattoo artists, and we really don’t have to chose between good tattoos and good experiences. I think we can get both.

This is one of my favorite tattoo topics: The experience of tattooing. I find tattooing therapeutic, enjoyable, exhilarating, empowering, painful, agonizing and annoying all at once. I echo Dan’s comments about the importance of the process. It is a ritual of planning, creating, collaborating, preparing, enduring, healing, and loving the result. I love every part of it. And as @Dan said, it is intimate, which is appealing to me. Not sexual intimacy, but the intimacy of permitting and trusting someone who is basically a stranger to touch you, to wound you, to permanently alter you body. You may be largely unclothed in front of them (my husband and I dated for over a year before he saw my breasts. My tattoo artist was touching them within 15 minutes of me meeting him). The pain? I like it…No! I hate it…No! It’s not that bad!…Well, sometimes it is bad, and I hate it. But I like it….Well…I don’t really like it… blah blah blah. The bottom line is, it is a pain I choose, no one that was inflicted on me unexpectedly. I don’t like it, but I like that I am able to endure it, I like that it challenges me and pushes my limits, And I love, LOVE the result.

I read the comments on the instagram photo, and the tattoo actually had been treated by both laser and saline. The person who posted the photo was not happy with the saline treatment. Quoting her comment: "I had three laser removal sessions and one saline removal. The saline was not worth the minimal results and horribly painful healing process. The laser hurts quite a bit to have done, but there’s basically no downtime (if any at all) with the healing process of that - and the results with a good laser can be pretty awesome!"

In my case, my husband has tattoos, and I got my first at his suggestion. But he has decided to stop, while I plan to get much more coverage. He is fine (actually quite pleased) with me continuing, and I accept his decision to stop. But I do wish he would get more tattoos. Part of it is that I think they look good on him, and I can visualize him with more. Another part of it is that if he continued getting tattooed, it would be sharing a common interest or activity between us. We got tattoos at the same time once, and it was a lot of fun, and it was sort of neat sharing the healing process, and the "Wow, it's healed!" moment. It was sort of a bonding moment. Also, tattooing is a pretty personal, and in some ways intimate act, and sharing that with a loved one is appealing to me.

I’ve always enjoyed reading this thread, and decided to bump it with a question: I see a lot of comments here where one partner is not tattooed and the other is, and both parties are fine with that, and both accept and respect the other’s point of view. However many of those posts also end with sort of a wistful comment like @ilysespieces's, “…I’m hoping one day he does decide to pull the trigger and get a tattoo…” So I’m curious. When your partner is untattooed, and you accept that, and everybody is happy with that, why do some of you still wish/hope that your untattooed partner will finally come around and get a tattoo?

Great photo shop work @Intomyskin! I really love the nipple-in-a-flower look in general. Its a tough call between your two examples. Both look good. I’m leaning toward the cherry blossom version in your examples. It looks more in scale with male anatomy and nipple size. I’ve fancied the nipple flower idea for myself if I ever went to full chest coverage (which is unlikely, sigh). I’d probably go for a larger flower myself, because I think it works better with the shape of a woman’s breast.

Yeah, I always get sad when summer ends. But in the spring I come back to life. Sometimes when warm weather finally comes in the spring, I think "Oh, Boy! Tattoo season!" because I see so much new ink popping out on bare arms and legs.

@sighthound- I work for an environmental consulting firm. It is a pretty traditional office environment. Lots of men wear ties, women in business attire. No dress code prohibiting tattoos, and some people do dress casual every day, but I just feel that when I'm at work, I want to project a professional image, without distractions. Others may not feel that way, that's fine. If one of my coworkers wants to display their tattoos, thats fine. Is just my personal rule for me. If I go beyond half sleeves, the coverup issue really changes. That 6” difference between half and 3/4 sleeves means I’d pretty much have wear long sleeves full time for the summer, and I really do not want to do that, especially out in the field on hot summer days. Also, my tattoo life started in my 50s, and is pretty unusual for people my age that are around me. I’m currently tying to get comfortable with showing my tattoos away from work. I really love the way I look with tattoos, and would like to show them sometimes, even though I’m committed to staying covered at work.

Somehow the posts by @Gingerninja and @Devious6 seem to be going in opposite directions.

Hey, @a_beukeveld! First of all, great pictures, especially of the vintage Japanese pieces! Interesting perspective! I get your point, and on some days I would agree! I am very aware of two conflicting ideas in my head. One is the aesthetics of the tattoo, and I love the Japanese aesthetics. In that regard, I might agree with your preference for the "modest" body suit. But I am also very fascinated with the the "idea" of tattooing — of changing the skin, changing the body. That part of me is attracted to the idea of near-total coverage - front and back, full sleeves to the wrists, legs covered to the ankles. The "idea" of changing as much skin as possible is just really attractive to me, hence the attraction to full sleeves. I do like the sharp cutoffs, and for myself, would not go onto hands, feet, neck or head. Having said that, I just realistically could never, never, NEV-ER go that far in my world for professional reasons, and because I do have some discomfort about displaying my tattoos in public. So the modest route is more realistic for me if I decide to go further. I love the Japanese style. I started out accumulating a handful of one-point style pieces scattered around, but by chance I selected an artist who worked in a Japanese style, so when I decided that I wanted to get Japanese half sleeves, I was able to make it work pretty well. I'd like to get a back piece, but that may be a long way off. As much as I like the total coverage, realistically the absolute farthest I would ever go would be 3/4 sleeves, back piece, and coverage on the front of my torso in the Munewari style (the style with the "river" down the center that you referred to). So I guess in the end we are are on the same page!

I would so, so, so love to have 3/4 or full sleeves, Japanese style, but professionally it is just not an option for me. Sigh... I currently have Japanese half sleeves. There is something about the totality of Japanese sleeves that really appeals to me. It is like they transform the arm into a completely new thing. I really admire people with the nerve to go to full sleeves and display them.

Confirmation bias may be a factor, although I tried to count men's tattoos too, but yes, I do tend to notice other women with tattoos more than men, and it is probably because I have them myself, and because I am currently very aware of the issue of displaying public tattoos (see below) I'm still in the gradual process of "coming out" and getting comfortable letting my tattoos show in public. At this point, I tend to like it when people make comments (thus far they have mostly been positive), because it makes me feel better about "going public" with my tattoos. Maybe I will eventually tire of it. I get very interested when I see another woman with an interesting tattoo, and I almost always want to compliment her or ask about it. I just like talking about tattoos. But I do struggle because I'm always thinking that maybe the person doesn't want to be bothered.