Should I get a tattoo?
This week’s question comes from James Callan:
Should I get a tattoo? And if so, how do I decide what to get?
Yes, you should get a tattoo.
First off, you’ve already decided you’re getting a tattoo. Otherwise you wouldn’t be asking me if you should get one. You don’t need my permission, but you can have my support.
Everyone has their own reasons to get tattoos.
Sometimes it’s to remember an important person in our lives. We mark ourselves with the names and faces of people who’ve left a mark on us. We want to remember them so we give them a place on our bodies. This person helped make me who I am. Their name is on the label. My grandmother raised me, her name is on my body.
Sometimes it’s to remember someone who left us too soon. We give them space on the living and carry them forward with us.
Sometimes that someone is a beloved dog. It is good to honor dogs. Give your dogs four letter names and save your knuckles in their honor. You’ll never regret it.
Sometimes it’s to claim (or reclaim) cultural ties, or the memory of a place. From tribal patterns to three digit area codes (215 forever) we tell the world this is where we are from. It means something that we’re from this place. Sometimes because we love a place, and sometimes we’re honoring our resiliency in surviving a place (again, 215 forever).
Sometimes it serves as an anchor to a memory we want to hold dear. That time you were depressed and your daughter gave you a drawing to cheer you up. Put that drawing on your body. Put it on your chest. Say it with your whole chest. And because you were depressed a few times you ended up with a few of your daughter’s drawings on your body. They remind you that there was someone who cared enough to want to help. You mark those moments because those moments should be marked. And on the day she leaves your house to make her own life you look at those drawings again and they assure you that they are still doing their job.
Sometimes we just want to decorate ourselves! Ultimately a tattoo is you making a decision about your body and how to mark it, which every human being 100% has the right to do. For some people, a tattoo can be the first fierce act of adulthood. Sometimes we are reclaiming a body which other people have marked and saying my mark is stronger. My mark covers your mark. I claim this body as my own and I will mark it as I want. It’s a good thing to decorate ourselves and own this body, modify this body, take control over this body, and to use it as a record of a life.
I need your questions. I’ve made it easier! You can now submit your questions through an easy peasy form. Huzzah. (Seriously though, I need more questions.)
You can read Kathleen Hanna’s new book, while you wait for your pre-order of Annalee Newitz’ new book.
You should be less concerned what your boss says if you mention a genocide and more concerned what your children will say if you don’t.
All is love.