The one thing I love about the internet? There’s no shortage of absolute bullshit more often then not. Facebook usually gives me some pretty interesting things to read. Or in this case, a whole lot of ignorance!
If you’re interested in the modified community at all, or even better if you’re part of it; take a peek over here and read this piece of flimsy ‘news’ or better yet, I’m going to use the magic of copy and paste and just post it here.
This article was reposted in it’s entirety from The Spectrum, the independent publication for the University of Buffalo.
Article by Lisa Khoury
I get it. It’s the 21st century. You’re cool, you’re rebellious, you’re cutting edge, you have a point to prove, and you’re a woman. Awesome.
Ladies, I know you’re at least at the legal age of making your own decisions, but before you decide to get a tattoo, allow me to let you in on a little secret. A secret you may have not fully realized yet thus far in your life. What you must understand is, as women, we are – naturally – beautiful creatures.
Seriously, though. Your body literally has the ability to turn heads. Guys drool over us. We hold some serious power in our hands, because – as corny as this sounds – we hold the world’s beauty.
But something girls seem to forget nowadays, or maybe have not been taught, is that women hold the world’s class and elegance in their hands, as well. So what’s more attractive than a girl with a nice body? I’ll tell you what: a girl with class. Looks may not last, but class does. And so do tattoos.
An elegant woman does not vandalize the temple she has been blessed with as her body. She appreciates it. She flaunts it. She’s not happy with it? She goes to the gym. She dresses it up in lavish, fun, trendy clothes, enjoying trips to the mall with her girlfriends. She accentuates her legs with high heels. She gets her nails done. She enjoys the finer things in life, all with the body she was blessed with.
But marking it up with ink? That’s just not necessary.
I’m not here to say a girl should walk around flaunting her body like it’s her job – that’s just degrading. Instead of getting a tattoo, a more productive use of your time would be improving and appreciating the body you have been given, not permanently engraving it.
Can you get meaning out of a tattoo? Arguably. If you want to insert ink into your skin as a symbol for something greater than yourself, then maybe you are proving a point to yourself or the rest of the world.
But at the end of the day, are you really a happier person? Has this tattoo, for instance, caused you to learn something new about yourself? Has it challenged you? Has it led you to self-growth? Nothing comes out of getting a tattoo. You get a tattoo, and that’s it. You do something productive, though, and you see results. That’s a genuine, satisfying change in life. Not ink.
Invest your time, money, and effort into a gym membership, or yoga classes, or new clothes, or experimenting with different hairstyles if you’re craving something new with your body, not a tattoo.
I promise, it will be a much more rewarding experience, and you won’t find yourself in a rut when your future grandkids ask you what’s up with the angel wings on your upper back as you’re in the middle of giving them a life lesson on the importance of values and morals.
God knows the last thing this world needs is another generation of kids questioning their basic values and morals.
Email: lisa.khoury@ubspectrum.com
The backlash from this was HUGE! Never in my life have I seen an article from a University go viral in no time at all. Lisa has since posted a follow up article where she does a fine job of playing the victim and trying to salvage the last vestiges of a poorly written, not to mention opinionated article to begin with.
Now I can respect most people’s opinions, this however takes the proverbial cake. I could write the little, opinionated and clearly un-educated miss and give her a piece of my mind. I however have since decided against that and thought I would go public instead. For ME personally, there is no correlation between my body and what I choose to do with it. I’m down with yoga, but I prefer boxing. I’m not a fashion plate so I could care less about shopping and as for changing my hair, well I dye it once, maybe twice a year because I feel like it and to even out the color. Especially in the winter when it’s drab, dreary and just plain awful most of the time. Also? I hate high heels.
Every body tells a story. Every scar, stretch mark, freckle, you name it. It’s there for a reason. Either you were born with it or somehow ‘obtained’ it through your course of life. Mine however is illustrated in pictures. I get tattooed to pay homage to the people that I love dearly and are no longer with me. Some of my tattoos are in fact just for fun, because why not? Some of my tattoos represent pain, personal suffering and heartache. Those tattoos are a representation of my survival and give me something beautiful to look at in spite of the pain. Not one of my tattoos has ANYTHING to do with the way I see myself on a physical level. Nor my moral conduct or personal beliefs & ethics.
My tattoos are private, they’re personal and every single one of them means something to me. FAR more than say having the perfect body, a great hair cut or an awesome pair of jeans. None of which I can take to the grave with me. My tattoos however are forever etched in my skin. A milestone. Living, breathing art that was designed by me and brought to life by some very talented people. My tattoos don’t make me any less attractive on the inside, they don’t change who I am as a person. They represent my life story in pictures. Permanent reminders of times gone by. They have made me laugh, some make me cry, some have helped me to move on, some have helped me to heal. To grow as a person, to remind myself of where I am now and what it took me to get to this point. That in and of itself is priceless and far more meaningful than frivolous, material things. If you’re going to talk smack about a community of people…
Get your damn facts straight first.
Ok, I’ve been following this ‘story’ around for a few days. I’m getting kind of bored with it, but what you wrote spoke to me in some way. I’d like to share my view on this.
The girl who wrote this article has issues. They’re actually pretty severe and they go deeper than a dislike of tattoos and the people who wear them. People who have gone insane writing awful things to her have not only done themselves and a the community that they claim to represent a disservice, they have missed the worst parts. Everyone, including you I’m sorry to say, have missed the point.
“God knows the last thing this world needs is another generation of kids questioning their basic values and morals.”
She’s saying, in this passage and the one directly before it, that first of all, people with tattoos forego their right to have values and morals, and second of all that we should not, as a society, be encouraging children to question the morals and values of their parents and their parents’ generation. This is so much worse than suggesting that people should think about getting a new hairstyle or a pair of jeans instead of a tattoo.
I mean think about it. People, not you, not me, but people, sometimes regret the tattoos that they have gotten when they were younger. The existence of ‘tattoo remorse’, the massive inrease in the number of people getting tattoos removed, shows that a lot of people are getting tattoos for what I carefully refer to as the ‘right reasons’.
Some people, the people that the article addresses, because it wasn’t written for you and me and it definitely wasn’t written as some kind of declaration of war againt the tattooed community, do not respect the fact that a tattoo is for life. If you treat a tattoo like a pair of jeans then you should be encouraged to buy a pair of jeans. If you treat it like a haircut or a diet then you should be encouraged to get a new haircut and go on a diet. I do not disagree with what she is saying.
Meanwhile, people for whom this article should never have existed, people to whom it was not addressed, are going ape-shit crazy. It’s not for us! Yes, it’s clumsily written, but it’s in a college newspaper. It’s not in the New York Times. Yes, it’s unsubstantiated opinion, but it’s an opinion piece. That’s the whole point. Yes, I think she expresses some pretty dodgy opinions, but in a lot of ways when it comes to suggesting that some people should maybe think twice before committing to a tattoo, the future removal of which will do far more damage to the reputation of the tattooed community than this article could ever dream of doing, I think she’s absolutely right. People should
think. I will never regret my ink, but I know for a fact that ink I don’t have, but at some point thought quite seriously about getting, I would right now be regretting. What’s the harm in encouraging people to take moment and think before making a major life choice?
I don’t disagree with you for the most part. I personally didn’t feel that this was a personal attack against me per se. However the implications that getting a tattoo will teach you nothing is ridiculous.
Saying that I am ‘vandalizing’ the temple I was born with is ludicrous and offensive (to me at least). I also don’t think that my tattoos have any reflection upon my standards, my morals, my own personal code of ethics or what I believe in. Let alone whether I have class or not. This is *MY* blog after all and the opinions expressed in it are mine and mine alone.
Clearly she has issues, that’s rather obvious to me (and likely countless others) and yes it is just a university newspaper. However if this young lady is going to move onto the world of journalism, she has some lessons that she needs to learn. There are scores of really bad, thoughtless tattoos out there. I know that and obviously you do as well. However, one should not generalize either. Some people don’t think a tattoo through and end up with some really shitty work due to making a poor decision. That however, does not mean that it represents us all as a whole.
I’m 33 years old, it’s my body and I will ‘vandalize’ it in whatever fashion I see fit. My whole point in writing this though? Was to share MY thoughts behind why I choose to get tattooed. That being said, thank you for reading and for your comment!
-Steph
I’ve written before, on a different site, about how I regard the ‘body is a temple’ argument against tattoos. In short, I find it represents a really narrow understanding of the concept of a ‘temple’. If you look around at temples and places of worship the world over, only a small percentage go unadorned. In the great majority, adornment and decoration work to elevate the mundane towards the divine. I live in Scotland, where we have communities of Calvinists who’s places of worship fall under the former category. They are drab, depressing, minimally adorned (usually a Calvinist church will have no markings whatsoever that mark it out as such) and really quite rare.
Look, however, at the places of worship for Catholics (Sistine Chapel anyone?), Buddists, Hindus and so on, and you find buildings that are virtually nothing but adornment. For me, unless you ally yourself to puritanical christianity, your body can be a temple and you should therefore adorn it as much as you possibly can.
Amen to that!
You know, I got to thinking about how iconic and stunning some art is in places of worship.
For some, it gives people comfort to see these images and for me my tattoos do the same.
Some people will just never get it.