Note: This rant is to rude people who don’t know boundaries. The rest, carry on.
I am almost twenty-one-years-old, and I have three tattoos. My first is a quote that reads, “Though I may not flow where the wind guides me, I won’t become still water”. The second is a black-and-white elephant head on my forearm, and the third is a partially finished half-sleeve, yet to be colored with bold turquoises, bright blues, and greens. When I had these tattooed, I thought deeply about the decision I was making. What did these tattoos mean to me? Did I want these to be a part of me for the rest of my life?
The answer to both is yes. I was prepared for this, but what I was not prepared for was the reaction I would have from my friends and the public who did not have tattoos. The tattooed community seems to have a mutual respect: we acknowledge the beauty of one another’s work without questioning one another’s choices. Each and every one of us understands that there is an explanation for our paintings, but sometimes those are too personal and deep for someone else to understand.
Those who want tattoos will endlessly question and seek advice from you without demanding the meaning of every piece you have because they are prepared to be in your position. Honestly, I enjoy that.
But those that are not tattooed—regardless of age and their relationship to me—have grabbed my arm as if I’m their object or treat me like a ragdoll. They tug my freshly-inked skin, and twist my arm this way and that, demanding why I did this, what the purpose is, and trying to touch it.
Get your hands off of me.
Do not come up to me, whether or not you know me, and grab my sleeve, pulling it upward. Do not grab my wrist at the dinner table and twist my arm around to see. You are not a four-year-old child. Your curiosity can wait. Just ask me. Ask to see my tattoo. Ask if you can touch it after it has healed. Go ahead, run your fingertips over it if I let you.
And most of all, if you do not have a tattoo, do not aggressively challenge my decision, ask me twenty questions, and demand to know every specific detail of the meaning regarding it. I do not have to explain it to you, and just because I do not (oh, my favorite part) that does not mean I just “got it as part of a fad” or because I “wanted to”. It does not mean my tattoos are meaningless and shallow.
To put a conclusion to this rant, if you do not have a tattoo, do not corner someone who does and interrogate them. Do not, for the love of all things, grab their body and bend it in ways it isn’t supposed to bend to ogle at it without their permission. I did not ink my body for your viewing pleasure, and the meanings were not meant for you. They are mine. Please, be respectful, be courteous, and allow others to have privacy about what they’ve done to their bodies. If someone wants to explain their tattoo to you and they have the time, they will (most of the time) automatically do it. Unless you ask to see it or know the meaning and I want to tell you then I will, but no means no.
