Wandering around a local art festival, I see lots of amazing sights, people and art. Perusing through some cute watercolor prints, I hear a woman gasp. “Is that a typewriter tattoo? What does it mean?” I don’t even have time to process the question before I am being yanked by a complete stranger, who felt the need to examine my arm. The stranger is harmless, just a middle-aged woman who saw me in the middle of all the art and thought I was also available to touch.

I cringed. “That tattoo is still pretty new, so…” She gasped and let me go.
“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have touched it if I knew it was new!”

Really? She wouldn’t have touched a complete and total stranger if she knew it would have caused me pain? The only reason she thought it was inappropriate to touch me was because it was hurting me. Otherwise, she’d be totally fine with touching me.

I wouldn’t consider myself heavily tattooed. Yes, I have multiple tattoos, with most of them on the same body part. Yes, I enjoy when people admire and compliment the works of art I suffered through hours of pain to receive. Yes, I even don’t mind if someone asks me questions about where I got them or if they have special meaning. What I cannot handle as a human being with ink on their skin is when a complete stranger decides to touch me. It happens more often than you would think -- a person sees my tattoos, wants to get a closer look, and instead of politely asking if they may see it, they grab me and look for themselves.

Remember in elementary school, when your teacher would sit all of you down on the carpet, look you in the eyes, and say, “Keep your hands to yourself?” I couldn’t possibly be the only person who was told that over and over again throughout the years, by multiple parents, teachers and other various adults in my life, right? When did it become acceptable to grab and touch people you do not know, without their permission?

I understand, actually. You see a beautiful piece of art, and you want to reach out and touch it. I can’t count the number of times my mother slapped my hands away from a painting in a museum, telling me that I needed to look with my eyes only. However, a tattoo on someone’s skin is not as well displayed as a painting in a museum, but that doesn’t mean that you get to grab it to get a better look.

This seems like it should be common knowledge, not touching people you don’t know. Yet I still get grabbed at least once a week by someone who apparently didn’t learn about common decency. If anyone else were to get grabbed, yanked and pulled, they would get yelled at, but for some reason, I’m supposed to smile and let them touch me. In fact, I’m given weird looks if I get angry and tell them to leave me alone. I have tattoos, so apparently, I am a public hands-on gallery, who should just allow people to touch me whenever they want.

It doesn’t matter that I am a human being. It doesn’t matter that I don’t know you. It doesn’t matter that 99.9 percent of the time, it is acceptable to rip your arm away and give people who touch you a dirty look unless you’re tattooed. It doesn’t matter to people who want to see my tattoos. Once you have tattoos, you are no longer human to those who want to see your art.

This can be easily solved--use your words. If you see someone walking down the street, in front of you at Starbucks or at a party, be polite and ask if you could look at their tattoos. It isn’t that hard to ask if they could show you their ink. In fact, most of the time we’re proud of our ink, and would love to show you. Even then, we are allowed to tell you that no, we don’t feel like showing you.