"What does your tattoo mean?"
If you have a tattoo, or are thinking about getting a tattoo, you'e definitely heard this question before, or some form of it. It calls to the assumption that getting permanent ink on your body has to mean something.
According to the online Smithsonian magazine, humans have been getting inked for thousands of years but the earliest records were on the bodies of Egyptians, which can be seen on their mummified bodies. It was said that if women had a tattoo, or a few, it marked that those women had STDs or were prostitutes. Does that sound familiar? We label those with tattoos on the lower back as tramp stamps, we see certain tattoos on certain people and decide it means they're bad people, and we make assumptions about their character or who they are.
I, myself, have one tattoo. It's about brand new, I got it over spring break. The story of why and how I got it is arbitrary. My best friend, Cat, and I were eating lunch in Broadripple, Indiana (home of the hipster), when we decided it was time to get a tattoo. We walked to Metamorphasis, a famous and quite expensive tattoo shop, and asked if they were to busy to do one small tattoo, Cat's. After watching her do hers, I decided to get one on a whim, and there is no meaning behind it.
My sun and moon tattoo on my left hip doesn't mean anything. It's small and subtle, so subtle that my grandmother didn't even flinch when she saw it. We shame a lot of things, let's not tattoo-shame, too. I hear it all the time: "She just got another tattoo. It probably doesn't mean anything, it's just random.
Even if it is, so what? If at that moment, you feel like it's the right thing to do, then it does mean something. Mine means that I did something fun on my spring break that I can remember for the rest of my life with my best friend.
To satisfy all of those judging, "What does your tattoo mean?" questions, I googled some meanings behind the sun and moon tattoo I got from Pintrest. Yes, I got it from Pintrest. It represents unity, cooperation instead of conflict, and the circle of life. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a good enough explanation for me.
So next time somebody asks you what your tattoo means, just say it means you wanted it, so you got it.
