Our guest blogger is Natalie McCreesh aka Pearl, a fashion lecturer, freelance writer and creator of Fashion Pearls of Wisdom. This is the third of many posts to appear on th-ink.co.uk, in which Natalie will be telling us about her life in tattoos. Catch up on the first and second posts in the series.
Aren’t you worried how dated your wedding photos will look when you’re older? How can you justify spending all that money on your wedding when there are starving children in the world? Don’t you think it’s a bit selfish getting married when some people who are still single might get upset about it? You’re wearing a red wedding dress, wow you must be a slut!? No men will ever find you attractive once you’ve gotten married. How on earth will you get a job after you are married, employers will just think you’re unreliable and unprofessional – needing all that time off to have babies!?
Be honest, you would never, ever say any of those things to a bride. Getting married is often an expensive affair that will change you and impact the rest of your life by a means of permanence. I use the wedding analogy as I and many other tattooed women face this strange barrage of questions on a regular basis. Yet there is no shame, no recognition that doing so is rude and insulting.
Backpiece by Tacho Franch
Aren’t you worried what you will look like in your wedding photos with all those tattoos when you are older? How can you justify spending all that money on tattoos when there are starving children in the world. Don’t you think it’s a bit selfish getting tattooed when so many people are offended by them? You have tattoos, wow you must be a slut! No men will ever find you attractive once you’ve gotten heavily tattooed. How on earth will you get a job once you have visible tattoos, employers will just think you’re unreliable and unprofessional – scaring off all the customers!
It’s a given that people will be curious towards those of us who are tattooed, those who choose to go past the holiday dolphin on the ankle and cover a large part of our skin with ink. Most questions come from an innocent mouth, intrigued rather than insulting yet producing that result all the same. I’ve had a woman chase me down the street and try to lift up the back of my shorts to see a Sailor Jerry style wolf on the back of my thigh. When I turned around to give her a mouth-full I saw she was with her two young children so I bit my tongue and answered her question as to where I had gotten it done – how she could tell it was a good tattoo from the minuscule part of it that was on show I’ve no idea.
Wolf by Kelly Smith
By far my worst experience was a group of guys at a crowded bar talking loudly about my back piece as I stood in front them. I’d left the girls to guard our seats and battled to the bar for a round, suddenly I felt very alone. The bar was jam packed so I couldn’t escape and resigned myself to listening to them mutter, when one managed to saddle up beside me ‘that’s a big tattoo’ he yelled, ‘how far down does it go’ and he proceed to try and pull down the back of my dress. I couldn’t tell you what I said but luckily it was loud enough for the bar security to drag him out. ‘Bloody hell he didn’t mean any harm’ I heard his mates protest on the way out. Harm meant or not, it was caused, I’m now wary of going out at night with my back piece on display without my boyfriend. Anyone trying to pull down the dress of a non-tattooed girl would have been accused of sexual harassment. Us tattooed girls are tough, we spend hours upon hours having needles sunk into our skin, but experiences like that would upset anyone.
On a lighter note there are of course the ridiculous questions which can only be met with an entertaining answer. How much did your tattoos cost, how can you afford it? Oh I get paid extremely well from my high profile job – OMG yes tattooed people can have careers too. We also save up our hard earns just like people save up for a car, a holiday, a designer handbag. Why the choice to decorate your body with tattoos is still such an enigma for some I cannot answer, but I sure do enjoy a good witty comeback story!