By Frankie VanSickle, Staff Writer
Tattoos are one of my favorite things in the world. Personally, I have one and plan on getting many more. They are a way to express things that you are into or things that you find cool. A lot of people also get them to commemorate either dead loved ones or get something that makes them feel like they have overcome a certain event in their life which is amazing.
Tattoos aren’t for everyone.
When I got my first tattoo, I had someone in my life freak out about it because he hated them. He barely spoke to me for a week. Luckily, he is okay with them, now, but it isn’t it for others which is fine.
I know people are afraid of needles, which I completely understand because when I was little, I was afraid of needles and it almost carried to my adult life.
I just don’t get why tattoos are so frowned upon in a professional area and seen to be criminal-like.
In the 1700s, a man by the name of Jeremy Bentham first started talking about tattoos, but not in the way we think of now. He used tattoos to be more of an identifier of criminals. If a person had a tattoo, then he would be immediately deemed as a criminal. This is similar to how people put numbers in dog ears to identify them.
Later other philosophers related tattoos to people’s economic, and racial status. They found that the people who had tattoos were lower-class citizens who have been to jail.
That was the 1700’s, things have changed so much. Why still have this stigma that tattoos mean you’re lesser than others and that you can’t work most professionally?
I know people who have them and they are some of the most professional people I know. Some people don’t have them, think that tattoos are not right and think that they are way better because they don’t have them. They get the job because that employer finds them more professional and holds them to higher thinking or standard than someone who has tattoos.
We are getting to a point in our society where tattoos are becoming more acceptable because public figures such as Miley Cyrus, Rihanna and David Beckham have many tattoos. People are seeing that anyone can have them and for it to become acceptable in this day and age.
We are still a long way from it to be fully acceptable though. People see someone on the street who has a lot of tattoos and a majority of people’s first thought is “he went to jail because he has a lot of tattoos”. That’s not the case. Our society needs it to be more regular and to not stereotype a person for having something that was deemed something a long time ago.
Society has changed, and people need to not see others as bad people or less for something they love to express.
vansicfr18@bonaventure.edu
