Red Flutterby

But first, let's look at the pros and cons.

Pros:

1. It looks cool.

Cons:

1. It stuffs up the skin's elasticity.
2. Different pigments fade at different rates, with red being the first to go. (That's why black tattoos go blue after a while).
3. Once it's there, it's there for good.
4. I suspect it would hurt. One source tells me that tattoos make grown men cry. Another source says it doesn't hurt that much.
5. There are potential health risks.
6. A tattoo can be used to identify a person.

....Ok, 1 pro versus 6 cons...Could be worse.
Let's now look at some rebuttals and/or how to mitigate some of the cons.

1. My skin is stuffed anyway. If I keep the tattoo small and somewhere that is not prone to stretching, it should be ok.
2. & 3. Theoretically, a predominantly red tattoo could fade out and leave a faint mark in old age. This would be ideal; a reminder of my youth without the weird tattooed grandmother look.
4. I'd like to think my pain tolerance is relatively high, but let's face it, I'm a girl. I'm hoping tattoo parlours provide some sort of numbing cream...highly unlikely as this could mess up the application of pigment. All the more reason to keep it small.
5. I have read up on health risks and questions to ask regarding hygiene and cleaning of instruments. A thorough interrogation of staff and maybe some sort of certification should do the trick.
6. This could be good or bad. If I'm on the run from the law, the triads or colony of giant space hamsters, then I wouldn't want to be easily identified. However, certain features that are governed by my DNA (and which I have no desire of removing) makes it really easy to identify me anyway, so a tattoo is not going to make much of a difference. Easy identification would come in handy if I happened to be involved in an incident such as a ferry crash or a train crash, where many people get injured, go missing or get killed.

If I am to get one, it shall be on my 24th birthday. But at the end of the day, it all depends on whether I chicken out or not.

Labels: Tattoo