What used to be a rite of passage reserved for sailors and circus troupes has exploded in the past half century, making the sharp transition from subversive act to fashion statement. In the over-forty crowd, men still bear most of the ink. For the generation to which I belong, neither gender, nor skin tone, nor profession of choice (come to think of it, a Caduceus tat would be pretty awesome) is off limits. I should know. I'm a member of tatted-up, twenty-n-change masses. But, in addition to belonging to that every-increasing minority, I also belong to a smaller rank and file that will undoubtedly come to grow along side the multiplying rates of tattoo-getters in my age bracket. I am, I admit with some ambivalence, one of the thousands of Americans who is undergoing the process of tattoo removal this year.
"Everyone thinks they're hot shit when they're sixteen, right?" I quipped to the laser technician the first time he examined the offending ink. I tried very hard to sound calm and nonchalant. I'm sure I failed. Hey, it's not easy to crack wise when you're half naked in the presence of a complete stranger, especially not when they ask you about the origin of the tattoo you're removing. Just two months before the start of my senior year of high school, my best friend du jour and I skipped merrily into the local tattoo parlor in downstate New York on a whim. We then proceeded to request –- wait for it, now –- matching tattoos. Matching. And it gets worse: we picked them off of a display on the wall. The cherry on top of this cupcake of a scenario? Our tattoo of choice actually was a pair of cherries. The end result was anything but badass. But it was bad. And it was definitely on my ass.
Long after my banal compatibility with the ink-bound BFF had dissolved (in retrospect, I guess a mutual fondness for Sour Cream n' Onion Pringles isn't the strongest of starting points for a lasting friendship), I was left with an indelible, faux-rockabilly stamp on my rump and a Thursday afternoon appointment with Danny Fowler, tattoo legend turned tattoo removal expert. The technology of choice, he assured me, had developed a sophisticated sensitivity to a wide range of colored inks in recent years. I am compelled to note that an increase in efficacy fails to correlate with a greater measure of delicacy.
by Gemma de Choisy, Jezebel | Continue reading:
Image via Andy Nortnik/Shutterstock.com
