Tattoos.

As you’ve probably noticed, I have a few tattoos.

Growing up in a military family living on Canadian Armed Forces bases, I had always been exposed to tattoos. And as a kid, I had always wanted tattoos. But one thing I found is that outside of the military, tattoos weren’t really generally accepted. And with my almost nonexistent self esteem I was almost 25 before I got my first tattoo.

Being in a very precarious state with my employment and my finances at that stage in my life meant that I wasn’t going to risk losing my employment due to a disagreement with my employer over the appropriateness of tattoos in the work place. So the tattoos I had prior to working at the hospital were always small and could be covered up with a shirt.

After I started working at the hospital things became easier. Tattoos were not forbidden and some of the doctors and surgeons had some pretty good ink.

When I got my name change completed in 2008 I decided that I was no longer going to worry about what Richard would think. I started to get visible ink.

I’m not an artistic person. Faces and characters really don’t speak to me.

So I stated off with small designs and some small phrases.

Then the CFB Namao matter happened.

That matter literally sucked the life right out of me and it really slowed down what I wanted to do. After all, how can you know what you want to do when everything that you’ve known up to that date had been an absolute lie or bullshit.

Well, now that the entire truth has pretty well been discovered, I’ve made it my goal to have my complete body covered with as much ink as possible. And I’ve decided that I’m going to go with something simple but bold.

Stripes and bands.

Nothing complex. Nothing graphic. Just simple stripes and bands.
To get that one section of my leg done was about 6 hours.
I’m going back in a few weeks to get the other lower leg done.
After that it will be both upper legs.
Then my mid section.

And my arms.
Definitely will be keep the swords on my upper arms, but I’ll either continue with the bands or I will simply black out my forearms.

My face is a different story.
I’ll stay with the lines, but I am going to thicken up most of the lines.
Maybe add some line art.

Tattooing, like piercing, has actually worked out to be a form of pain relief.
It is true, there is an adrenaline rush of sorts when you’re getting tattooed or pierced.
And the thing about the adrenaline rush is it works as a sort of natural antidepressant.

Are there any tattoos that I regret?
Nope.

And no, I do not regret tattooing my face.
I love it.

Facial tattoos are really frowned upon in our society, but as I’m kinda one of society’s misfits, I guess I don’t have to worry.

It took so long to find an artist that was willing to tattoos my face. Not too many artists are willing to tattoo anyone’s face. But I found an artist who was willing. Yes, it was odd sitting there in the chair with the tattoo gun pressing into my face. When the tattooing stopped and it was time to take a look, I was blown away. I had never felt this pleased with myself before.

It took a while at first to get used to people staring. But I guess that comes with the territory. And no, I’m not offended if anyone looks, you can’t tattoo your face and then act all upset when people look.

The vast majority of people either don’t care or they like what they see. I’ve only encountered a very limited number of people who were upset.

No. My neck tattoos and my face tattoos are not Māori. Nor are they intended to be. My neck piece is actually a vector pattern that I bought from Shutterstock. The vector pattern on my head also came from Shutterstock. The lines on my face actually started off as me wanting to fill up the void on my chin. Things just spread out from there.

Cultural appropriation?

I don’t think so. I’ve done some research and I’ve tried to stay far away from any patterns or designs that could be assumed to belong to a tribe or peoples.

But didn’t “white people” steal tattooing from the Polynesians.

Not quite.

Historians and archaeologists are finding evidence that tattooing was actually a common thing amongst the peoples of continental and Northern Europe. And this makes a lot of sense. Everyone in the world has a common ancestor and to say that only specific peoples felt the need and urge to decorate their bodies would be foolhardy.

Recently a 2,500 year old “Siberian Princess” that had been unearthed in the early 2000’s was discovered to have had intricate tattoos. And as more corpses from much earlier days across Europe and North Europe are unearthed, tattoos are being found.

So, what happened?

Religion, or more specifically the Abrahamic religions including Christianity. As Christianity spread throughout Europe it erased customs and traditions. St. Patrick didn’t drive the snakes from Ireland. St. Patrick drove the Pagans from Ireland. And Christianity drove the Picts from Scotland. The Britons suffered the same fate. There are entire write-ups on how Christianity literally erased and replaced cultures and civilizations as it spread.

As the Church had a stranglehold on what parts of history were recorded and what parts of history were discarded, facts that didn’t suit the “man created in the image of god” mindset were pushed aside and forgotten about. So it goes without saying that a lot of European cultures that didn’t fit into the ideals of the new Christian theocracy were simply erased and forgotten about.

In Canada, we had the Government of British North America, and the the Government of Canada work in conjunction with the Catholic Church to erase the cultures of the various First Nations people. And this was in the modern ear. This was still going on into the 1990s. So to say that the Catholic church in previous eras erased peoples and cultures isn’t outlandish at all.

It’s no wonder there aren’t any historical records of alternate genders or alternate sexualities from the start of the Christian period to the modern era. Christianity has always had a weird and unhealthy fixation on sexuality and “earthly pleasures”. Suffering and virtue is the goal. Any sexuality or gender identity that didn’t result in reproduction was seen as “unholy”, and had to go.

When Christianity spread around the world, it did so at the end of a sword.

I’m not religious in any sense of the word. My body was not created in the image of a god. My parents were horny and they had sex without birth control. And therefore I’ll poke as many holes in it and decorate and colour the skin of my corpse as I see fit. If you don’t like tattoos and you don’t like piercings, don’t get them.

Anyways, enough for now.