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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

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My wife on a couple different occasions expressed the desire to get a tattoo. Each time I'm like "No. No tattoos. I don't want you to get a tattoo." Naturally she asks me why, and I'm at a loss for words. You just...you don't do that! That's your skin! It's not a piece of paper! Do you want to look like the kind of person who gets tattoos?!

I guess you either grew up in a family with standards* or you didn't.

*My younger brother got a small tattoo, of a line of scripture. Getting a Bible verse tattooed on a discreet part of your body seems like the most innocuous kind of tattoo you could get, but he still hid it from us for years and only admitted it with a lot of sheepishness when he came across a situation where we were bound to see it. This is right and correct.

You just...you don't do that!

Yes... you do. I do. Almost everyone I know does. My 71 year old mother is getting a tattoo next month.

That's your skin! It's not a piece of paper!

No, it's a far more appropriate venue to express yourself than a piece of paper. It's for things that mean enough to you to have them etched physically onto you semi-permanently. You are a blank canvas, when you could be a work of art encompassing all of your being expressed visually. Not customising your body is like never changing the default desktop background on your PC. It speaks to a terribly boring person.

Do you want to look like the kind of person who gets tattoos?!

Interesting and attractive? Yes, actually.

Frankly, if you've never made any change to your body, no non-ear piercings, no tattoos, never dyed your hair, if you are a totally stock out-of-box generic human-brand-human, I'm just going to assume you're a dull as dishwater person. That you've never felt anything in your life strongly enough to wish to express it openly. You desire conformity, to fly under the radar, to get your head down and get on and never make waves.

This level of pearl clutching, in addition, suggests to me that you might be fairly repressed or sheltered.

I bet you write in books too.

You just...you don't do that! That's your skin! It's not a piece of paper!

Those aren't actual reasons.

Do you want to look like the kind of person who gets tattoos?!

This very much depends on what kind of people around you have tattoos, and what kind of tattoos they are.

Getting a Bible verse tattooed on a discreet part of your body seems like the most innocuous kind of tattoo you could get,

Only if everyone around you is Christian. In my circles having a tattoo is whatever, but a religious tattoo is trashy