"Not So Much..."

In politics and social norms, I'm about as conservative as a person can be. But as to personal freedoms and the expression of same, I tend to be very liberal. What you choose to do is your business as long as it doesn't require me to alter my personal freedoms. If a person wishes to wear their pants on backwards, so be it. I think it looks pretty ridiculous, but I'm not the one walking down the street with a thousand pair of eyes staring back at me. Which brings me to my point; tattoos and body piercings. As a lingering craze, I wish that it would soon run it's course.

When I was in high school the fashionable thing for we guys to do was wear socks that matched the same color as our shirts. In college the really "cool" fraternity boys would tuck the alpaca sweaters into their khaki slacks and blouse the sleeves of the sweater under so that the cuffs of our neatly starched oxford cloth shirts would show. I long ago gave up socks that are any color other than dark blue or black, and I no longer stuff my sweater into my pants. I do, when I can get away with it, still blouse my sweater sleeves. (Drives my dear wife batty!) The thought back then, however, of getting a tattoo or, perish the thought, piercing any part of one's body in order to have a convenient place to hang jewelry was as foreign to us as cell phones. Tattoos and body piercings today are certainly just as prevalent as are cell phones, if not more so.

Tattoos on men don't bother me so much. They have been in vogue pretty much for decades. A guy sporting a tattoo on his shoulder or forearm that says "Mom" or the "U.S.S. Enterprise" I understand. It's the string of barbed wire or bandoleer of ammunition around the guy's upper arm or thigh that I don't get. Heck, I almost passed out when I had my fingered pricked to have my blood test prior to getting married. I can't begin to imagine the excruciating pain that must be involved to have anything more invasion performed on one's skin! And I just continue to have difficulty adjusting to the sight of man with pierced ears. Maybe it's just me, but it just strikes me as being unnecessarily effeminate. I realize that many manly-men have gone that route, but to see a professional football player remove his helmet to reveal diamond studs in each ear still doesn't sit quite well with me.

What really grabs my attention is seeing so many girls and women liberally and unabashedly displaying all manner of tattoos. Some look like walking billboards for all manner of creepy-crawlies, abstract designs, potted plants, symbols, and far-eastern hieroglyphics...and they are about as discretely hidden as a pimple on one's nose! Then there are the more adventurous souls who have determined that one pair of pierced ear rings just ain't gonna cut it. No, they have adorned their face with metal loops by the dozens around their outer ears, and for good measure several more through their lips and nose! And this is suppose to be attractive? In the eye of the beholder I suppose...

Be assured that I am not in favor of returning to the days when the most outlandish fashion statement one dare make would be to wear colored sock to match one's dress shirt. But it would be a nice change to appreciate the beauty of the human form without the need for so much artificial adornment. Maybe it's just me. I am getting older in spite of my best efforts to do otherwise.