How lame is it for a 40 year old guy to get his first tatoo?

Why would you put "art" on your body that you wouldn't hang on your wall?

Shawn

A kid who works for me has a tat of a vacuum tube from an ancient Marshall guitar amp on his arm. Ooooo kayyyyy....

At the moment i have five tattoos, two of which are pretty much always visible (one on my forearm, another on the bottom of my wrist). I regret absolutely nothing about them even if people might think the content odd. I plan on getting more in the future (a sleeve is in the works).

I don't particularly care what other people think of them, i got them for myself and love them. I'm not a huge fan of tattoos on hands or neck/head but don't think less of anyone that has them.

My wife also has several tattoos and its never bothered me.

As long as it's something you know you want go for it, just make sure to find a good artist.

confuZion3 wrote: About the Chinese lettering... how do you know, I mean really berkeleying know that the tattoo that you are about to get actually means "peace" or "love" or "apathy", and doesn't instead mean "I'm gay" or "berkeley You" or "Communism Forever"? Unless, of course, you have an actual Chinese speaker (and reader) translate it for you? I wonder how many times this has happened to people?

The wife and I got matching symbols on few years back before one of my deployments, it was listed as the symbol for "Faithful." This past summer, we were on a cruise and one of the staff was Chinese, he saw the symbol on my back and asked if I knew what it meant. I asked him, and he explained that, as in most asian launguges, the symbol carries a much larger meaning behind it, but the sentiment was a life devoted to loyalty. When I told him the story behind it and the fact that my wife and I had matching ones, he though it was pretty cool. The meanign was off, but the sentiment behind it was accurate.

It was good to hear but we decided even if it wasn't true, we'd still be happy becuase of why we got them.

My only other ink falls under Joe's military exception. A couple of us that served on the Honor Guard at Offutt AFB got the band on our shoulder. I look at it now the same way a previous poster talked about his USMC ink. It means even more to me now becuase of what that time taught me.

Hey Chris you failed to mention the landing strip you had done on your rump for the Navy flyers in Eritrea.

You know, the one that let's them know when they are about to land in the E36 M3 ;)

Jeff Foxworthy once said something to the effect of "when I was a kid, the only people who could have tattoos and still be respectable were old guys who'd been in the Navy." I'm not old, but I was in the Navy. And I have six tattoos (as of this post), and a couple of rules governing them:

1. Never pick some flash off the wall and have it applied, as-is, to you. My first one was just that, and I disliked it for about two years. Flash is supposed to help you get ideas.
2. Don't use white ink; it fades too easily.
3. Unless it's yours or that of a blood relative, or possibly a military/policeman/firefighter friend who was killed in action, never get a name tattoo.
4. As has been said before, never get anything that you can't read tattooed on you. I would post why, but my example probably isn't PG.
5. Never get a band's name or logo. Tastes change, and this demonstrates a marked lack of originality.
6. Military-themed tattoos--that don't negatively portray the military--are always in good taste, for persons who were actually in the military.

If you want one for the right reasons, go ahead and get it regardless of age. The older you are, the less often it'll require touch-ups.

JetMech wrote: Jeff Foxworthy once said something to the effect of "when I was a kid, the only people who could have tattoos and still be respectable were old guys who'd been in the Navy." I'm not old, but I was in the Navy. And I have six tattoos (as of this post), and a couple of rules governing them: 5. Never get a band's name or logo. Tastes change, and this demonstrates a marked lack of originality.

Thats true. When ever people see mine they ask when I was in the army or what war we fought Foo in.