As a child I did not like anything that was a permanent attachment to the body. Earrings?? Oouch! Ears are sensitive things. To think that an earring might be ripped off by accident was not a prospect I liked to entertain. I got bad dreams at night.

Rings on your finger? Not for me. When your fingers are swollen it becomes hurting like you are clapped in chains. Rings are pure torture. Sensitive as I am I have never worn one. Not even at my wedding and also not after.

Not to speak of tattoos. It seemed to me a permanent disfigurement of the body. And that was before they invented piercings. Nowadays you find those everywhere. Also at the intimate parts of the body. I cant understand that. Are they never in the way? Don't they itch or hurt? I have no chance to find out, because I like my phobia.

Is your body not beautiful enough? Did it add something to put a slave brand there? In my imagination I can hear the sound of burning skin when a tattoo is put. It is not a fear of needles. I can stand needles. All my life they have been taking my blood with a needle on a regular basis. I can stand that.

Google "no tattoos" on the net and you get quite a few. Not time this though. In the mean time more and more people seem to have a tattoo or piercing. It has become a normal form of body decoration, but not so normal that you would like to show it off at your future employer. Some branches, like accountancy, are very conservative. In that case it is better not show your tattoo even after you are hired. Some people mark exactly how far the tattoo maker is supposed to go so that it remains invisible to the outside world when they don't want it to be seen. That is probably wise, but defeats the purpose in my view. You wanted to show off and now you are hiding it! Anyway that's how it is. People do judge books by their cover and when you show them a new cover you putting yourself on the judgment stand.

Does a tattoo make you a mighty warrior? The American natives painted themselves before they went to war, but that was paint. Nothing permanent like a tattoo. Also President Obama seems to think so. He does not like the idea his daughters would get a tattoo. Would the Hakkapeliitta soldiers have been tattooed? History suggest that they were the raw type. Their appearance caused as much fear as their actual fighting. Some say they had strange tattoos and other fearsome decorations.

Is it a sign of love when you have your spouses name engraved on your arm? Eternal love it has to be, because if it isn't the name is there to stay. I have heard that some people put names of loved ones who died before their time. A child that died in an accident, a son that did not come back from some distant war. That somehow makes more sense although I think that if you feel so strongly that way you don't need a permanent reminder on your body.

People who do have a tattoo rarely have regrets. Nevertheless, when they do it is a costly affair. Depending on the pigments used you need about 6 to 15 treatments every 6 weeks. With every treatment costing between 15 (1 cm²) and 125 euro depending on the size of the surface. That's just the laser treatment. If you need plastic surgery you are in for much, much more.

One girl who had regrets was a starstruck girl from Belgium. Her friend, a guy who had himself a body full of tattoos, had put 56 stars on her face. At first she was ok with that, but later she could not stand the thought that the stars on her face would stay forever. The removal of her tattoos would take three painful years and about 10.000 euro. That seems to me a waste and a trauma. Fortunately, I like myself as I am. If you have a tattoo and can say the same I am happy for you.

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