You Got a Vagina Tattooed WHERE?

Check out our "Bad Tattoos" contest going on now HERE!!

Whilst getting the goods out at the local nude beach in the city, I recently had a prime opportunity to reflect on the number and variety of appalling tattoos which increasingly decorate the bodies of young Vancouverites. As tats have hit mainstream culture, it has almost become more ‘abnormal’ to be without ink. Consequently, daily sightings of questionable characters adorned with regrettable tattoo choices are becoming the norm, and the depraved sense of delight I feel when stumbling upon bold body art moves has made people-creeping that much more interesting. Today’s fun discovery was an overlarge ‘Superman’ logo chest piece, cleverly utilized by its owner to accentuate a rock-hard set of bronzed pectorals. Understandably, a thousand (all equally hilarious) one night stand scenarios have been racing through my mind since the vision.

As this most recent specimen of (super)-manhood displays, an increasing number of bandwagon-hopping individuals are showcasing the classic unspoken (and largely unanalyzed) conviction of the badly inked. This is that their troubled tattoo choices will continue to be both lifestyle-relevant and ‘attractive’, well into their diaper-wearing 90s. Whether on the sunken cavern of a once roid-swollen chest or on the prolific swell of rising man-tit, for a certain tribe of individuals, a tattoo’s conceivable future is never flawed. As Superman struts along the beach in his Jersey Shore-like fashion, he signals: this choice of tattoo shall timelessly represent a current (and apparently immortal) existence of weightlifting, volleyball playing, and lady-fucking.

Kind of like the necessary requirement of a boob-surgeon to inform the patient of ‘the risks of major surgery’, I occasionally feel that it would be to the greater good if tattoo artists were placed under a similar type of obligation. This would be to inform their customers, that while the chances aren’t great, “perhaps in 20 years you will no longer be a douchebag, and this Maroon 5 cover-art will make convincing others of your non-douchebaggery more difficult”. Or, “perhaps this Taylor Swift song lyric you would like me to inscribe on your lower back is going to become less profound when Taylor’s on her third divorce and in jail for cocaine use”. Certainly, despite the apparent clarity of the process, people seem to forget that the one truth-ism of tattoos is that they don’t change with you, or the times.                                                                  

A small sampling of wince-inducing ink.  Source: Buzzfeed. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am definitely a fan of tattoos. There’s nothing that gets my pheromones pumping harder than a bearded hunk of a man with a great set of full-sleeves.  I am also stoked that tattoos are now more accessible to those who DO give a fuck – about getting a job, for example. Realistically, when there is such a huge number of individuals with ink out there, bad tattoos are inevitable, and in themselves relatively unsurprising. What’s more fascinating is that the owners of horrific body art seem to be divided into two camps: those who will never realize their tattoos are shit, and those who are acutely alert of the fact.

A few future regrets may be looming with the new stick-and-poke phenomenon that is dangerously popular (read: doomed to be outdated in 2 years). Kids are feeling “edgy” when, with the aid of a sketchy sewing needle, random crap (see below) is engraved on skin, generally whilst hammered. When I asked my most ‘trendy-without-trying-to-be-trendy’ friend how he felt about stick and poke tattoos, he commented sagely, “They’ve become a pretty big thing so of course they SUCK now”. Thus, the moral for those more hesitant dirtbags out there is: when you get “THRASHER” tattooed on your thigh and nobody thinks it’s sweet anymore, you better make sure you’re still game to rock it. It takes a certain type.

My pals had a few too many Whiskey shots the other night. 

The key is to not take it personally, friends. Whether on the Jabronis of Kits beach, the East Van hipsters or the skate-crowd, there are more than a few questionable tattoos around, each obtained for their own dubious and often hilarious reasons. I am not without sympathy. Life is full of mistakes, and it’s just a sign of the ages that an increasing number of those are now made in permanent ink. It is what it is, and what it is, is mainly funny for the rest of us.

Check out our "Bad Tattoos" contest going on now HERE!!