This is the first time I’ve heard of tattoos being equated with low-income; I’m too broke for my next tattoo, therefore I don’t yet have it– how the hell would one make that connection?

I don’t mean this to sound patronizing, but are you under 25? Because if you are, you don’t remember a time when middle-class people with college degrees didn’t have tattoos. The ’90s was the first time that really happened; prior to that, they were a blue-collar/biker/military thing.

If a huge tattoo could be the difference between getting into that prestigious law firm or not that could prompt a lot more worry and thought than getting a tat before a job interview at Walmart (do they care what you look like? At all?)

Suits cover up a lot. If you don’t have your neck, face or hands tattooed (or lower legs, if you’re a woman and wear skirts), no one need know you have a tattoo. And unless you’re a complete idiot, you cover that shit up when you go for the interview.

It was harder when you *had* to wear a skirt to interviews or to work, which is one reason I didn’t get a band around my ankle back in 1993.

Anyway. I grew up, in Germany, with exactly the same prejudice. I was raised by my Grandma whose much-hated father was a sailor. So, for her, any and all tattoos were associated with a culture of rape, molestation, and abandonment.

Yes, that appears to be the implication, though the comment might deserve further explication.

Thank goodness there are men like you around. Bless.

I live in a very blue-collar area where having or not having tattoos is not much of an issue. Everyone I work with (in sales) has tattoos, many of them visible, and we work with the public in varying capacities. I see tattoos daily on lawyers, business owners, cooks, customer service workers, bikers, and professors, and I talk tattoos with my clients pretty regularly. The more you travel into blue-collar and working-class communities the more I notice their acceptability.

I’m definitely interested in expanding the conversation on middle-class tattoo narratives for this reason, especially since the kinds of middle-class manufacturing jobs that used to support a family are rapidly disappearing in the Midwest. I wonder if they could be a hindrance socially as the class imbalance becomes more pronounced, whereas in my experience they have always served prior as a conversation piece or a sign that you’re “down.”

The potential social cost might be greater for upper/middle-class types even it’s less of a monetary burden, though. If a huge tattoo could be the difference between getting into that prestigious law firm or not that could prompt a lot more worry and thought than getting a tat before a job interview at Walmart (do they care what you look like? At all?)

This is the first time I’ve heard of tattoos being equated with low-income; I’m too broke for my next tattoo, therefore I don’t yet have it– how the hell would one make that connection? I don’t know, it just seems like it’s totally find to say, “Yuck” about a tattoo, seeing as how the owner of said tattoo made a conscious choice in obtaining it.

I love tattoos… but I, too, am picky about what it is and where, and roll my eyes at the thought of a butterfly on a shoulder blade or Tweety Bird on an ankle. Barf. But I think that’s perfectly allowable.

I hate the word “trashy” in reference to humans.
I feel the same way about the word “classy.”