SmokeAndMirrors
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It’s difficult to find stats on this, but I suspect that majority of people who get tats are when they are still quite young, in their teenage years. Then they accumulate more tats as they get older. But it must be quite rare for someone to get their first tat in life when they are in their 40s or 30s or even late 20s. Hence, those who do get tats in that mature age range must have gotten their first tat when they were much younger and so simply continued the practice. This proves that having more maturity and education results in not getting tats. But those who don’t get tats for cultural and religious circumstances demonstrate the superiority of growing up with certain taboos and discouraged behavior. When you grow up without a restriction you are more likely to experiment with it just to try out something new. But if you grow up knowing that certain behavior is restricted or taboo in your culture, you are more likely to avoid it at that critical age, and hence never do it at all throughout your life. In other words, it is better to grow up with more restrictions regarding certain behaviors. Since Western lifestyle and culture is very permissive in allowing their children to engage in behaviors, this is why children of that culture end up engaging in such things as getting tats, dying their hair funky colors, bizarre hairstyles, face piercings, etc.
Nope. My dad was slated to get his first ever tattoo at 62 years of age. It was gonna be a big piece, too. Unfortunately mortality had other plans for him, however.
There's actually quite a few middle age+ people who only start getting tattoos now because they are no longer so socially restricted from doing so, like they were when they were young. And that's not "better" if what they want is to have tattoos. Having a society that judges people on meaningless stuff like that is stupid, and it's good that we're moving away from it. Your stupid stereotypes about gender or whatever can stay in the last century where they belong. Whether you like it or not, your idea of our "culture" simply isn't true in reality.
Of my friends who have tattoos, I am far and away the one who started the youngest, and the only one to start in my teens (yes, still like them all, if you're wondering). One of my friends didn't get his first until about 30, one was about 40, I have a friend who's getting his first soon and is 29, one in her mid-30's, and yes, some in their 20's.
But it's by no means rare to start getting tattoos later in life. Even elderly people show up to tattoo studios with "virgin" skin. I believe we also have a number of members of DP who started in middle age or later.
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