Tattoo Discrimination

Anyone who has met me will tell you that I am a self confessed tattoo enthusiast. And so it's no surprise that I want to discuss the growing trend of media reports about tattoo discrimination.

Last year musician and love interest of Nicole Richie, Joel Madden was told by a British Airways staff member to cover up his tattoo sleeves before he could board a the plane, as they may make other passengers uncomfortable. Needless to say that the couple were outraged by the incident, with Nicole posting the story on her blog. British Airways apologised and said the employee had to right to act in such a manner.

A similar incident has happened just last month, this time with a normal member of the public , 30-year old mum Samantha Osborn being told to cover up her chest tattoos before she could enter a Six Flags park. Although she was able to gain acess through a different queue and again the company apologised for the incident.

But what is the problem? Neither of the above cases involved people with offensive or vulgar tattoos. Joel's tattoos are Christian or family based, certainly not disturbing in nature, and no more offensive than a woman wearing a cross or Jewish man wearing a yarmulke (both of which I've seen on flights before).

But what about Samantha...her tattoos where called offensive and even compared to a swastika, a design that understandably is not allowed in the park. So what design was this violent mother sporting? Well as she is from Texas, and loves her state she has two six shooter surrounded by yellow roses. Six shooter are as offensive as the sign of the Nazi's????? I may be missing something here but six shooters represent cowboys (and therefore American history), and are the sort of thing you can buy toy versions of in Disney Land....which is the same as sporting a symbol that shows your support of mass genocide???? That just doesn't make sense!!!

It's a very tricky subject as there are no specific laws against tattoo discrimination. There is also still a great deal of misconceptions about them, despite there ever growing popularity, and spread across class and professions. This has to be overcome, and surely the straw to break the camels back on the issue will be coming along shortly, as over a quarter of Americans have at least one tattoo.

Although coming up with any sort of legislation will be an almost impossible task, as it is hard to have a blanket law. Because some people do have offensive or vulgar tattoos that are not appropriate in many situations. For example people do have swastika tattoos, other have graphically violent tattoos or sexual provocative tattoos including sexual acts and exposed genitalia. These sort of designs are defiantly not acceptable in a public context, especially not if young children are involved.

However, it seems unfair to allow unsavory people to ruin it for the majority of people who have non offensive tattoos that simply express their personality or tell a story of their life. Personally I have two tattoos, one of a fully clothed fairy and another of cupcakes....the only people that can be offended by those are perhaps dieters....but as one myself I can say it caused particular alarm.

So as I prevously mentioned it will be an issue almost impossible to legislate on, as you can not write one rule for everyone. Therefore it seems it is down to society to set out clearer guidelines on what is and what is not acceptable. Although that may mean waiting many years until the tattooed generations are in charge. I hope that won't take too long......