My take on body arts

When I hear body art, the two things that immediately come to my mind are tattoos and piercings because they are the most popular forms of body art globally, even though there are many others. In my country Nigeria, many people especially the older generation aren't so open to tattoos and piercings. They see people with tattoos and piercings as miscreants and immediately profile them as internet fraudsters or prostitutes. I also do that sometimes, judging if a person is a fraudster or not based on their having tattoos or not.

The reason for that is that it's mostly Internet fraudsters that go around with tattoos. I'm not saying that regular, lawful citizens don't have tattoos but aside from celebrities, most of the people you meet on the street with tattoos are most likely going to be fraudsters. I had about 4 friends some years back who all went into internet fraud and within a few months, they all came back to the city carrying different patterns of tattoos on their arms. I don't have anything against tattoos, I actually love them and they are my favourite form of body art.

I don't know why many Nigerian parents are against tattoos, especially when you consider the fact that a long time ago, the most popular form of body art was tribal marks. Some of those marks can be very ridiculous with some people looking like they got attacked by a Wolverine, just having 3 huge slashes on each cheek. Some of the marks can be up to 5, and there are different variations of it mostly used by the 3 major tribes in Nigeria; Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa. The Yoruba and Hausa marks look alike, and they are the huge ones I talked about earlier but the Igbos favour smaller marks, most on one side of the head.

I'm just glad that such a form of body art is no longer popular in the country and is dying out, I rather have tattoos than have tribal marks on my face because all the tribal marks I have seen aren't beautiful but tattoos on the other hand are a thing of beautiful, especially dark tattoos on a light skin. That leads me to one controversial thing I would like to say about tattoos; they look better on light skin. I have seen dark-skinned people carrying dark tattoos and honestly, they look hideous. They look like washed-off paint on an old wall, not pretty at all.

I know some people would say dark-skinned people should go for coloured tattoos but honestly, dark tattoos are better. Of course, that's just my opinion and preference, anybody can always go for what they feel is better, but there's a reason why dark tattoos are more popular. I had a neighbour in my hostel back when I was in the university who had tattoos on his arm, and you won't even know he has tattoos until you came close to him and then you go "Oh, you have tattoos." They are barely visible even if you're standing 10 feet from him.

One thing some people don't know about tattoos is that most patterns have a meaning. For example, the teardrop tattoo means the person has taken a life before, I once saw someone in Nigeria carrying such a tattoo on their face and I asked myself: "Does he know or it's just an aesthetic choice?" Personally, my favourite tattoo patterns are wings: birds, Phoenix, angels, just any wings would do. I once saw a celebrity having such tattoos where each arm was wrapped with wings then on his back was the body of the Phoenix (I forgot which celebrity).

Aside from wings, I also love geometric pattern tattoos and that's the one I commonly see in Nigeria. I guess it's because those are cheaper, considering it's easier to draw circles and lines than to draw a skull or bird wings. I mentioned earlier that I prefer dark tattoos to coloured ones because they are more beautiful but there's one celebrity that almost made me change my mind and that is Cardi B. Have you seen her peacock tattoo? Hot! She has a huge peacock tattoo that extends from her right hip down to her knee.

Aside from how colourful the tattoo is, I also love the pose of the peacock. She's one of the few people that I love their coloured tattoos. You would think I have a tattoo or would plan on getting one someday from the way I talk about them but the truth is that I'm never getting a tattoo. Tattoos are one of those things I would rather admire from afar but would never get one on my skin. Aside from the fact that I really hate needles (getting a tattoo is a painful experience), I don't like the health risk that comes with it, considering that those ink end up leaching into your blood over time.

But still, tattoos are my top favourite form of body art. I like piercings too but only when there are few of them on the body. Two to three earrings and a nose ring ain't bad, but it becomes a problem when you now have one on your tongue, belly button, nipples, lips and several other places. How will you get past airport security or go into a bank? I have seen some extreme forms of piercing and I just ask myself "Why?" But the good thing about piercings is that they can be removed later, can't really say the same for tattoos, considering it costs a lot more to remove one and can't even totally get rid of them.

Thanks for reading

This is my entry for May Inleo Prompt, day 25. Come be a part of this awesome daily prompt by clicking on this link.