I am thrilled to be on the cover of BME this week (of April 20th) with Dan, my partner & tattooist, but I have a confession ... I am not a "Lifestyler" nor do I want to be.
At A Glance Author Marisa Contact [email protected] IAM FREE When N/A Location Liege, Belgium I do not wish to be relegated to any faction of society -- whether it be a fringe art community or the NY Bar Association -- but drawing from my experience in spending half of my week helping out Dan at the tattoo shop and the other half consulting at law firms in Brussels, Belgium, I would like to address a topic that keeps popping up in others' Experiences: Discrimination, particularly in finding a job.
Recently, we bumped into an old acquaintance on the street who was complaining that no matter how hard he tried he could not find a job. "Well, maybe its because you have a huge Swastika tattooed on your neck," said Dan. And with that, the guy treated us to a lengthy speech on a superficial society that judges a person on appearance and not on the quality within.
This is an extreme example but my response to one who has a Nazi symbol tattooed on their neck -- or lobe stretching -- or a dime-sized rose tattooed on their ass -- is the same: suffer the consequences of your choices.
You do not change society by complaining about it to like-minded individuals on BME. One way to affect change is from within the realm you want to see enlightened.
If you choose to find work in a field that is not open to body modifications, cover the tattoos & implants. Take the piercings out.
While, my larger tattoos are easily covered by a suit, the little tribal design on my finger is not. In my job interview and first two months working at a Brussels law firm I covered it with a Band-Aid. I was working late one night with an old stodgy senior partner when he casually asked me what had happened to my finger. I told him that I was covering a tattoo. He told me to show it to him and when I did he said, "Well, that looks nicer than a bandage, doesn't it?" And so I went Band-Aid free around the office, amid some initial whispers, but after a while no one gave a damn about my little finger tattoo. When asked if I had more, I replied that I had much more. But in the year and a half that I worked there it was not an issue because I did my job well.
Initially, it was hard for some of the other lawyers to swallow that I, a part of their tribe, was not as I appeared -- demure & conservative. I spent my weekends at tattoo conventions instead of bourgeois dinner parties. I wrote articles on fetish and fantasy instead of the latest legal discourse. My partner is a big, burly Belgian tattooist and not a diplomat. It was out of the realm of their comprehension. They asked questions about tattoos and piercings, nervously at first, but then became comfortable and wanted to be more informed. I believe I changed a couple of minds. Some still don't understand. And others didn't give a shit either way as long as I made money for the firm.
It is a fact that society judges people on their initial appearance. If it didn't, many of us wouldn't be here talking about our body mods. Many choose body modifications to make a statement, whether personal or political. Many do it simply for the beauty. Either way, it is often intended to be viewed and reacted to. And not all the reactions will be as you hoped.
In my parallel universe as part of the tattoo community, there is discrimination as well.
When I leave work late in my suit and crazy red hair pulled back, I do not have the luxury of heading straight to our usual punk bar for a drink. I must stop home first and change, otherwise the stares are just as obvious as exposing my tattoos at the firm. I'm called a "tourist". An outcast among the outcasts.
When I am working with Dan at a tattoo convention, barely dressed flashing my tattoos and answering questions on the work, people often ask if I'm a tattooist as well. I can't even draw a straight line with a ruler. Eventually, when I say no, the dreaded question comes, "So, what do you do?" When I say that I'm a lawyer and writer, there's usually this awkward silence then some statements of disbelief, a few giggles and then the awful follow up question: "So, you got all those tattoos because your boyfriend is a tattooist then?" [Actually, I have the boyfriend because of my love of good tattoos, not the other way around.]
Just as there are closed minds within mainstream society, they exist in the body mod community as well.
In any realm, the choices I have made in my profession, my body, and relationships, have always come back to either pat me on the back or kick me in the ass.
As they say here in the French-speaking part of Belgium, C'est la vie!