I responded to this remark in your post: “I have 14 tattoos and I'm a girl.” It was a very brief response and I did not offer any explanations. Because of that, you misconstrued me and took umbrage. You said: “Comments about me having a disgusting body aren't hate-filled?” You had read too much into my post. Nowhere did I say in my post you had a “disgusting body.” I clarified my comments in later posts but I will explain in detail here.

I said your tattoos could cause distraction in class and you replied: “My tattoos are not visible at work, I keep them covered. My students don't know I have tattoos.” I said if they happened to see you outside of work your tattoos that are visible, they would be shocked and might change their attitude towards you. You yourself affirmed that people could be shocked. You said: “I make sure my employer knows so that there is no shock or horror if after they have hired me, they see me outside of work with my tattoos visible.” You knew your tattoos could cause “shock or horror.”

Cunning linguist had commented on tattoos. He said: “The downsides of having tattoos are that they are often associated with criminality in many cultures (Yakuza in Japan, for example) or prostitution in other countries.” In conservative countries, especially Muslim countries, tattoos are associated with vice and are not symbols of virtue. A man nicknamed the ‘tattoo king’ was sentenced to one year in prison and 200 lashes in Saudi Arabia, a Saudi newspaper reported yesterday. He went to women's homes to draw tattoos on their bodies. He was finally nabbed by members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in an undercover operation.

What impressions are you giving to people if they see your tattoos, and, worse still, if they know you have 14 tattoos? As CL has pointed out tattoos are often associated with criminality or prostitution, so they may think you are involved in crime or prostitution, and so may find an occasion to harm or violate you. Hope it will not happen but one cannot be certain it will not happen.

You are inviting stares – people may think you are weird or outlandish to have so many tattoos.

Parents will think you are not a good role model for their children (if they and their children happen to see you somewhere outside of work). They don’t want their daughters to imitate you.

Normally a woman who is satisfied with the natural beauty of her body will not want to do anything to make it look worse. Tattoos are not natural on a body. You love your tattoos and have good intentions for having them but, again, “good intentions aren’t always good.” You keep your tattoos covered at the EF center for obvious reasons. You have proved the point that good intentions aren’t always good.

You have every right to have tattoos just as everyone else has every right not to see them lest your tattoos shock their senses. It’s like a smoker who has every right to smoke just as a non-smoker has every right not to inhale his smoke. That’s why smoking is banned in certain places to which the public have access (I am not saying people with tattoos should be banned too).

Today so many people do what is right in their own eyes. Tattooing the body is right in your own eyes and you have no regrets whatever for having them. CL remarked: “I have read that as people get into their 40s they often regret having them done in the first place.” You responded: “I believe the people who regret having them, had them done for the wrong reasons in the first place. I had my first tattoo 20 years ago, and I sill love it as much as the day I had it done. It's a personal thing.” Yes, it’s a personal thing – it’s right in your own eyes – but one day your eyes shall be opened and you will hate the very tattoos on your body! You said: “A tattoo is something you have for life and should be something you have done because you want it.” In that day you will not want your tattoos anymore – you will want them removed instead. You said: “I believe the people who regret having them, had them done for the wrong reasons in the first place.” In that day you will realize you had them done for the wrong reasons or intentions. You can’t see now what’s wrong with tattooing the body. But you will see when your conscience is awakened . . .

In that day your conscience (all of us have conscience) has been awakened to tell you how wrong you have been – you have done what is not right according to the standards of what man knows to be right by his conscience. We can ignore conscience but it can return later with a vengeance to trouble us. Someone in America was troubled by his conscience all because he knocked down a street sign. He paid US$50 to clear his conscience. A county supervisor-chairman received an unsigned note with a cheque for US$50. The note read: “The enclosed should take care of a street sign post I knocked over some time ago in west Hollywood.” A newspaper reported a man whose conscience was “finally at rest on Tuesday, more than 60 years after he failed to pay US$1.50 owed to a newspaper”. The man, 75 years old now, gave a cheque to the newspaper for US$1,500 to “cover the debt and what he estimated was 60 years of interest and inflation”. It had taken the man so long to put the matter right only after conscience had knocked at his heart’s door.

You don’t understand why I said I felt so sorry for you. You told me not to have pity on you. I was not being sentimental but I knew the day would come when your eyes shall be opened and your conscience awakened. Then you shall regret having tattoos and shed many a tear. . .