My mom doesn’t believe in tattoos. As a kid, I remember walking down the street and seeing someone with full sleeves and snake bites, thinking they were the coolest people ever. Then, I’d hear a snarky comment from my mother. “It’s just so disgusting,” she would say. “Why would someone do that to themselves?”

Don’t get me wrong, my mother is a wonderful person. She donates to charity regularly and goes out of her way to make others happy. She’s honest, kind, and hard-working, but the woman can’t stand tattoos because “it looks trashy,” and “it doesn’t make sense that someone would go through the pain for something so useless and repulsive.” I can’t wait to see the look on her face when I ask her for a tattoo as a graduation present this year.

But aren’t tattoos dangerous? Not exactly. Tattoos can be done safely. Of course, it is up to the receiver of the tattoo to choose a credible parlor to give them a tattoo rather than a sketchy shack on the corner of the street. However, licensed tattoo artists do have rules to abide by that make tattooing a safe practice.

The Alliance of Professional Tattooists is an educational organization that helps to inform artists of safety concerns that apply to the tattoo industry. Tattoo artists are becoming increasingly knowledgeable of the potential risks of getting a tattoo and standard precautions have been established to minimize the risks.

HIV has never been transmitted through tattooing in the US. Hepatitis transmission is avoided by single-service equipment and individual portions of ink and lubricant. The only acceptable form of sterilization in a tattoo parlor is by a machine that uses heat, steam, and pressure to kill all pathogenic microorganisms known to man, a machine called the autoclave.

According to an article published in 2008 by Kristopher Kaiyala, 16% of all US adults have at least one tattoo. This percentage accounts mostly for adults between the ages of 25-29 (36%) and 30-39 (28%), however tattoos are becoming more popular in all age groups. Kaiyala’s article shines a light on a 75 year-old woman named Kathryn, who got a tattoo of a rose while she was on vacation to represent her hometown of Portland, Oreg..

37 year-old fine arts graduate Roze owns her very own tattoo parlor and has reported that “people come in for a tattoo, they like what they get and how they’re treated, and come back for more. I’m even tattooing children of parents that I tattooed years earlier.”

I have always seen tattoos as an art form, as a way to express yourself, and even to show your devotion to someone/something. What’s bad about that? Sure, you might not like the look of someone else’s tattoos. Maybe you don’t understand it, or it’s not quite your style. But maybe they don’t like the way you dress, and would you really treat someone differently because of the way they dress?

According to an article published in 2014 by Amy Sherman of the Tampa Bay Times, tattoos can block people from being able to serve in the army. The US Army’s tattoo policy states that “tattoos, regardless of subject matter, are prohibited on certain areas of the body, including the wrists, hands, and fingers, as well as the head, face, and neck, defined as ‘anything above the t-shirt neckline to include on/inside eyelids, mouth, and ears.” On top of that, there are to be no more than four tattoos visible below the elbow to wrist or below the knees. Why? Because the army needs a professional image.

It was reported that 2,919 applicants were rejected because of their tattoos in the time frame between the months of March and December 2014.

My questions are: why are soldiers rejected because of tattoos? Shouldn’t rejections be based more so off of medical issues and criminal records than tattoos? Why can’t tattoos be a part of a professional image? Why would you turn away someone who would risk their lives to fight and protect for the better of the entire country because of the way they look?

I want lots of tattoos. I want so many tattoos that I’m still figuring out how I’ll be able to fit them all on my body. I probably can’t. I want tattoos that represent bands I adore, like Brand New. I want tattoos that remind me of people I love, like a stupid little doodle that Derek draws that’ll remind me of him when I glance at my wrist, or a sweet note that my parents or brother gave to me. I want a tattoo that someone I love gives me, someone like Roman who knows what he’s doing when it comes to tattoos. I want tattoos to remind me of where I’m from and the things that made me. I want tattoos that motivate me and remind me of where I want to be. Is that trashy? Is that unprofessional? Will having tattoos make me sketchy? Will they make me a malicious, violent person? I don’t think so. But realistically speaking, that’s the prejudice that will be there when I’m walking down a busy street with tattoos consuming my arm and a mother pulls her child a little closer, like my mother did with me.

I love my mother so much, but it’s not cool to make assumptions on someone with tattoos before you know them. My suggestion is to appreciate the bravery of others to express themselves in a way that allows every passerby to see pieces of them displayed on their skin.