“I bet you’re trouble.”
“What did your parents say?”
“You’re too good looking to have tattoos.”
Amber...
“That’s permanent?!”
Aah!
“Ooh I bet you’re trouble.”
That one I get on Tinder so fucking much.
Same thing about you have tattoos, you must be a little bit kinky.
I’ve been asked to be in a porno...
I’ve had people think I’m totally a fetish freak.
...if I’ve been into bondage… ...into like being tattoo’d while having
sex.
If I’m into like dominatrix shit.
90% older women: “Ooh I bet you’re bad.”
What do you say?
I go “I’m not.”
“I’m a big teddy bear.”
They ask and before they finish asking their hands is already on my chest or on my back.
People think it’s okay to just come and grab you and start touching the lines and
stuff.
It’s not okay.
They’ll grab it and then they’ll start looking and then they’ll twist your arm
back…
If you ever sort of tell people oh I am actually quite shy or I don’t actually like...
They don’t believe you.
...They don’t think it’s true.
“Let me look at this” and I’ll pull it up to their face and I’ll go what the
fuck are you doing?
It’s an expression of my inner world.
If it creates attention fair enough.
But that’s not the reason why I did it.
I’m actually a twin so, we look very similar in a sense so I wanted to look different to
my twin brother.
It’s not for anyone else, it’s for me, because I want it, because I like it and I
want it on my body.
“Did it hurt?”
Like a hundred unicorns licking my backside it’s absolutely wonderful.
It’s like getting hit by a bus, did that hurt Amber?
Of course it bloody hurt.
People think that you’re addicted, that you get addicted to the pain, that you like
pain.
Some people say they didn’t feel anything, I felt all of them.
And it was painful.
In a lot of ways you kind of use it as a, or I do, as a release.
“But it’s permanent!”
No shit.
Get rid of it!
AAH!
It’s people insinuating that you haven’t thought properly about your decision.
Think people do not spend all that money to find a decent artist, spend all that time
and go through all that pain for it to not be permanent.
“Surely if you knew that it was permanent you wouldn’t have made that, yeah, why would
you have done that to yourself?”
I’ve got some tattoos that I don’t like, but I know that it was permanent at the time,
I won’t cover them over because they all show like, they bring back memories each time
when I got each one.
I have a philosophy on life and I’m art, on my body.
“You’ll never get a respectable job.”
Well, I’ve got one.
Because obviously I’m only gonna be a drug dealer because I have tattoos, you know.
Or an artist.
My friend in New York she’s a top lawyer, in New York City and she’s covered head
to toe.
I’ve got my own company you know, I’m a director...
And I’m a therapist.
Kind of having tattoos you must have either a dodgy job or..
A drug addiction ...Or you must be…yeah
A criminal record.
Every time I went in an interview I’ve been asked to leave.
Because of your tattoos?
Yep.
Over twenty times.
I was going for this interview and everything was absolutely fine and like just out of respect
when we started talking about uniform, um I mentioned that I have tattoos on my arms
and they hung up the phone.
“But you’re so good looking!”
No no, you were.
My friends especially, will say “No more on your face.”
“You’re born perfect, why are you ruining yourself?”
You know what these tattoos do?
They enhance, they enhance.
I’m not ruining myself my body is just a canvas.
Especially as a woman it’s like you’re supposed to be looking a certain way, to be
marriageable or acceptable, and that doesn’t really mean anything to me.
“You’re going to regret that when you’re older.”
This is my favourite question of all.
Cos I’ll be the coolest granny in town, if I make it then.
That’s it.
Everybody got tattoos for a reason.
EIther you’re in a certain place you wanted to remember, it’s for a person you wanna
remember, it’s an event you wanna remember.
There’s going to be loads of us that are all gonna look like that.
We’re all gonna be multi colored, wrinkled and don’t give a damn.
When you’re older it’s going to be like looking back through a photo album.
I’m gonna look wrinkly and disgusting when I’m older, my tits are gonna sag down to
my kneecaps like, nothing’s gonna hold in place.
My tattoos aren’t gonna look the same, so why the fuck is it gonna bother me?
I’m gonna be sitting there trying not to shit myself.