I love my nieces and all the young women in my life that I have been blessed to know. Oddly, I’m starting to really feel the difference between the generations. When I was a teenager (oh my word, I have definitely placed myself in the older generation, and at the age of 42!) nice girls just did not have tattoos. We didn’t. We also didn’t have fourteen earrings in one ear, one in the nose, one in the navel and others in places I don’t even want to think about.
Sister Susan W. Tanner stated at October 2005 General Conference:
“Our bodies are our temples. We are not less but more like Heavenly Father because we are embodied. I testify that we are His children, made in His image, with the potential to become like Him. Let us treat this divine gift of the body with great care. Someday, if we are worthy, we shall receive a perfected, glorious body–pure and clean like my new little granddaughter, only inseparably bound to the spirit. And we shall shout for joy (see Job 38:7) to receive this gift again for which we have longed (see D&C 138:50). May we respect the sanctity of the body during mortality so that the Lord may sanctify and exalt it for eternity.” ( Susan W. Tanner, “The Sanctity of the Body,” Ensign, November 2005, p. 15)
If you consider the true miracle of the human body, I cannot begin to understand why one would have the desire to have a tattoo cover any portion of it. The human body is graceful and beautiful, and for me, when tattoos adorn the body, that beauty lessens drastically.
President Hinckley has stated the following:
“Now comes the craze of tattooing one’s body. I cannot understand why any young man—or young woman, for that matter—would wish to undergo the painful process of disfiguring the skin with various multicolored representations of people, animals, and various symbols. With tattoos, the process is permanent, unless there is another painful and costly undertaking to remove it. Fathers, caution your sons against having their bodies tattooed. They may resist your talk now, but the time will come when they will thank you. A tattoo is graffiti on the temple of the body.
“Likewise the piercing of the body for multiple rings in the ears, in the nose, even in the tongue. Can they possibly think that is beautiful? It is a passing fancy, but its effects can be permanent. Some have gone to such extremes that the ring had to be removed by surgery. The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve have declared that we discourage tattoos and also “the piercing of the body for other than medical purposes.” We do not, however, take any position “on the minimal piercing of the ears by women for one pair of earrings”—one pair.” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “Great Shall Be the Peace of Thy Children”, Ensign, November 2000, p. 50)
President Hinckley, backed by every member of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve, has made it clear they do not want the brothers and sisters of the church going hog wild with piercings or tattoos. I ask you to consider an eternal perspective.
Our Father in Heaven created Adam and Eve after His own image. We are the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. We have bodies given to us by our Father in Heaven and we should not defile them. So look to workouts, healthy eating, attractive clothes, hair styles and makeup (women only please), turn inward and feed your spirit on a daily basis until who you are on the inside literally overtakes the person on the outside. This will garner greater attention or more lasting attention than any tattoo or fourteen times over piercings.