Disclaimer: This is a special Knucklehead post, as we probably won’t ever know the outcome, it’s more of a cautionary tale than an admonition of Knuckleheadedness. As such, we won’t be naming the people involved.

We recently had a client schedule an appointment to get some symbolism from his ‘favorite childhood video game’ on his forearm. Everything seemed to be normal until Will noticed the collection of symbols he wanted (as sent in an email after the appointment was set) were Satanic in nature.

Everyone take a deep breath here.

Now, at Lighthouse Tattoo we pride ourselves on tattoo shops being one of the last bastions of free speech in this country. You can come in here and be yourself, without fear of someone mistreating you (as long as you don’t mistreat one of us). That being said sometimes people come in and get super evil-looking stuff tattooed on them and we have no problem whatsoever doing that. We also understand that secular Satanism is a movement that’s been gaining steam for some time, as an alternative to religion, and in some cases, a send up of its abuses.

However, we always ask two questions of ourselves before tattooing anyone: 1. Does this person know what they’re getting (i.e. do they understand what the subject matter is and that tattoos are permanent by nature). and 2. Will it cause them undue harm?

That first one is pretty easy, most people know what they’re getting and that tattoos are for life unless you go through a painful and expensive removal process. The second question though, requires a little more analysis.

At Lighthouse Tattoo we work with the understanding that the process of going from being a non-tattooed person to a tattooed one is an inherently harmful thing. Mainly because people with tattoos don’t care if you don’t have any, but sometimes people without tattoos don’t like it if you do. We also understand that most people get that this could be a mild inconvenience and with the progression of tattoo acceptance socially and in the workplace, most folks have already taken that into consideration by the time they hit the door. The problem occurs when people who lack experience or an appropriate level of self awareness decide to push the edge of what is socially acceptable, causing themselves unforeseen negative consequences for doing so clumsily. You can push the edge of society’s norms, but if you don’t really know what you’re getting into, you can set yourself up for a lot of frustration moving forward, and once again, tattoos are permanent.

Snap back to the situation at hand. A young man wants some images from his ‘favorite childhood video game’ that are all considered Satanic in nature. When this was brought to his attention he didn’t even balk. He merely stated that he wanted the images because they were a part of this video game. That, folks, is a lack of awareness about the facts. We declined to do the tattoo and refunded his deposit. He sent his girlfriend to pick the money up an Will gave her a little free advice:

‘If your boyfriend played a video game with a bunch of Nazis in it, we wouldn’t tattoo a swastika on him just because of that. Those images, though they are contained in his favorite game, are still considered Satanic by the vast majority of folks who will see it on his forearm, and that is going to cause him about the same amount of trouble as getting nazi swastika would. We would do the tattoo if he wanted to get it some place he could cover it up with clothes a bit easier, but doing that on his forearm is just asking for trouble.’

and it is.

Either homeboy here hates the church and religion and everyone who believes in that stuff and may be the next mass shooter; or he’s tired of the oppressive violence conducted by the world’s major religions and wants to let everyone know it; or he loves the Dark Lord for some reason (could just be a Slayer fan, I dunno); or he genuinely only wants the tattoo because he liked the game.

Either way, after being counselled about why that is a bad idea, if he doesn’t want to move the tattoo to a less visible area of the body, we don’t want him in here.

These are the images the young man wanted and where he wanted to put them. From top to bottom: The three-crone moon; an inverted cross; the whore of babylon; the Satanic Cross; and the Baphomet Pentacle. Don’t try to argue with us, we know what they are and what they represent to most people and that ain’t good.

For the sake of not stirring up any other problems, we will say that we looked up the game and it did use all of these images. We won’t name it here but the game was developed as a send-up of the abuses of religious teaching and its oppressive culture, it’s also deeply violent, not unlike the religions it seeks to decry.

<<To the young man who wanted to get that tattoo: We hope you’ll reconsider your decision to put something that could be so potentially harmful to you in such a visible spot on your body. If you’re reading this and change your mind, we’d love to hear from you. If not, try to understand at least why we said ‘no’, and that it’s not a reflection on you personally, but out of a desire to not cause someone undue harm.>>