There’s a certain emotional feeling that reflects the moment that you put it on, and it’s still there, and if tattoos do that, then they’ve served the wearer.  If they’re just there for total decoration then it’s like a paint job on a car, it doesn’t tell you much.  That tattoo tells me more about you and about your values than any of your other tattoos.  It’s a [A] genuine tattoo…..  It tells a story.  I like stories and tattoos, no matter how well done, and if they don’t tell a story that involves you emotionally, then they’re just there for decoration, then they’re not a valid tattoo.  There has to be some emotional appeal or they’re not, to my way of thinking, a real tattoo.  It tells people what you are and what you believe in, so there’s no mistakes.  ~Leo, tattooist, 1993, quoted in Margo DeMello, Bodies of Inscription, 2000