An Australian woman who totally changed herself from a no-frills girl next door into a heavily tattooed adult model has revealed how her extreme ink and body transformations have changed her life.
Amber Luke, 27, also known as Dragon Girl, has spent $250,000 on tattoos, piercings and surgery to fulfil her chosen look, but said she faces prejudice in public and in the workplace as a consequence.
She told Brisbane radio show, Robin, Terry and Kip, that having 600 tattoos, which cover 99 per cent of her body, sometimes makes her day-to-day life challenging.
She told radio hosts Kip Wightman, Robin Bailey and Terry Hansen that she was getting heavily tattooed, but that she wasn’t hurting anyone in the process.
She added that everyone’s entitled to their view, but that she finds it distressing when people make unkind comments in public, particularly when they say she’s ruined her looks with tattoos.
She said that everyone has their own idea of what beauty is, and that you see civilisations where people stretch their necks, their ears, their lips, but that at the end of the day, we’re all entitled to our beliefs and that’s okay, but she said that what gets to her is when someone voices their opinion to her in public and comes up to her and says that she’s hideous or that shes ruined herself.
She continued that it’s extremely distressing to know that people have that strong belief and they can simply express it without any repercussions.
Amber also revealed she struggles to find a job because of how she looks, and she said that she wasn’t going to sugarcoat it and that it had restricted her career choices but that’s okay, because the way she see’s it, she doesn’t want to work for a company that’s shallow minded and can’t look past her appearance.
She said that they don’t want to look at her work ethic, they won’t look at her morals or her importance or even what she has to bring to the table, and Amber said that having so many tattoos and body transformations was worth it because she’d learnt how resilient she was by pushing her body to the extreme.
I can’t see why she can’t get work because tattoos are extremely fashionable these days, and many people with tattoos see them as art and self-expression.
It’s not sad that she has all these tattoos, but it is sad that other people react in the way that they do, all because she now looks different to what people expect, and instead of seeing her beauty they now see her as a monster which she’s not!
It shouldn’t matter what’s on the outside, it’s what’s on the inside that matters.
It’s her body, her choice, and perhaps she should think about making a living with her own modelling company. Maybe with other tattooed models, but then we are going back to segregation and that’s not on either because no one in this day and age should be segregated because they’re different.
I think that she looks stunning because her tattoos were tastefully done and done well, and why wouldn’t anyone employ her, looks don’t mean anything as long as she’s efficient and capable, then that’s all that counts, and if an employer refuses to employ her, then that employer lacks understanding.
Nevertheless, numerous people have said that her tattoos are demonic and that she’s got the number 666 tattooed on her body, but as long as she’s not forcing her beliefs on other employees what does it matter? This is just prejudice and prejudice is a real struggle but only as real as you want it to be.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 