Perhaps they can create "Miss Best-Inked" category

[Scooter]

Miss Canada contestant Ashleigh Clark poses with her full-back tattoo.

The pageant world hasn’t been this agog since Miss Newfoundland punched her ex-beau’s new gal and posed for Playboy.

You gasp: What, Mikey, what? Nude photos? Drug rehab? A muffed speech? Dating a judge?

Ha. I should be so lucky.

No, this fuss is more obvious. As plain as the nose on your face.

Tattoos.

I’ve been a Miss Universe Canada judge for four years — and not one speck of body ink did I see.

Until...

Saskatoon brunette Ashleigh Clark turns her back to Judges Row during the swimsuit event at Thursday’s prelims — and jaws drop.

“I wanted to show it off,” Ms Clark, 23, tells me later. “I didn’t want to give a quick look, so you’d say, ‘What the heck was that on her back?’”

“That” is a rose garden with blue swallows facing each other from the bra-strap down, which in Ms Clark’s case is a long way. She’s 5-foot-10.

“Uh-oh,” someone muttered.

There’s no actual ban, but tattoos have long been taboo at pageants. I mean other than Miss Body Art, Miss Tattoo and, I assume, Miss Hells Angels, Miss Kingston Pen and Miss Demolition Derby.

They are a scarlet letter, a blight on perfection.

Even if a contestant had one, we judges never saw it.

Tattoos have spawned a cosmetic coverup boom. Getting married? To Larry? But your neck says “Bob?”

“I’ve covered up for modelling jobs,” Ms Clark tells me later, “but this time I wanted to make a statement.

“A beauty pageant is not cookie cutter. You don’t have to be a Barbie. You can be a healthy, intelligent woman — and still have a tattoo.”

On Judges Row, we’re so gob-smacked by the comingling swallows we don’t notice the lotus flower on her wrist or the anchor on her left foot.

We have barely recovered, when another Saskatoon miss, Sierra Wagner, 22, sashays across the stage.

What, is Saskatoon suddenly the Tat Capital of Canada?

Ms Wagner’s lovely visage sparkles with piercings and she sports six tattoos, notably the Hungarian word for “passion” on her spine and scripture on her lower back: “You are the way, the truth and the light...”

Sierra, a massage therapist, tells me later: “I want to inspire people to do what they believe in.

“And people can relate to tattoos these days. Everyone has one.”

True. I have the Sun logo inked on my left buttock. Or is it the right?

Either way, I told the Sun brass if they ever fire me, they can kiss their logo goodbye.

But back to Sierra.

“Some of the girls looked at me funny and said I should cover up for the judges.

“But the pageant realm is trying to get away from just glamour and prettiness. We shouldn’t shun each other because of tattoos or piercings.”

It’s this year’s buzz among the 56 women who’ve descended on the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts on Front St.

Last year’s foofaraw was Sophie Froment, a Gatineau gal dumped for her near-nude role in an Ashley Madison spot.

I don’t recall Sophie having tattoos. And they’d have been hard to hide in that ad.

This year, I’m told, about 10 contestants are inked. Most have covered up.

Not Megan Stagg, 20, of Ottawa, whose swans are a tribute to a dead friend.

And not Sheri Cuillerier, 20, of Cornwall. Her butterfly flies free. Her family’s zodiac signs light up her left ankle. Jewels glitter on her sternum. (That’s the chestbone, silly.)

“I’m not covering up,” she tells me. “This is a form of art. The world is changing and I don’t think people should discriminate.”

Just the extra pressure pageant director Denis Davila needs as he copes with the social, psychological, nutritional, technological, biological and cultural demands of 56 ambitious beauties.

“Personally, tattoos are not for me,” he tells me. “I hate needles.

“But I have to go with the flow. These are real women and it’s what women their age are doing. Who am I to judge? That’s your job.”

Gee, thanks. As I write this, it’s too early to tell. Will Canada send its first tattooed lady to the Miss Universe pageant in Brazil?

As I sit on my Sun logo, here on Judges Row, I wonder:

Is it time to turn the other cheek?

[Gob]

Nice, but not greatly original design, a play on some tattoo classics.

The world of beauty pageants is going to have to come to terms with tatts sometime I suppose.

[rubato]

Like 99.9% of tattoos it is not an improvement on nature.

All kinds of ways to look dumb. This is just one of them.

yrs,
rubato

[Sue U]

Good rule of thumb: Never make a fashion statement that you can't take back.

[Scooter]

Every time I have thought of getting a tattoo, I have asked myself, how will this look when I am 70 years old?

Has quickly dissuaded me every time.

[Gob]

Why do you care so much about what it will look like when your seventy?

[Liberty1]

Tats, don't understand them. They scream low-rent.

[Gob]

That's me!

[The Hen]

His rent is so low I haven't paid it for the last 4 months and he hasn't noticed yet.

[loCAtek]

Why do you care so much about what it will look like when your seventy?

He's going to be stuffed and mounted as a trophy, after he dies.

[loCAtek]

...but seriously folks, isn't a tatt 'unnatural enhancement', like getting a boob job?

[Liberty1]

Exactly.

Something to distract from something else you are uncomfortable with.

[Long Run]

I don't want one for myself, but I don't mind if others want to have this type of art on their bodies. However, most tattoos don't look good, just as most pop art is not very good. Good point Gob about why worry what you'll look like at 70, at least until you're about 65.

[Jarlaxle]

That looks good, it was clearly done well.

(Having said that, I don't give a damn about beauty pageants.)

[SisterMaryFellatio]

I have a tattoo....slag tag or whatever you want to call it.

I had it done for me...its personal, its in a place unless i choose to show someone it they would never know....Dont give a shit what it looks like when I am 70...and its not on my arse!

[Jarlaxle]

Someone has to ask: what the heck is a "slag tag"? That's a new one on me.

[Sean]

Slag Tag AKA Tramp Stamp

[Lord Jim]

I'd heard that tatoo pattern referred to as, "ass handles"...

[Gob]

You can't beat this one..

[Sue U]

Not "This End Up"?