A significant portion of my extended family is heavily involved in the body modification scene - ink and piercings. Those whose tattoos can be covered by normal everyday dress work in a variety of jobs (corporate to non-profit management); those whose mods are only slightly visible work a variety of jobs in the San Francisco Bay area, where attitudes about such things tend to be more relaxed.
Those whose ink and jewelry are prevalent and "in your face" are unemployed or work at coffee shops and book stores.
Some of these folks made the choice to stay in the slightly-less-than-mom-would-want job fields because their lifestyles demand nothing more, and they enjoy themselves as a result. Many of them quickly found that doors were being quietly shut in their faces when they attempted to move "up" in the job world.
The attitude of "my employer shouldn't try to limit my self-expression" is admirable, and to a certain extent I support it. I myself have a variety of piercings which were highly visible at one point in my life - and then I discovered real paychecks. Out came the jewelry and there went that phase of my life.
No matter how much I love my friends with ink from head to toe, I wouldn't hire them to work in customer-facing positions in my helicopter business. Why? Because my goal is to make my customers happy and comfortable, which makes me money. I'm not so interested in changing societal norms that I'm willing to turn away potential business by forcing customers to deal with personnel whose appearances may make them uncomfortable.
It seems to me one should probably get the career going first, and then go hog-wild with the ink, not the other way around... but then again, I'm getting older and have gained a bit of hindsight
