Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission (59 page)

A
lmost everyone has seen tattoos—if only the heart pierced with an arrow, whose banner declares an immutable love for Mother—but few realize that tattoos have served dignified symbolic purposes over the millennia in virtually all non-Western cultures. Although most are commonly applied for decorative and erotic purposes or to denote rank within tribal groups, tattoos have historically served as magical protection against misfortune, illness, or sorcery. In the West tattoos historically have been used for darker purposes, primarily to identify prisoners.

In contemporary America tattooing is enjoying unprecedented popularity as a means of individualizing the body and celebrating individuality. The vast majority of tattoos has no relevance to the bearer’s sexuality, but D&Sers find that the unique design and permanence of tattoos, and the symbolism of submitting to the pain of their application, thrillingly blend ritual and romance.

In this chapter we profile:

The term
tattoo
was first written in English by Captain James Cook in 1769 during an exploration of Tahiti. The practice of permanently marking skin, however, was known throughout antiquity. Egyptian mummies dating from circa 2000
B.C
. have been found to bear tattoos. In pagan Rome criminals and slaves were permanently marked; tattooing was also recorded among ancient Gauls, Britons, Celts, Germans, Thracians, and Greeks.

Tattooing was condemned in Leviticus 19:28: “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you.” The spread of Christianity stifled its practice in Europe, though it continued unabated in the Middle East during Europe’s medieval period. Other cultures also persisted in the use of tattoos, raising it to an art form. Among the Samoans, for example, tattooing was a necessary rite for chiefs. On Easter Island genital tattooing of a woman once denoted that she had been seen copulating with a man by another man. In other Oceanic societies genital tattooing of women was a rite of passage. This rite was stringently observed on Nakuoro, where children borne by women who lacked such tattoos were put to death. Male genital tattooing was rare, though womanizers on the island of Mangalia signified their amorous success by having a vulva tattooed on their penises. And at least one Tongan king had his glans tattooed to demonstrate his indifference to physical pain.

Tattooing methods have varied. Some Arctic and subarctic peoples drew threads coated with soot through skin punctures. Tattoos of Oceanic peoples were accomplished by tapping a rakelike implement into the skin. In New Zealand Maori facial tattooing, known as m
oko
, a miniature bone adze was used to cut grooves in the skin, which were then filled with pigment. The moko was a stylized pattern that covered much of the face. Similar slash-and-pigment
techniques have been reported among the Ainu of Japan, the Ibo of Nigeria, the Chontal Indians of Mexico, and in Tunisia. Pricking methods were widely practiced among many Native American groups and also among the Senoi of Malaya.

In the last centuries Polynesian and Japanese influences stimulated the growth of tattoo parlors in port cities around the globe to satisfy the demands of European and American sailors. Some sailors attempted to avoid the potential of a punishment flogging by having elaborate crucifixions tattooed on their backs in hopes that pious sailing masters would be averse to assaulting the image of Christ. Sailors also obtained tattoos as permanent souvenirs of their travels or to ward off bad luck.

Tattooing enjoyed a brief vogue among upper-class European men and women in the late 19th Century. Lyle Tuttle, the curator of the Tattoo Art Museum in San Francisco, states that members of the international nobility were tattooed: Lady Randolph Churchill (Winston Churchill’s mother), King Frederick IX of Denmark, and Russian Czar Nicholas II were all tattooed. In fact, Lady Randolph “…  started a fad of dainty tattoos among fashionable women of her set in the 1880s.”
¹

The most significant technological development in modern Western tattooing was the advent of the electric tattooing machine, or tattoo gun, which was first patented in the United States in 1891. Before the machine’s invention, high-quality tattooing was prohibitively expensive for Westerners, and competent tattooists were rare.

While tattooing has gained currency in the United States and Europe and continues in Japan, it virtually has disappeared in other cultures under the influence of Christian missionaries. In fact, the electric gun and the spread of American-made pattern sheets (or
flashes
), have made the United States a major center of influence for modern tattoos. In Japan long-established tattooing clubs still exist, despite social censure. Japanese tattoo designs follow historical traditions, and exemplary tattoos may be removed from their owners after death for preservation and display. Members of the notorious Japanese crime society, the
yakuza
, use tattooing as a rite of passage or to symbolize initiation and servitude. Japanese convicts were once tattooed around the wrist; the yakuza extended the tattoo to cover the full body,
²
stopping only at the wrists and neck, so that evidence of underworld connections may be concealed by business clothes.

Tattoos seized a foothold in American countercultures and subcultures as a positive means of forging group identity. Among bikers, tattoos identified one as the member of an elite and signaled outlaw status. To the contemporary enthusiast, the images tattooed on one’s body are intimately linked to one’s inner identity.

Tattooing is also practiced by convicted criminals. Some prison tattoos have specific meanings or indicate membership in a nefarious (often racist) organization. While prison tattoos are intentionally diabolical and presumably help to protect their wearers by denoting a certain macho status, they have also benefited the criminal justice system. Law enforcement agents report that tattoos make it easy to identify criminals, since a novel design is a permanent and unmistakable form of identification.

Tattoos ceased to be the unique domain of servicemen, bikers, and miscreants in the late 1960s, when the hippie subculture mushroomed to embrace both creative and outlaw communities. Many young fine artists and art school graduates deserted traditional forms and turned to countercultural expressions.

The overlap among creative, social, and political youth cultures helped to introduce tattooing to the white middle class. As tattoos migrated from bellicose to pacifistic cultures, the nature of the designs changed. Rock stars of the day, such as Janis Joplin, were among the first pop icons to flaunt flowery, upbeat markings.

In the late 1970s the punk subculture embraced body modification as a self-conscious expression of anarchy and alienation. Punk tattoos often attempted to elicit confrontation or negative feedback. When a diluted version of punk culture filtered into the mainstream of American music and fashion, gentler images again prevailed and tattoos became a fashionable adornment.

Tattoos are no longer symbolic of the socially disenfranchised, the chronologically young, or the economically underprivileged. The popular press regularly features articles on body art, and women’s fashion magazines tout tattoos as alluring accessories. Temporary tattoos are widely sold.

Today’s hard-core tattoo enthusiasts are often sexually conservative. Until recently the tattooing community held itself distinct from both the piercing subculture and the D&S communities.

This attitude is changing as body-modification subcultures continue to merge, and many piercing enthusiasts and D&Sers who enjoy tattoo art are gaining acceptance from tattooing organizations.

Clinically speaking, some tattooers are stigmatophiliacs, people who are aroused by the marks on the body. Given the common perception of a tattooed person as an outlaw, tattoos may also be erotic to hybristophiliacs, people who are aroused by a partner who is known or thought to have committed crimes. But tattooing has also captured the interest of some D&Sers as a lasting symbol of ownership.

Whatever the individual’s sexual preferences, however, it is the beauty of the design and the perceived enhancement of the body’s beauty which bring the greatest pleasure.

Because needles are used to penetrate the skin, most people assume that getting a tattoo is an agonizing process. Tattooing, however, feels more like an abrading of the skin than a cutting or a piercing sensation. The amount of pain perceived depends on the individual’s tolerance, on the amount of work to be done, and the tattoo’s placement. For most, the pain is quite tolerable.

Either by drawing freehand on the skin or by copying from a flash, the artist carefully outlines the design prior to applying the tattoo.

Tattoo guns contain sterilized needles, which rapidly and repeatedly puncture the skin; the perforations are automatically filled with ink. The design may be a monochrome outline, or it may be shaded with different colored inks. How long it takes to etch the design into the skin depends on the complexity and scale of the design. A modest outline can be completed in a few minutes. The longer it takes to apply the tattoo, the more it will hurt. Repeated stabs of the needle can build to an intensely uncomfortable, burning sensation. Tattoos that cover significant areas, or which require considerable detailing or extensive coloring-in, are often applied a few hours at a time over a period of weeks or months.

After the tattooing session, the skin must be cared for until it has healed. Tattooists recommend that the affected area be treated with antibacterial ointments. An antiseptic dressing is applied. A light scab forms over the surface of the tattoo and usually peels off within two weeks. Although the skin will remain sensitive for a time, the discomfort usually dissipates shortly after the session and vanishes completely within days, except for some mild residual soreness. Tattooing carries some risks, foremost among them the risk of infection. Needles must be sterile, ink must be nontoxic and from unopened bottles, and the artist should wear latex gloves to protect against contact with blood.

To this comprehensive list of reasons for getting a tattoo must be added the one cited most often among contemporary practitioners: to express concretely and visually an individual’s inner being. Modern primitives (a term coined by Fakir Musafar to denote contemporary Westerners who explore their spirituality through ancient body-modification techniques) and other activists are particularly fond of describing a tattoo as the overt expression of an intangible urge or psychic reality.