Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

208 Notes to Chapter 2
example, “people like to be different,” “personal originality,” “it makes you
special”), and 28 percent made some form of aesthetic statement (for
example, “because it is beautiful,” “a form of art that lasts forever,” “body
jewelry”). On their part, tattooists tend to recognize the aesthetic importance
of their work as seen by their clients. One tattooist, for example,
observed:
If you ask most people why they got (a particular tattoo) they aren’t
going to have any deep Freudian answer for you. The most obvious
reason that someone gets a tattoo is because they like it for some
reason and just want it. I mean, why do people wear rings on their
fingers or any sort of nonfunctional decorative stuff—put on makeup
or dye their hair? People have the motivation to decorate themselves
and be different and unique. ...Tattooing is really the most
intimate art form. You carry it on your body. The people that come
in here are really mostly just “working bumpkins.” They just want
to have some art they can understand. This stuff in museums is
bullshit. Nobody ever really sees it. It doesn’t get to the people like
tattoo art.
7. Of the thirty-five tattoos worn by the sixteen interviewees, 14 percent
(five) represented a bird, 6 percent (two) represented a mammal, 14 percent
(five) represented a mythical animal, 9 percent (three) represented an
insect, 3 percent (one) represented a human female, 17 percent (six) represented
a human male, 14 percent (five) were noncommercial symbols
(hearts, crosses, military insignia, and so on), 14 percent (five) were floral,
3 percent (one) were names or vow tattoos, and 6 percent (two) were some
other image.
Questionnaire respondents were asked to indicate the design of their first
tattoo. They were: 14 percent (twenty-three) bird, 11 percent (eighteen)
mammal, 12 percent (nineteen) mythical animal, 10 percent (seventeen)
insect, 1 percent (two) human female, 6 percent (ten) human male, 4 percent
(six) commercial symbols, 8 percent (thirteen) noncommercial symbols,
21 percent (thirty-four) floral/arboreal, 4 percent (seven) name/vow,
and 9 percent (fourteen) other.
8. The painfulness of the tattoo process is the most unpleasant element
of the tattoo event. Only 33 percent (fifty-four) of the questionnaire
respondents maintained that there was something about the tattoo experience
that they disliked. One third of these (eighteen) said that the pain
was what they found most unpleasant. Fourteen of the sixteen interviewees
mentioned pain as a troublesome factor. Numerous observations
of groups of young men discussing pain or expressing stoic disregard for
the pain as they received tattoos demonstrated the importance of the tattoo
event as a form of initiation ritual. In some cases the tattoo process
provides a situation in which the male tattooed can demonstrate his manliness
to his peers. Here, for example, is a description of an incident in