Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

215 Notes to Chapter 4
cover up the unscarred tattoo which remained with an ornate
oriental dragon. The scar tissue was outlined in the traditional
Japanese cloud style. The ugly and uneven scars were used to
create part of a unique and beautiful back piece.
7. Tattooists see the ability to apply a piece with minimal pain to the
recipient as a mark of expertise. One interviewee spoke of a fellow tattooist
with some disdain:
[He’s] a funny guy. He thinks that anything he doesn’t do is just
adequate. A guy I know went in there with one of my pieces and
was saying how good it was. He asked the guy who did it and when
he found out that it was mine he said something like, “Well, it’s not
TOO BAD.” He doesn’t give you very much. He’s really rough, too.
Really likes to hurt’em. He’s still using those paper towels from the
Sunoco restrooms—with all the wood chips in them—to wipe with. I
went in to have him do this piece and he worked it and worked it. I
said, “Hey V——, leave it alone.” And he says, “No, just a little more.
I still see white spots.” He just gets off on hurting people.
(cf. Richie and Buruma, 1980: 98.)
8. Some psychoanalytic analysts would interpret this kind of distaste as
being related to the tattooist’s latent homosexual fears. In the 1934 volume
of Psychoanalytic Quarterly Susanna Haigh presented the sexual
analysis of tattooing in no uncertain terms:
The symbolism of the act of tattooing is pointed out as observing
the needle as the penis introducing the tattooing fluid into a cavity.
The tattooist is the more or less sadistic aggressor; the person
tattooed, the passive recipient. . . . As might be expected the tattoo
is used often as an unconscious representation of a penis both by
men and women. . . . (There is an) anal element in the tattoo. There
is surely a definite relationship between the impulse of the child to
smear itself with feces and that of the adult to have himself smeared
with indelible paint (quoted in Morse, 1977: 122).
9. Rubber glove manufacturers are enjoying a booming business due to
the rising fear of contracting serum communicated diseases, especially
AIDS. One manufacturer, Global-Crown Bio-Med Lab in Manchester,
Connecticut, for example, reports an 80 percent increase in rubber glove
sales (The Hartford Courant, July 17, 1987, p. B3). Dermatologist Gary
Brauner emphasized the potential health hazards associated with the tattooist’s
contact with clients in a lecture delivered at the 1984 convention
of the National Tattoo Association in Philadelphia. He strongly advised
attendees to wear surgical gloves during the tattoo process.