Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

30 Introduction
and bureaucratized market system in which administrators. gallery
directors. critics. and other "gatekeepers" are the primary audience
used by the creative personnel to orient stylistic decisions.
Instead. the tattoo artist works directly with the buyer in an association
that. due to the significant control exercised by the client.
is most accurately characterized as a cross between a service relationship
and that that exists in a trad1Uonal patronage system.
The Regulatory Environment of Tattooing
All art worlds exist within a larger socio-Iegal environment that
sets conditions to constrain the production. the form. and the
content of artistic products. The state always displays considerable
interest in the content of art works. Often. as in the case of
propagandistic styles such as "socialist realism." it uses art to mob1l1ze
or inspire the populace for its own ends. Those in positions
of constituted authority also have a vested interest in restricting
art works that are seen as threatening the moral or political status
quo. and in placing constraints upon production processes or
cultural products that may negatively affect the public health (see
Becker. 1982: 165-191; Peterson. 1982: 144-145).
As we have seen. tattooing has had a long history of association
with socially disvalued groups. The negative social definition of
tattooing is. however. largely derived from its voluntary use by
members of deviant or marginal groups as a symbolic boundarymaintaining
mechanism. Professional criminals. outlaw bikers.
users of megal drugs. prostitutes. those who identify with "punk"
culture. and other members of counter-conventional subcultures
commonly receive tattoos that symbolize their membership and
demonstrate their indelible commitment to the group.
Few modes of cultural production are the focus of such extensive
official regulation as is tattooing. (See Goldstein. 1979a. for
an overview of the legal restrictions on tattooing in the United
States.) While the impetus for these legal restrictions is primarily
derived from the association of tattooing with ideological and behaVioral
disaffection from conventional norms. the offiCial rationale
usually employed emphasizes the protection of public health.
Anecdotal eVidence linking the tattoo process with the spread of