Tattoos: will the practice finally fade away?

Bodily ornamentation by tattooing is probably as old as society itself. Tattoos have been found on mummified corpses from the civilisations of pharoahic Egypt and the Maya in Mexico and the Aztec further south. The practice apparently vanished from Europe until the middle of the eighteenth century when Europeans made contact with Polynesians and Native Americans. That finally led to the revival of tattooing.

Anthropologists and ethnographers have noted the ritual and magical significance of personal decoration in almost every part of the globe and few people are unfamiliar with the tattoos worn simply as decorative statements by a wide cross-section of men and women in western societies. Tattoos and piercing have become a part of our everyday landscape. They are seen everywhere, having entered the circles of glamour and the mainstream of fashion, and they have even become an increasingly common feature of our urban youth. Although tattoos may be seen as adornments by adolescents, they can become a bone of contention with their parents. Adolescents and their parents are often at odds over the acquisition of bodily decorations. For the adolescent, piercing or tattoos may be seen as personal and beautifying statements, while parents may construe them as oppositional and enraging affronts to their authority. Legislation in most states restricts professional tattooing to adults older than 18 years of age, so "high end" tattooing is rare in children and adolescents, but such tattoos are occasionally seen in older teenagers.

Like hairdo, makeup, piercing or baggy jeans, tattoos can be subject to fad influence or peer pressure in an effort towards acceptance in group affiliation. The frequency of self-made tattoos among hospitalized, incarcerated, or gang-affiliated youths suggests such motivations. A sense of stability may be a particularly dire need under temporary, turbulent, or volatile conditions. Through their designs, teenagers may assert a sense of bonding and allegiance to a group larger than themselves such as membership in gangs. In addition, tattoos may attest to powerful experiences, such as adolescence itself, lived and even survived together. As with Moby Dick's protagonist, Ishmael, they may bear witness to the valuable statistics of one's ‘wild wanderings’ those of adolescent exhilaration and excitement on the one hand; of growing pains, shared misfortune, or even incarceration on the other hand.

Common tattoos also include expressions of love and devotion, which includes such words as ‘love’ or ‘Mom’ or even the name of a girl friend or boyfriend. These tattoos can become not only the ongoing memento of a relationship, but at times even the only evidence that there ever was such a bond. Of course, tattooing the name of a close friend can backfire if the relationship sours and the expression of love is given to another. Some marks become memorials or recipients for dearly held persons who have passed away or are suffering from terminal illnesses.

Many people prefer to merely have a small flower tattooed on their body. That by itself is harmless enough providing it isn’t tattooed on their face or in a very secluded location in their body where only someone who is intimate will discover. I mention the latter location because if the tattoo is on one’s buttocks, embarrassment will follow if some indiscrete lover tells everyone where the tattoo can be located.

A tattoo is a very important symbol of belonging to a gang. It is one of the most dynamic indicators of gang affiliation to which a gang investigator has immediate access. Many gangs use tattoos to indicate membership in a specific gang. It is not uncommon, however, to find some groups who use no specific tattoos as identifiers. Tattoos are part of a process of nonverbal communications used by gang members. Without the need to verbally communicate, a gang member, as well as observant non-gang members, can identify a fellow gang member or rival. More often than not, gang members wear certain colours to differentiate their gangs from other gangs.

Inmates in prisons tend to tattoo themselves using crude and unsanitary means. Rarely does an inmate tattoo a picture on their skin as very few have any talent in art. Generally letters or words or a simple symbol is all they put on their skin. I am inclined to suspect that they do this because they think it makes them appear as a hardened inmate; not one to fool with. The trouble is that it doesn’t really have an effect on other inmates who see the tattoos. Where these tattoos come back to haunt them is when they are finally free and are applying for a job. Most employers are not to keen on hiring a man with the words ‘hate’ tattooed on his knuckles. Further, that kind of tattoo that is apparently self-drawn is a clear sign that the man is a former prison inmate.

The worst tattoo I ever saw was in the 1950s when I served in the navy. It was on the body of a sailor. The fool had the artist tattoo the body of a woman on his belly. That by itself may not have been a problem if the tattoo was small and merely a woman posing nude or otherwise but in his particular case, the large tattoo was of a woman lying on her back with her knees up and I know I don’t have to tell you what role his belly button played in the picture. I doubt that any woman would want to be seen on a beach with that fool.

Imagery of a religious, deathly, or skeletal nature, the likenesses of fierce animals or imagined creatures, and the simple inscription of names are some of the time-tested favorite contents for tattoos. In all instances, or concepts: they strive for incorporation, with images and abstract symbols gaining substance on becoming a permanent part of the individual's skin. Thickly embedded in personally meaningful representations and object relations, They can quite literally become the relationship itself. The turbulence and impulsivity of early attachments and infatuations may become grounded, effectively bridging oblivion through the visible reality to tattoos.

Almost one in four US adults age 18 to 50 has one or more tattoos, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. Now, a great many of them want them removed.
I remember when the only way you could remove a tattoo was by surgery. I knew a woman who had a large tattoo removed from her forearm this way. The ugly scar (it looked like a third degree burn) was three inches by five inches. From then on, she always wore long sleeves.

Over the years, a new method of removal came into vogue. Laser treatment. Following the tattoo boom in the United States, inkwork removal is surging, with tens of thousands of patients a year. Erasing tattoos, at a cost as much as 10 times the original work, long was more painful than obtaining them. At first, doctors couldn't guarantee treatments would work on certain ink or skin colors. That's changing because of improved lasers and inks. The industry has come a long way, from early methods with side effects and worse results. Lasers, once effective only on dark inks, now have settings that adjust pulsed beams, allowing them to dissolve almost any color. The lasers no longer scar darker skin and are less painful than older methods of cutting, sanding, or burning away unwanted artwork, dermatologists say.

The TV show, CNN showed pictures of women who had tattoos removed by laser when the operators were not trained properly. Their skin was literally burned off leaving horrible scars. If you are going to have the tattoos removed by the laser method, have them do a test on your skin where you can see the results. If your skin begins to melt, get out of there as fast as your legs will move you.

A twenty-four year old administrative aide for the Directors Guild of America, paid more than $3,000 for a dozen laser treatments to begin removing the tattoo, once a "permanent" memory of her stay in Japan as a US Marine Corps logistics specialist. Without it, she will look more professional. She says her foot-long dragon's scales have faded after being treated with light to destroy the ink.

At least 62,000 people in the United States had tattoos removed in 2003, the latest statistics available, up 27 percent from two years earlier, according to the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery.

Getting rid of a tattooed name is the top motivation for tattooed people. Health concerns are also on the list, as patients removed artwork whose inks migrated or faded under their skin or caused an infection, according to the research.
Tattoo inks aren't regulated, so doctors don't know exactly what chemicals may be entering people's skin or their lymphatic system and bloodstream. In some samples, heavy metals were part of the ink mixtures.

Tattoo erasing is part of a $1 billion annual market for cosmetic procedures involving lasers, according to CIBC World Markets in Toronto. It takes six to 10 laser treatments, each usually priced at $100 to $700, depending on size and ink colors, to obliterate most tattoos. The costs for each square inch of skin treated are higher than for any other laser treatment because of the number of visits required. The total cost of removal usually tops that for getting the art in the first place. A tattoo the size of a matchbox may cost around $75 to apply. The price for removing it would be about that much for each treatment, totaling $500 to $750.

Over the years, the age-old art of tattooing has gained new currency, growing increasingly popular as an individual--and indelible--declaration of self. If you're a painter, a writer, a comic, of a rock star, you can ink yourself as often as you like, but if you're a working dancer, your body is your instrument. Beyond movement, how much freedom do you have to express yourself with it?

In any case, it seems to me highly unlikely that the kind of people who have themselves tattooed in this fashion ever give much thought to the long-term consequences of their decision. They have not hitherto been deterred by the expense of tattoo removal; it is unlikely, therefore, that they will henceforth be encouraged by its cheapness. The problem surely is that people who tattoo themselves in the first place don't think much about the future at all.

But like the man who spit against the wind and said, “It’s all coming back to me now.” the tattoos on the arms, legs and other parts of the bodies of those that prefer to have them, will all come back to them in the same way ---- as a big mistake.