Sixteen
Almost 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 Doctor is an anesthesiologist and internist at a major hospital.
• The Doctor’s Wife is a registered nurse who currently works at home and cares for the couple’s children.
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 moko, 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.
There’s a tremendous sense of power that comes from the images. Exactly why, I’m not sure: Maybe [it’s] a subconscious process or maybe [it’s] a spiritual [one]. I think this may be why primitive man began working with these images and why certain organizations—the military, prisoners, bikers—lean toward the tattooing. These images are definitely a part of your self-definition.
—THE DOCTOR
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.
It hurt. But it’s not terrible. It’s an intense kind of scratching.
—THE DOCTOR’S WIFE
Either by drawing freehand on the skin or by copying from a flash, the artist carefully outlines the design prior to applying the tattoo.
During [the actual] tattooing, you’re very involved in dealing with the pain, [but] during the drawing, there’s no pain involved. You draw with a ballpoint pen: It was a very strange kind of feeling, having somebody draw on your skin. He’s down there while you’re naked, [and he’s] carrying on a conversation with you and your husband.
—THE DOCTOR’S WIFE
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.
[For my wife], it took approximately six months of repeated sessions, at least 40 or 50 hours’ worth of tattooing, to achieve the final effect.
—THE DOCTOR
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.
Divers reasons for tattooing: 1) To camouflage an unclothed body when hunting. 2) To secure a place in heaven. 3) To ensure an easy passage through difficult phases in life, such as puberty and pregnancy. 4) To prevent disease and injury and acquire fertility. 5) To propitiate malignant spirits at time of death. 6) To acquire special characteristics through totemism and ancestor worship. 7) To acquire the special respect of the community to allow the individual to climb the social ladder. 8) To terrorize the enemy on the field of battle. 9) To make the body sexually interesting. 10) To express sentiment (patriotism, love, friendship, anti-authoritarianism). 11) To register incidents of personal interest, places visited, etc. 12) To achieve personal or group identity (primitive tribes, gangs, sailors). 13) To make money (circus sideshows). 14) To register important medical data, e.g., blood group.
—R.W.B. SCUTT AND C. GOTCH3
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.
What I see when I look at [my wife’s] tattoos is the image of the mythological Amazonian warrior. She carries all these images of life and of nature. For me, it gives her almost mystical powers. It’s hard to describe, because most of our society has lost the primitive and tribal urge, but these tattoos have given us tremendous amounts of energy.
—THE DOCTOR
Tattoos may represent an event in a person’s life, express one’s innermost desires, or symbolize a personal philosophy. Some may wear a tattoo as a distinct symbol of personal strength.
I’m only five-feet-two and about 120 pounds: I live in an environment [where] I can be seen as a target. And in some ways the tattoos deflect that. If I’m walking down the street and a tattoo is showing, I am less likely to be labeled a target. If I was dressed as a typical doctor’s wife and I always had the cute little suit and little shoes, I am [perceived] as more or less defenseless. I don’t like that image. I’m considered a little bit differently because of the tattoos. In some ways people will intuit a strength there that maybe isn’t otherwise apparent.
—THE DOCTOR’S WIFE
In recent years an ideal of many tattoo aficionados has been to make each tattoo unique. Because the tattoo is perceived both as art and as personal statement, great care and forethought go into its design.
Tattooing has become a significant part of our process of self-identification and self-definition. I believe it helps us—and I think others—mark ourselves as being different and willing to take our passion to the next level.
—THE DOCTOR
For most enthusiasts, tattooing is a magical and spiritual process that energizes both the tattooist and the person being tattooed.
When I tattoo, I feel I’m not only changing someone’s skin, but also helping to reinforce their spirit and vision, and it’s a lot of responsibility.
—VYVYN LAZONGA4
Those with D&S interests may also find that some of the elements of tattooing are inherently erotic.
Watching [my wife] being tattooed and images form on her body was extraordinary for me. Maybe this relates back to D&S. Tattooing involves the use of needles; there’s some blood; there’s some discomfort. But it’s very highly charged, in terms of the energy involved. She was often nude while the tattooing was being done; images were being drawn on her body both freehand and from observed images.
—THE DOCTOR
For submissives the tattoo may be a meaningful symbol of ownership.
To me, [tattoos] always symbolized ownership. I would never get a piercing or tattoo of my own volition. It causes a confusion between S&Mers and people into the pop-fringe punk culture that surrounds and gets mixed up with S&M these days.
—BAMBI BOTTOM
Further, enduring the pain may represent a token of devotion to the dominant, and in some cases the nudity required by a tattoo on a buttock, breast, or thigh may be enlivened by mild feelings of erotic humiliation.
I’m a physician at a large urban medical center, an M.D. with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, and board certified in internal medicine and anesthesiology. I would consider myself involved in the D&S world through my interest in bondage and some of the areas I have explored with my wife. We’ve been together now almost 18 years—married [for] 13—and we have children.
In looking at how I ended up where I am now, I find two basic fundamental dynamics inside of me. One is the drive towards survival; the other is the sexuality, and it’s a 50-50 cut. Most everything else has been trained into me. I recognize that sexuality is the engine, and the survival instinct tells me the direction and where that energy should go. Those two dynamics, which are the essence of my life and allow me to take risks, force me to reexamine a lot that I have been taught about relationships and a lot that I’ve been taught about sexuality and to come to different conclusions.
Not a lot of people in the medical community, particularly in the academic medical community, know any of the sexuality teaching. We are fairly flagrant with our sexuality and fairly outspoken. It’s caused us over time to develop a small inner core of people that are fiercely loyal to us and very supportive of us, but by the same token, [it has] exacted the price in some levels of isolation in this normally very conservative community.
[My wife] has leather outfits—considered by most people as reasonably outrageous for a traditional doctor’s wife—where her tattoos are very clearly visible. A number of my colleagues have kiddingly referred to us as being part of “the whip-and-chain crowd.” The observed response from this so-called professional community is interesting.
My particular interest is in tattooing. I [also] have interest in bondage and extended relationships and alternative lifestyles. I consider myself to be more of a top. The interest in D&S grew naturally out of the sexuality between my wife and me. I was raised in a very liberal environment and definitely found the idea of bondage very acceptable if it was pleasurable to the partner. But it’s not something I actually went out seeking. She was the one who introduced it to me.
I was exposed to tattooing when I was in the military. I was a physician in the Air Force for five years and became the chief of medicine at a 150-bed hospital. My wife met somebody who had an image of a woman chained to a wall tattooed on his back. She found it extraordinary and discussed it with me. We slowly but surely became friends with this individual, who was involved with the biker community. It was fairly significant out in rural America, which is where we were located at the time. He introduced us to an excellent tattoo artist, who eventually ended up doing the work on my wife.
[She] was the impetus that got us into the tattooing. I had one or two magazines and found it interesting, but she was the one who decided to actually go out and get the first tattoo. I quickly discovered that it had a strong erotic appeal to me. I found the actual process of tattooing and then the beautiful images on the body to be extraordinarily erotic.
The main impact of tattooing on me was having to deal with my own mortality. I know that may sound a bit strange, but the realization that if you put a mark on your body, it’ll be there for the rest of your life takes you back for a moment. For example, one of the first comments made to my wife by a medical person when she had her first tattoo is, “Oh, my God, you’ll be 92 on a mortician’s slab, and they’ll be stretching your skin, trying to figure out what the tattoo once was.” This was the individual’s ultimate horror. My wife, on the other hand, giggled at the thought and liked the idea that at 92 and even past death she would be able to send some message that she had lived a different and stranger life than the average person.
When you begin to deal with tattooing, you have to think clearly about your own values—how transient or how permanent they are—as you choose images that you will live with. You wonder: Five, 10, 15, 20 years from now, what will be your response to the tattooing? Where will your life have changed? And then, of course, you have to review backwards: How much have I changed in the last 10 years? It is a very interesting process that you go through to decide on your tattooing art.
I carry the tattoo of a lion on my back. It’s taking up about a quarter of my back. It’s a piece designed by a very close friend over a six-month period. I’m now planning some additional pieces. For me, the tattoos are very much symbolic of passages of given time. I envision being tattooed slowly over a long period of time.
The amount of discomfort that’s involved with tattooing is significant enough so that I’ve been asked to enter the field to try to achieve certain levels of anesthesia to help people who are not interested in the pain. The pain can be described as an intense scratching. The difficulty comes from the length of the process. My tattoo required four hours of sitting absolutely still while a sewing-machine-type device is run over the skin repeatedly, time and time and time again. Slowly but surely the area begins to burn intensely.
The tattooing felt as I would imagine either a North American Indian or African tribal initiation would feel, because it was intense [and] required concentration and focus to overcome the discomfort. In our society there’s no process during which one is supposed to feel discomfort. If one has an operation, one has anesthesia; if one is mentally in pain, one can take a pill. With tattooing, one is voluntarily subjecting himself to intense discomfort with full recognition that this is being done for the purpose of creating art on the body, the body being the ultimate canvas.
My wife seemed to be beyond it. A lot of experienced tattoo artists were astonished by her focus and concentration. I think this is partly where the passion of the tattooing comes from. For one to sit many hours while the images are placed on your body is a symbol of the amount of passion in that individual. The images in effect are as if burned into the soul and finally [emerging] onto the skin. As you go through this process, you become more and more obsessed with the images that you’re going to put on your body, until you must absolutely get tattooed, or you cannot continue with your daily life.
I know this is highly unusual for a professional—let alone most people in this society—but I view tattooing as the highest art form, considering the nature of the canvas. There is a small, growing core of tattoo artists who view it as the ultimate expression of the individual. Plastic surgery has been well accepted in our society for a long time. It’s a process, though, of conformity. One has the ideal nose in mind and tries to shape many noses into that one ideal image. I think that’s why extensive plastic surgery is found to be socially quite acceptable and tattooing is considered to be quite radical. Tattooing is the ultimate individual expression. By the time it is done, the person looks like no other individual in society.
In terms of fantasies, I do [have] a general one: setting up a modern-day tribe. I have this image of a multimillion-dollar complex with a lot of living space and a group of highly intense and charged individuals who are working and loving together. It’s the grand fantasy, in the “modern primitives” sense, a very self-reliant group. I see tattooing potentially as being a part of an extended relationship because tattooing gives a distinct tribal feel and I think creates within a group the sense of continuity.
What do I get out of all this? A number of things. It’s an expression of the fact that I am not necessarily what I seem. I am not the typical doctor’s wife, not the typical mother. There’s more to me than most people know. At this point it’s an external statement. I’ve always had a line: People either knew me or they didn’t. There were things they needed to know to be considered friends or for me to be completely comfortable with them. And the tattoos are a kind of external expression of this. You don’t really know me if you haven’t seen my tattoos.
I get the tattoos for myself; that’s what they’re for—me. I also know that [The Doctor] likes them, and that’s very important. I’m not sure what would have happened if he had had a completely negative reaction. I don’t know if I would have gotten the first one. I might have. Now they express a link between [The Doctor] and myself. We’re both tattooed. When someone sees us walking down the street, very often he’ll have his tattoos showing, and I’ll have mine showing. I wasn’t sure he was going to get one when I first got it. But it has taken on that [meaning] for me, that feeling of commitment.
The tattoos speak of a kind of an intensity and a passion and a lack of [the] fear that most people have. The thing that most people back away from and are very afraid of is the fact that [tattoos] are permanent. When I first got them, that was the most interesting aspect to most people. It wasn’t what it was, or where it was, or even the art of it. People said, “How do you know you’ll want it there five years from now?” Well, nowadays you probably can change them, but when I got them, I was not aware they could be changed. In some ways it’s a willingness to commit to something, to making yourself different from the rest of the world, to acknowledge it.
When someone asks me, “What if you don’t want it there five years from now?” my attitude is, “What if I don’t want my kids five years from now?” I’ve made a commitment. Why wouldn’t I want it? I’ve made a decision. It grows with you. It’s a part of you. In [my] 36 years I have made numerous decisions, and I don’t have any major regrets about the decisions I’ve made in my life. I looked at all the options; I thought about almost nothing else for that period of time and looked at it every which way I could think of [and made my decision].
Wearing a piece of art appealed to me. It was an expression of being different, acknowledging the fact that I wanted it and that I was not afraid. I liked the idea that it would be there the rest of my life and that I chose to put it there. I have a number of beauty marks on my body. I’ve always accepted them. But the idea of choosing something that I would wear the rest of my life appealed to me.
My husband got excited and really got involved; [he] enjoyed the idea, so I decided to go with my first piece on the shoulder blade three years ago. The first piece is an open rose. It’s predominantly different shades of blue. The first [time], I was apprehensive, because I had never been in a tattoo parlor before. I had uncomfortable feelings about going [there]. I chose to have the individual who had the tattoo on his back go with me to have somebody who could tell me what to expect. We went, and I brought home three different designs. [The Doctor] and I decided on the rose. Then I went back and had it done.
[The Doctor] was fascinated; he was excited by the entire experience. I know he liked that I was willing to take a certain amount of pain to put something on my body. [But] it was not exclusively for him. If I’d done it for him, it might not have been as positive. It was for me and for him; it was for us. [The pain] was not an issue for me. It was uncomfortable, but I didn’t feel like I had gone beyond my limit. It was less painful than I had expected it to be.
It [took] about two weeks for the tattoo to heal. During that period of time, after 10 years of marriage, I was the hottest thing on two legs again, which was a wonderful feeling. He followed me around the house; he was always nearby, touching, holding. It was wonderful.
I went for the second one alone. I never did that again. It was more painful; I had nothing to focus on. That’s the only time that I got up—the tattoo wasn’t done; it still needed a little bit more color—and said, “No. It’ll get done some other time.” It was not the most painful area to get done. I just wanted [The Doctor] with me. From then on, I would not go by myself.
I went through cycles of getting a tattoo every two to four weeks. As soon as one would heal, we’d start talking about the next one. The piece [on my back] started off as flowers—the rose, an orchid, a lotus, and a morning glory with graphics.
We [also] experimented with painless tattooing, and I had a [kitty] cat put on my bikini line. We did it with lidocaine. You don’t feel it going on, but when the [anesthesia] wears off, you’re suddenly aware you have a tattoo. It’s the only one that I have that I didn’t feel being put on.
I had a hip piece done on the right side. It’s [an] Aladdin’s lamp with smoke turning into the front of a horse. There’s a carp on my right breast. And then I had all the flowers connected with smoke and graphics. And bubbles. They wind around to a graphic piece on the bottom of my left buttock, and the smoke goes to a cauldron on the inner aspect of my left thigh. In shorts, you see two sources of smoke, basically, on the outer side of one thigh and the inner of the other. I got them all within nine months. I sound like I’m terribly tattooed, but I can go out and you wouldn’t see any of them. I can wear a sleeveless blouse; I can wear a scoop neck; I can wear anything except short shorts or a bathing suit.
I was not uncomfortable with [being nude for the tattoo]. I was aware that it turned [my husband] on, and I found that pleasant and somewhat exciting. In some ways, with him it’s more of a sense of pride. It’s not something I would have done if he hadn’t been there. But it’s a sharing of me. I don’t know if it would have had a different effect if it had been a stranger. We were very good friends with the tattooist. I knew his children, his wife; we’d socialized. A lot of people find that very uncomfortable, [but] we’ve always socialized with my obstetrician, too.
The art of tattoos is sexy. They are beautiful pieces of art, and to me they are [permanent, aesthetic] accessories. Whether [I’m] wearing a backless dress or a formal gown, they add something. I think they’re also an expression of passion and strength that can be sensual and sexy. I may objectively fit more patterns than I care to admit to in terms of looking and playing the submissive, but there’s a strength and an amount of control [within me] that I insist on. The tattoos reflect that strength.
When I find a piece that I like, or I find a place that I want [tattooed], tattooing and the ensuing sexual energy in the household appeals to me. [The Doctor] definitely is going to get more. And I will probably get another one. There is an arm piece that I will eventually get. It will be a black graphic band around the upper aspect of my arm. I’ll probably have [The Doctor’s] name somewhere in it, not necessarily easily found, but definitely there. The question is when. It may be something I’ll do now. Or if for some reason I lose him, that will be the black arm band I will wear to show devotion for the rest of my life.