Tattoos and body piercing
Tattoos and body piercings are forms of body modification that have been practiced across cultures for centuries, serving various cultural, spiritual, and personal purposes. Tattoos are created by inserting ink into the skin using specialized techniques, often performed by skilled artists, with historical practices rooted in traditional methods involving natural materials. Body piercing involves the insertion of jewelry into various body parts, including ears, noses, and more intimate areas, often indicating cultural significance or personal expression.
Historically, these practices have signified status changes, religious beliefs, or personal milestones, and they play a role in rites of passage, particularly among youth in modern societies. In recent decades, tattooing and body piercing have gained popularity in Western culture, transcending their previous associations with subcultures and becoming mainstream forms of artistic expression. Despite their growing acceptance, health risks such as infections still exist, particularly when procedures are carried out without proper sanitation.
As societal attitudes shift, a significant percentage of adults in the U.S. now bear tattoos, though stigma can remain in professional environments. Additionally, the historical context reveals the longstanding human fascination with body art, stretching back thousands of years to ancient civilizations, such as Egypt and Polynesia, highlighting the diverse meanings and practices associated with tattoos and body piercings throughout history.
Tattoos and body piercing
ANATOMY OR SYSTEM AFFECTED: Muscles, skin
DEFINITION: Piercing of the skin to implant devices or make designs
Indications and Procedures
Tattooing is accomplished by a variety of techniques, usually by persons who are specialists. In traditional cultures, a shaman or other religious practitioner would create a tattoo by piercing the skin with a sharpened object (such as a bone splinter or a piece of metal) or with a bundle of porcupine quills or ponderosa pine needles, or by passing a colored string on a needle through the skin. The colors were from mineral salts, charcoal, certain plant juices, and even the feces of dogs that had been fed charcoal.
Coloring inks were available from the end of the nineteenth century and are now supplied in liquid forms. They can be applied in either the so-called European fashion, in which the coloring ink is applied over a small surface and an electric vibrating needle impregnates the epidermis and the dermis, or the American procedure, in which the needle contains the desired pigment.
The skin is prepared in a variety of ways, usually by smearing a thin layer of petroleum jelly over the site to minimize the seepage of blood and tissue fluids that would otherwise obscure the artist’s view. When the tattoo is completed, the area is washed and then covered with an antiseptic ointment. Tattoos assume various geometric or curvilinear designs and can be executed over all of a person’s body or simply within a restricted area. Extensive tattooing may take several years to complete.
The most obvious forms of body piercing, by both males and females, are performed in the ears, nose, nasal septum, tongue, navel, lips, scalp, eyelids, or cheeks. In some cultures, the lips or ears may be distorted by inserting over time increasingly large objects, such as pieces of horn, bone, wood, and even metal. In some cases, the particular style of body piercing may indicate a person’s marital status, group membership, or religious affiliation, or it may simply be cosmetic mutilation. Body piercing has become increasingly common in Western culture since the later twentieth century. The breasts, particularly the nipples, are another common site for the insertion of either closed or threaded rings on both men and women. Less commonly, body piercing may also be performed on the male or female genitals. An example of male genital piercing is the Prince Albert, in which a ring or curved barbell enters the urethra and exits through the underside or, in some cases, the top of the glans penis. Women may have clitoral or labial piercings.
Uses and Complications
Tattoos and body piercing of the human body have been practiced by all cultures throughout the world to serve different functions: for religious purposes, as an indication of certain status changes or the accomplishment of culturally significant tasks, as a proof of ordeal, for medical reasons, as body art, as identification marks, to signify membership in either sacred or profane organizations, or to attain visions through mortification of the flesh. Depending on the culture or specific group, men, women, and children may undergo these frequently painful rituals. Various cultures believe that the soul’s transition to a life hereafter is facilitated by having certain tattoos and body piercings. Often, the degree of pain experienced during the rituals of tattooing and body piercing, and from the subsequent wounds, not only is a proof of ordeal but also may serve as a physical and spiritual atonement for a person’s moral transgressions. Certain groups, such as the Newar of Bhaktapur in Nepal, believe that they may gain a higher incarnation when they sell their tattoos in heaven.
In the United States during the early twentieth century, it became popular for women to be tattooed for eyeliner, cheek blush, and even colored lips. Although tattooing and body piercing were once associated with motorcycle gang members, prisoners, and military personnel, these procedures have become more popular with the general public. Tattooing and self-mutilation by body piercing are gaining popularity as forms of personal expression, particularly with women.
A concern, however, is the increasing frequency of adolescents engaging in tattooing and body piercing. Body piercing in Western cultures is often viewed by teenagers and young adults as a rite of passage, sometimes symbolically in defiance of the established social order. When self-practiced, tattooing and body piercing can lead to infection and even septicemia, particularly when people use instruments and inks that are not sterile.
In addition to the health concerns associated with the increase in young people getting tattoos, there is also the cultural stigma of tattoos in professional settings. The number of tattooed Americans increased greatly by the early twenty-first century. By mid-2023, around 32 percent of American adults had at least one tattoo, while 22 percent had more than one. Research has shown that many employers have become more open to the prospect of tattooed employees. In many cases, however, tattoos can still serve as an impediment to gainful employment.
Perspective and Prospects
Some anthropologists believe that the first documented examples of tattooing were practiced in Egypt approximately four thousand years ago. These conclusions are supported by tattooed female mummies and by clay figurines that have puncture “tattoos.” Although there is no agreement among scholars, some believe that the practice of tattooing may have diffused from Egypt to other parts of the world.
Perhaps the most artistic and dramatic full-body tattooing was done by the Japanese as early as the fifth century BCE and the Maori of New Zealand; even today, many young male Maori follow this traditional custom. The Maori were noted for facial tattoos, called moko, that served to frighten and intimidate their enemies. The word “tattoo,” however, comes from the Tahitian word ta-tau; it was encountered by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European explorers in Polynesia, who introduced tattoos to Europe and America.
Bibliography
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