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 HISTORY OF TATTOOING
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.
HOW IS IT DONE?
Beca
use 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.
WHY THEY LIKE IT
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.
INTERVIEWS
THE DOCTOR
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] ex
acted 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.
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