Tatoos & Piercings

Tattoos and body piercing are not a modern phenomenon. Since the origination of man, body decoration has been a popular phenomenon with ancient civilizations, primitive tribes and native cultures the world over. While the types and methods of tattooing and piercing have changed, the purposes for having them are still comparable to primitive cultures-decoration, symbolic meaning, identity-definition and bonding with a particular group, culture or organization. In America, tattoos have been popular for quite some time, but, recently, the phenomenon of piercing different body parts (noses, ears, lips, mouths, eyebrows, genitals, etc.) has become quite popularized since its origination on the West Coast during the 1960s and 1970s, "The piercings of nipples and genitals arose in the homosexual sadomasochistic culture of the West Coast. The Gauntlet, found in Los Angeles in 1975 mostly to do master and slave piercings, now has three shops around the country that are about as controversial as Elizabeth Arden salons. Rumbling through the biker culture and punk, piercing gradually shed its outlaw image and was mass marketed to the impressionable by music videos, rock stars and models," (Leo 1). This analysis will discuss various types of tattoos and body piercings. A modern analysis of tattoos and piercing in America will be intertwined with an analysis showing how tattoos and piercings have long been a way for many cultures to exp

Related Essays

A Health Program for Pregnant Nigerian Women Les .... analysis and cholesterol level B. Hepatitis B. Women at high risk include women with liver disease, prostitutes, drug users, women with tatoos, and women with .... (2471 10 )

Memo on Preconception Care .... B. Women at high risk for this would include health care workers exposed to blood, women with liver disease, prostitutes, women with tatoos, and women with a .... (1186 5 )

women see body adornment as a way of reclaiming their bodies. Some even go so far as to engage in cutting because they believe it shows that they are powerful enough to reclaim their bodies from a culture that tries to tell them the normal body is one that is emaciated and for sexual purposes from a male perspective, "People want to be cut for adornment, or as a test of endurance, or as a sacrifice toward a transformation. Women are reclaiming their bodies from a culture that has commodified starvation and faux sex. It creates intimacy. My scars are emotional centers, signs of a life lived," (Leo 1). Whatever the motives behind piercing and tattooing, those in the know say that anyone who enjoys adorning the body in such a fashion does not look at either process as being remotely pathological. Instead, piercings and tattoos are often the sign of belonging to a particular culture, or as a symbol of some kind of spiritual connection. There are some groups like witches and New Agers who view them as symbols of a transformation of their spiritual essence, "The nasty aggressive edge of piercing is still there, but not it is coated in happy talk and a New Age-y rationale (we are becoming more centered, reclaiming our bodies in a

Category: Arts - T