Everyone has tattoos these days, even me. I lived near a large shopping centre and every time
I visit I see more ink on suburban house wives than you might see in any Australian prison.
Since newsreaders, TV stars and upmarket shoppers have begun to have pictures of roses, skulls
and Latin phrases tattooed into their flesh, the power of ink to shcok has decreased. The shock
value of the tattoo has faded like, well, a tattoo. It was not always like this. For thousands
of year,and with few exceptions, ink on the body was a sign of ownership, brutality and trouble.
These tattoos were an indication of control, a sign that the person with this mark had no greater
value than property or machines. From the beginning of human history, tattoos almost always meant
trouble.First the Greeks and then the Romans inked the backs of uncosenting prisoners and slaves.
The practice continued in Europe throughtout the Middle Ages to mark deviant or imprisoned people.
The indelible cruelty of the prison tattoo can be seen on the arms of people who survived the
concentration camps of World War II, There is little that suggests the horror of this genocide
more than these identification numbers tattooed on their arms. When something is done without our
consent, we often respond with defiance. From at leatst the 18th century,those who had been marked
by the state as "deviant" began to create their own tattoos. For example, some of the convicts sent
by England to Australia made fun of the King by having the words, "Property of Mother England"
tattooed into the flesh on their backs. This meant that the guards who flogged them were reminded
that they were vandalising the property of the King.In the 20th century, traditions of defiance
continued in Australia. By the 1990s, for instance, tattoo artists' shops were nearly as common as
fast food outlets!And it was in one of these body-beautiful boutiques that I, and many other young
people, dared to "defile" our bodies. Back then, a handful of us angry young women had symbols of
our gender tattooed on our bodies to continue in our own way the tradition of defiance. Tattoos have
now become sexy. Even the British Prime Minister's wife has a tattoo on her ankle! Personally, I
find this profoundly annoying. Here I am stuck with an indelible link to Britain ratehr than a
memory of my activist youth. What's more,Dr AB, in a Google search on tattoos, warns me that:
"Medical practitioners like me will tell you tattoos break the skin which means that skin
infections and other complications are possible. A tattoo is permanent body mark on your skin with
colours applied through small holes in the skin's top layer. The tattooist uses a hand-held machine
that acts like a sewing machine with one or more needles piercing the skin repeatedl. With every
puncture the needle inserts tiny ink droplets. The process, whcih is done without anaesthetic and
may last several hours, can cause bleeding, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, tetanus, significant pain and
infection." This sounds like a Painful price to pay for a fashin fad! A tattoo is now the lastest
thing to buy and performs, more or less, as it originally did: as a mark of belonging. I've also
realised that some designs have cultural significance for some groups of people. Again, Goolgle
informs me that 'some tattoo symbols, e.g. Ta Moko used in Maori culture, are a sacred form of
family and personal identification. Ta Moko is a Maori body art practice which shows that the
wearer has status within the community. Ta Moko can also tell the story of the wearer's family
heritage. Ta Mooko is as unique to wearers as their own fingerprints. When it is used by other
people it is without doubt identity theft.'How can you respect your own family when you wear
the family 'signature' of strangers? These days it's difficult to imagine a time when a tattoo
marked anyone,man ore woman, in a negative way. As young woman, for a brief moment, I did feel
reckless and brave, as if I was part of Carnevale-a Venetian festival at which people wear costumes
and masks which conceal their identites.And now, I look at the symbol of my rebellion and I seen an
ornament as ordinary as any other cosmetic peculiarity.