Upon coming across the television show Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience (Season 2 Episode 3), I found that the main character, Rhod, and a sub-character, Maria, raised within it an interesting point about the giving and the acquiring of a tattoo.
Rhod asked Maria, "what's it like being a full-time tattoo artist, Maria?" to which she answered, "you get to meet loads of interesting people with lots of different stories, and you become a part of their life." Rhod then said, "one of the things that I have noticed about this place, is that it seems to be the heart of a community." In response, Maria said "yeah, yeah. It's like therapy for them [and] me, if I need to get anything off my chest... If I didn't tattoo I think I'd be a counsellor." Then, Rhod added: "everybody says tattoos are addictive. That once you get one you want more, and more?" "Yeah," Maria replied, "it's the whole bonding experience. They come back for that. It's the boost of peace when they're done. You know, you feel good."
Having a tattoo myself that I acquired when I was eighteen, I knew nothing of the bonding experience that it brings. The man who tattooed me, an old man in his sixties who resembled a stretched animated garden gnome with hygiene certification, grunted and huffed as he tried several times to position my head in the right way so as to reach the back of my ear. He told me continuously that I should not stop breathing, and that was about it. After a couple of hours I had gotten my first tattoo. He did not inquire about why I was getting what I was getting. I felt no "boost of peace" after it, I just felt a boost of ego because I had rebelled against the image of a perfect daughter that my parents held so dearly onto.
Months before getting my tattoo, I had become obsessed with watching LA Ink, and watching Kat Von D tattoo "loads of interesting people" indeed. Most of them were famous. However, they all had a story linked to their spectacularly executed tattoos. I think I watched it moreso for the stories towards the last phase of my obsession. It was interesting to see an image put to the story, whether it be parents who died in a car accident or a brother who had died in a war, or relatives in their younger years - whatever the subject matter, it was always shrouded with utter sentimentality and that made the tattoo being done more and more appealing to the eye, knowing that the mind was captivated.
And it was always the reaction of the recipient that complimented the entire episode. Seeing their faces light up as their sentimentalism was revealed to them on their skin for the rest of their lives, etched in their flesh and beaming the same beam as they did in the original photograph that the tattoo spawned from. I suppose if tattoos and the act of giving and receiving tattoos were seen in this light, that they will cease to be known only merely as works of art located on the bodies of unfriendly unapproachable bikies who did jail time for using a person's blood as petrol for their motorbikes.
For years, tattoos have stereotypically been associated with bikers, gangs and criminals. Those imprisoned would receive tattoos and tattoo other prisoners to convey gang membership, and those who killed would tattoo tear-drops underneath their eyes - one tear-drop for each victim. Other forms of tattoos are tribal tattoos, and identification tattoos which Jewish people were forcibly given to permanently remind them that they were a part of the Holocaust. The stereotype, though, has since died down, as tattoos have become more common with youth. It is now recognised as a legitimate art form, and accepted in varied cultures.
Tattooing started out in Asia and Europe, and was adopted by Samoans as 'Tatau'. Female Samoans would receive a 'Malu', a tattoo to signify their progression into puberty, and males would receive a 'Pe'a' so signify male-hood, and respect for their courage. It was not until Captain Cook's Botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, in the 1700s, had returned to England with a tattoo, thus sailing, so to speak, the concept of tattooing across the globe. Sailors soon adopted this, and by 1870 it was popular amongst upper-class individuals, including royalty, due to the pricing. When the 1970s came along, tattooing became a fashionable thing in the Western side of the world, and has been redefined as an art form, and has pulled away from being merely a statement of individuality and rebellion, although most teenagers wait until they are seventeen to get their first tattoo because it is deemed utterly awesome to have ink in one's skin before the age of legality.
In this day and age, it would be difficult to understand why someone would not stray from the stereotypes associated with drugs and tattoos, unless of course they belong to the older generations of humans. A certain someone, though, has recently caught my attention as I was reading their article which attempted to describe Ian Watkins' appearance before diving into the gnarly details of his pedophilic state of being. I did not believe what I was reading - no, I did believe the pedophile part, because it has been blown out of proportions by the media and for once, for the right reasons, however I did not believe the portrayal of Watkins which was provided. I had mistaken the description for a Mexican Drug Ring leader or something of the sort. Here is a screen shot of the basis of my disbelief, located in the article:
I read it again to make sure that my mind has read it the way it was written. I thought that, perhaps my mind was playing some sort of trick on me, to agitate me and cause alarm for no apparent reason. But no, my mind was correct. What I read was right. The journalist was attempting to shun Watkins as a stereotypical rapist because of his "heavily tattooed" appearance, and associate this appearance with the use of drugs, in an attempt to justify his actions. I searched for a photograph of Watkins to make sure that my image of him had not changed since I had a poster of his face on my bedroom wall ten years ago, and I found his mugshot:
I observed this photograph for a mere twenty seconds and burst into laughter. From the description above, one would imagine Watkins to look something like this:
Honestly, whoever this 'AFP' character is that wrote this article is, needs a serious visit to Specsavers. They are seeing the world in the eyes of my hardened ancestors who attacked homosexuals or tattooed people on sight back in Lebanon. Listen to me, AFP: the insertion of lead-free ink into one's skin does not turn them into pedophiles. I have a tattoo close to my skull, and I do not seem to have been influenced to inappropriately touch children, nor sexually abuse them. Whoever you are, you need to go back to University and learn better adjectives to assist you to help describe the criminal at hand to the public. The way you have written this description implies that tattooed people are amoral, and the fact that you have written this so-called descriptor in the same sentence as the word 'meth' and 'desire' disgusts me even more - so all those who "desire" methamphetamine are "heavily tattooed" and run a risk of sexually antagonising and raping premature children? How is this man, as such, in any way heavily tattooed?
And in the mug-shot, which is the predominant photograph of Watkins at this point in time, all I can see is a hint of a tattoo on the left side on his neck. That description is downright misleading. As well as misleading, it is also inappropriate. Tattooed people are people too, there are more pedophiles and sadistic criminals and rapists out there who are not tattooed. Take Jeffrey Dahmer. Charles Manson. Aileen Wournos. Gilles de Rais. Richard Trenton Chase. Albert Fish. Andrei Chickatilo. Joachim Kroll. Dennis Rader. John Haigh. Adolf Hitler. Javed Iqbal. Ted Bundy. None of these sadists were "heavily tattooed". It is not scientifically proven that tattooed individuals are secretly sadistic pedophiles. That claim is just as unbelievable as claiming that people with fingernails which fall short of three-centimetres long will, in their lifetimes, consume more beer than people who regularly attend pubs. Or people born with a monobrow will be more likely to fall off a verandah due to the excessive weight on their face than people born with two eyebrows. Ridiculous!
What AFP should have written, is something along the lines of this: The fetish-fueled sadistic rockstar with an addiction to drugs and the sexual domination of fans and their children due to his fame who happens to have a few tattoos scattered around his body which have absolutely nothing to do with the case at hand, spoke of his desire to intoxicate one of his victims by blowing crystal meth smoke into the child's face. Judging by AFP's claim, though, I suppose Mike Tyson probably is a pedophile too.
References:
Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org]
AFP's news article: [http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/lostprophets-lead-singer-ian-watkins-pleads-guilty-to-attempted-baby-rape/story-e6frg6so-1226769281856]
