Customizing the body : the art and culture of tattooing PDF
Preview Customizing the body : the art and culture of tattooing
CUSTOMIZING THE BODY CUSTOMIZING THE BODY The Art and Culture of Tattooing REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION Clinton R. Sanders D. Angus Vail with TempleUniversityPress Philadelphia TempleUniversityPress 1601NorthBroadStreet PhiladelphiaPA19122 www.temple.edu/tempress Copyright©2008byTempleUniversity Allrightsreserved Firsteditionpublished1989 Revisedandexpandededitionpublished2008 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica ThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstherequirementsoftheAmericanNational StandardforInformationSciences—PermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibraryMaterials, ANSIZ39.48-1992 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Sanders,Clinton. Customizingthebody:theartandcultureoftattooing/ClintonR. SanderswithD.AngusVail.—Rev.andexpandeded. p.cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN-13:978-1-59213-887-6 ISBN-10:1-59213-887-X(cloth:alk.paper) ISBN-13:978-1-59213-888-3 ISBN-10:1-59213-888-8(pbk.:alk.paper) 1. Tattooing--Socialaspects.2. Tattooartists. I.Vail,D.Angus.II. Title. GT2345.S262008 391.6'5--dc22 2008001837 246897531 Contents Preface to the Revised and Expanded Edition vii Preface to the First Edition xxi 1 Introduction: Body Alteration, Artistic Production, and the Social World of Tattooing 1 2 Becoming and Being a Tattooed Person 36 3 The Tattooist: Tattooing as a Career and an Occupation 62 4 The Tattoo Relationship: Risk and Social Control in the Studio 117 5 Conclusion: Tattooing and the Social Definition of Art 149 Epilogue 2008: Body Modification Then and Now CLINTON R. SANDERS with D. ANGUS VAIL 164 Methodological Appendix 189 Selected Tattoo Artist Websites 203 Notes 205 References 221 Index 239 Photographs follow page 108 Preface to the Revised and Expanded Edition Inthosedays,atattoowasstillasouvenir—akeepsaketo markajourney,theloveofyourlife,aheartbreak,aport ofcall.Thebodywaslikeaphotoalbum;thetattoosthem- selvesdidn’thavetobegoodphotographs....Andtheold tattooswerealwayssentimental:youdidn’tmarkyourself forlifeifyouweren’tsentimental(Irving,2005:74–75). Much has changed on the tattooing (and larger body alteration) landscape since Customizing the Body first appeared in the late 1980s. Perhaps the most important change has been the transformation of tattooing from the osten- sibly “deviant” practice I discussed in the first edition to the pop- ular cultural phenomenon it is today. There are (at least) three criteria sociologists use to define an activity, perspective, or appearance as fitting into the category of “deviant.” First, the phenomenon could be seen as constituting or causing some sort of social harm. Since much of what might be considered to be socially harmful rests on the values of the person or persons doing the defining, what is regarded as “bad” behavior, “disgusting” or “shocking” appearance, or “inappro- priate” thoughts is largely a matter of taste (though sociologists tend to overlay their personal tastes with a legitimating patina of theory). A second way of understanding deviance is to see it simply as some thing that is relatively rare. This “statistical” ori- entation, of course, has some presumed relationship to the values/harm model since what is bad by definition is presumed to be appealing to only a relatively small number of twisted, mis- guided,orunfortunatepeople. A third, andto my mindthemost useful,wayof thinkingabout social deviance is to see it as behavior, thoughts, or appearances that are widely regarded as “bad.” Consequently, when those who engage in the bad behavior, think the bad thoughts, or publically viii Preface to the Revised and Expanded Edition display their bad appearance come to the attention of some audi- ence or another, they are subjected to punishment or some other kind of negative social reaction. This third orientation has the ad- vantageofmakingadistinctionbetweenbreakingrulesandbeing “deviant” in that deviance is defined as that which is the focus of socialreaction.Apersonmightbreakrulesandnotbefoundout— he or she is a rule-breaker but not a deviant—or one could not breakrulesandstillbe“falselyaccused”ofbeingaviolator—heor she is a deviant but not a rule-breaker. It is especially useful for understanding the shifting social definition of tattooing and other forms of permanent body modification in that this “labeling” per- spective(devianceasasociallyappliedlabel)incorporatesthecen- tral idea that defined deviance changes over time, from culture to culture,anddependsonjustwhoisdoingthedefining(seeBecker, 1963;Goode,2005:86-93;RubingtonandWeinberg,2002). Tattooing and, to a somewhat lesser degree, other modes of body alteration have been “de-deviantized” since the early 1990s in light of the last two definitions of deviance. Tattooing has become more widely practiced (that is, more popular) and has, therefore, come to be seen as less odd, unusual, rebellious, or otherwise deviant. In general, those things your friends do are significantly less likely to be negatively regarded than are those thingsstrangersdo. AlthoughIseeitaswisetotakethefindingsofsurveyresearch with considerable skepticism, polls conducted in the early– to mid–1990s suggested that somewhere between 3 and 10 percent of the general population were tattooed (Anderson, 1992; Arm- strongandMcConnell,1994;ArmstrongandPace-Murphy,1997). Recently, a study conducted by Anne Laumann, a dermatologist atNorthwesternUniversity,revealedthat24percentofAmerican adults between the ages of 18 and 50 are tattooed and one in seven had a body piercing somewhere other than the earlobe (nearly one-third of young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 saidtheywerepierced)(LaumannandDerick,2006). The movement of tattooing into the realm of popular culture displays certain features of the contemporary culture industry and reveals how fad-like phenomena emerge. Culture producers, beset by the problem of “commercial uncertainty” (that is, what popular cultural products will or will not be successful [see Sanders, 1990]), are constantly on the lookout for new materials ix Preface to the Revised and Expanded Edition with potential commercial appeal. Typically, the producers keep an eye on the interests, activities, and appearance of those out- sidetheboundariesofsocialpower.Thetastesandentertainment and material interests of minorities, teenagers, disaffected urban residents, and other “outsiders” are filched by the culture indus- try, cleaned up and homogenized, avidly promoted as the latest thing,andsoldtothelargerconsumermarket.Inshort,themajor source of innovation in popular culture is in the materials and activitiesoftherelativelypoorandpowerless;innovationflowsup thestreamofpower. Thisprocess hasimpelledthemovement oftattooingintopopu- lar culture. Beginning with the “tattoo renaissance” of the 1960s (discussedinChapter1),musicians,movieactors,andotherenter- tainmentfiguresadmiredandfollowedbyyoungpeoplestartedac- quiring and displaying tattoos. Similarly, sports figures—typically from minority and/or impoverished backgrounds—were tattooed. Despitethe fact that most of the tattoos displayed byentertainers and (especially) athletes look as if they were done by eight-year- oldswithmagicmarkers,thefactthatadmiredpublicfigureswere tattooedgavetattooingacertainpopularculturalcachet. While exposure by key figures in the mediated popular culture is an important factor in the rise and dissemination of cultural interests and products, cultural innovation and the consumption of particular materials also derive from people’s immediate social networks and contacts. As we see in Chapter 2, an important factor in people’s decisions to get tattooed is that their friends or family members sport tattoos. Understandably then, as more peoplearetattooed,morepeoplehavecontactwiththosewhoare tattooed, and more people see it as reasonable or desirable to acquireatattoo.Culturalpopularityisaformofcontagion. Astattooinghasinserteditselfintomainstreampopularculture in the late twen tieth and early twenty-first centuries, it has been thematically assimilated into a variety of media materials. At this writing, television viewers have access to such tattoo-themed shows as “Miami Ink” on TLC, “Inked” on A&E, and “Tattoo Sto- ries” on FUSE. Popular memoirs such as Emily Jenkins’s Tongue First (1998) and serious novels like John Irving’s UntilI Find You (2005) and Sarah Hall’s ElectricMichelangelo (2005), a finalist for 2004’s Man Booker Prize, feature tattooing and tattooists. Mass market booksellers like Borders and Barnes & Noble have a vari-
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