Stigmas, Stereotypes of Tattooing: Why the Medical Community is to Blame

I am pretty sure that we don't live in the dark ages but to hear people talk sometimes I am not so sure. Here it is 2007 and the stigmas from years past are still alive and thriving. What makes it worse is that they are perpetrated by professionals who should know better than to stereotype people.

When you consider that the 20^th century ended on December 31, 2000, it doesn't seem like it was all that long ago. Consider also that it started on January 1, 1901. That was a long time ago and many things have changed since then. We have seen two world wars, Viet Nam, the sexual revolution and a number of other events that have both good and bad impacts on history and have changed our culture. It's true, what they say, as much as things change, the more they stay the same.

That has never been more constant than where tattoos are concerned. When they were originally introduced into British society it was a long painful process and only the rich could afford to have it done. At the time small tattoos were a fad and used much like a status symbol, the way fur coats, fancy cars and small dogs in purses are today.

In 1891 things started to change with the invention of the electric tattooing machine based on Edison's electric pen. This made the tattoo procedure much faster and more affordable making tattoos accessible to everyone. Since anyone could readily get a tattoo, the upper class turned away from them and they lost credibility and the tattoo artists moved to the sleazier sections of towns. To this day, they have never seemed to gain back that credibility.

Heavily tattooed people traveled with the circus and were labeled freaks. In 1898 Barnum had a nearly nude tattooed lady in the circus that was quite popular because of the number of tattoos she had. This kind of nudity was considered taboo yet she was considered erotic because of the amount of skin she showed and the fact that she was portrayed as docile and chaste.