T is for Tattoo.

Welcome to the A to Z of Sex. I’m Dr Lori Beth and I am your host.  We are working our way through the erotic alphabet one letter at a time.  Just a reminder this podcast deals with adult content, so if you don’t have total privacy, you might want to put on your headphones.  Today the letter is T and T is for Tattoo and Scarification    Trigger warning: I am going to talk about branding later in the show.

The word tattoo comes from the Tahitian ‘tatu’ which means ‘to mark something’.  Tattooing has existed since Neolithic times.  We know this because of the ancient art that has been discovered, mummified – yes mummified skin, and the archeological record.  In fact even older tattoo tools and art has been found which suggests tattooing started in the upper paleolithic time in Europe but we don’t have the evidence on skin until the 4th millennium (4000) BC.  Ötzi the Iceman (dated between 3370 and 3100 BC) is the oldest example of tattooing on mummified skin. 

Tattooed mummies have been recovered from at least another 49 sites throughout the world.  Locations include: Alaska, Greenland, Siberia, China, Mongolia, Philippines, Egypt, Sudan, the Andes.

Tattooing has been used to identify criminals and describe their crimes in a number of cultures including Chinese, Greek and Roman.   Tattooing by the Nazis was done as a means of humiliating, dehumanising and identifying the Jews, homosexuals and Gypsies sent to the death camps. Tattooing has been used for religious and spiritual reasons in tribal cultures, Hindu, Egypt, Syria, Japan (including the native Aïnu people), Copts, Thailand, Celts.  

Many people from modern spiritual subcultures (pagan, western magicians for example) tattoo for spiritual purposes as well.

All tattooing is painful.  Some more painful than others.  For many cultures, tattooing was, and still is, a rite of passage rather than just marking a rite of passage.  In a variety of cultures, large tattoos marked the move from adolescence to adulthood.    In modern culture, many people now observe this tradition and tattoo to mark rites of passage and honour ancestors.

So what does tattooing have to do with sex you ask?  Lots!

Ask any person who has been tattooed for more than 15 or 20 minutes, and you will be told that at some point in the painful process, they began to feel high.  Endorphins and adrenalin are released when a person is being tattooed.  For people who are masochistic (gain pleasure from some types of pain), this high can also include sexual arousal. 

Tattoos are used in some parts of the BDSM subculture as marks of ownership.  Submissives or slaves may be tattooed with the mark of their dominants or masters. 

Research done by at a university in Poland in 2017 surveyed 2369 women and 215 men. They showed them images of tattooed and non-tattooed men to figure out whether people found tattoos more attractive.  They discovered that tattoos didn’t increase attractiveness for the women but women did see the tattooed men as more dominant, and masculine.  For the men, tattoos did increase attractiveness.

Tattoos have become more mainstream since the 1990s and now many people see them as sexy.  There is lots of variation as to how many tattoos and where they are placed.  Women are still more negatively judged than men with tattoos, but mainstream culture has grown to embrace tattoos. There is still a stereotype that suggests tattooed women are more promiscuous so men are more likely to approach them for sex.

In sexual subcultures, tattoos are more appreciated.  Beauty is defined differently than in the mainstream culture and this is where tattoos really shine when it comes to attracting positive sexual attention.

Women who have tattoos are seen to be more creative which suggests the possibility of creativity with sex.  You have to be able to withstand pain in order to be tattooed.  And those who have multiple tattoos probably enjoy a bit of pain rather than just withstanding it.  This can translate to enjoying some mild to seriously rough sex.  

Research in 2012 published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found people with tattoos to be more sexually open than their non-inked peers. 

People who have multiple tattoos also think a lot about their decisions  - not just about tattooing but in other areas of their lives.    When you take time to make decisions, you have far fewer regrets.  So even if a sexual relationship doesn’t work out, you are more likely to (eventually) view it as neutral, a learning experience or even positively.

Turner (1980) noted ‘The skin and the hair are the concrete boundary between the self and the other, the individual and society’.  So expressing yourself via your skin (and hair) can be seen as bringing our thoughts, feelings and desires and placing them on view for others to see.  We do this with makeup, hair colours and styles, clothing, accessories as well.   The difference with tattooing is that it is a permanent statement and therefore often a much more personal statement.   There is a lot of research highlighting that people from various cultures use tattooing to display true and authentic self – though to those outside the culture or cultural subgroup, the meaning may be obscure.

In some tribal cultures, tattooing was seen as distinctly sexual and the location of tattoos (in the mouth, on the genitals) obviously sexual though the interpretation more complex.   These tattoos became eroticised.  In the BDSM community and in the primal subculture of that community, temporary piercing, and tattooing is often incorporated into sexual scenes.  There are some artists who are happy to have a partner attend the tattooing and either politely ignore or are incorporated into the scene.  One British artist told me that it was not unusual for women in particular to have orgasms when he was tattooing on thighs and labia in spite of the pain.   He said that it turned him on to be able to cause an orgasm in this way but that he didn’t make any assumptions about what this meant.  He was clear that he did nothing but tattoo but did say that he had been propositioned more than a few times by women he was tattooing. 

In addition to tattooing, people have decorative cuttings, cell popping and temporary branding done during sexual scenes.  This is far more popular as part of a BDSM scene, though it is very edgy.  Cell popping is done with a very hot probe touched to an individual pore and it causes a burn.  This goes on pore by pore until the design is created.   Cell popping is a form of scarification tattooing.  This type of tattooing creates scars rather than using ink and is also thousands and thousands of years old.  Though some of these are seen as temporary for many people, cuttings and popping will last so make sure you are happy to have whatever you are putting on your skin be there forever. 

Branding is not for the faint of heart.  It can be incredibly painful.  A number of methods are used. Strike branding which is using heated metal that is pressed into the skin.  This doesn’t often heal into a clean mark so it is not preferred.   Cautery branding is related to the tool used for cell popping.  Laser branding allows for more precision and for the person to regulate the damage done to the tissues surrounding the brand so it creates a much cleaner design.  Cold branding is done with a metal tool that has been cooled using liquid nitrogen.  The advantage is that this doesn’t cause keloid scarring.

Cutting is done in a variety of ways as well.  There is ink rubbing which is as it sounds.  Tattoo ink is rubbed into the cuts.  Skin removal is when lines of skin are literally cut and removed.  Usually a sterile scalpel is used.

With all of these, after care is extremely important.  Where ever you are causing breaks in the skin, infection is a possibility.  In order to avoid infection, tools used need to be sterile.  Area needs to be as sterile as possible.  The area needs to be kept clean afterwards throughout the whole healing process.  Follow the instructions given by the person who is doing your tattoo, cutting, cell popping or branding. 

All of these things take experience.  Use common sense and don’t let just anyone do any of these things to your body.  I do not recommend engaging in any of these activities at a BDSM or Kink event unless you know the history and experience of the practitioner.  Recognise that doing anything that breaks your skin or damages your skin is an infection risk and own that risk.  Do what you can to lower the risk.

Take your time and don’t be pressured into anything.  Negotiation for cuttings, brands, cell popping, tattoos, in fact anything that will cause a permanent mark, should be done in a neutral space BEFORE the scene and never when you have already been involved in a scene as if you are in an altered state, you might agree to something you regret later.

Even if you believe this is a permanent relationship, my advice is that you never put someone else’s name on your body.  Even initials are questionable.  These days tattoo cover ups can be superb but it is best not to have to deal with cover ups if possible.  Tattoo removal leaves scarring so it is not a perfect removal.

Finally, if you are in the Los Angeles area, Lantz Huston, owner of Shoebox Tattoo  is a fantastic artist.  He is worth travelling to see.

Thanks for joining me for the A to Z of Sex this week. Write to me with suggestions for the show, questions you want answered at drloribeth@atozofsex.com , follow me on twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

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