Essay On Tattooing In America

The practice of tattooing the human body has become an increasingly prevalent and significant practice in American society in recent decades. Tattoos are increasingly common and socially accepted. Persons from all walks of life are increasingly likely to get a tattoo, along with people from all age groups, races, and genders. This social phenomenon represents a dramatic change in the social and cultural mores of American society. Until approximately thirty years ago, tattoos were not particularly common. In fact, having a tattoo carried with it a certain social stigma. Persons with tattoos were commonly regarded as deviant, disreputable, or even criminal. At the very least, having a tattoo was considered to be a sign of being “low class.” However, a strong reversal of this trend has taken place in recent decades. The practice of tattooing has greatly proliferated, and tattoo parlors are very common businesses. Many American cities have a tattoo shop on …show more content…
It is now known to anthropologists that human tattooing was practiced in the Neolithic age perhaps as long as ten thousand years ago. Many of the early indigenous people practiced tattooing and tattoos can be found on the surviving remains of ancient Egyptian mummies. Many of the native tribes of Northern Europe also practiced tattooing, and the remains of tattooed corpses have been found in Asia that date back for thousands of years. The status of the practice of tattooing has also varied throughout the history of different civilizations. For example, tattooing was considered to be an uncivilized act in ancient China, and tattooing was a practice that was found mostly among slaves and criminals. In ancient Egypt, it was more common for women rather than men to have tattoos (Rubin, 1988). In traditional Indian society, tattooing was associated with the caste system, and tattoos were often used to signify membership in a