Thursday 26 January 2012

"Winona Forever"


It seems like everyone is doing it - actors, sports stars, singers, doctors, nurses, bogans on Bondi Beach... Some keep it to themselves, saving it for that special someone. Others flaunt it, doing it where everyone can see. It could be black, blue, pink... even fluorescent! It's no longer restricted to dingy alleys or South-East Asian holidays.

I'm talking about getting inked. 

What are you talking about? 

I came across this really interesting article recently, Tales of Tattoo Trend as old as Australia, which notes that a number of convicts arrived in Australia with tattoos. I had absolutely no idea that tattooing was practiced by anyone at that time except tribes in far flung regions of the then-growing British Empire.  

To read that a female convict arrived with "two double hearts pierced with darts and surrounded by a wreath" tattooed on her right hand got me to thinking... who in our family has a 'distinguishing feature' like a tattoo? And, what was the thinking behind it? 

In the interests of full disclosure I admit to being a clean-skin. I've been into a tattoo parlour to support my best friend get her body permanently etched with a shortened version of her family motto but the closest I have been to a tattoo myself is a henna tattoo, a memory that only lasted about 4 weeks after a visit to Dubai. I often joke I'm the only lesbian in Sydney without a tattoo, given that it is such a common form of expression in the gay community. (Well, the community at large really.) I currently have two piercings in each ear lobe, and in the past I have had a piercing in my left ear cartilage and my tongue! 

And you?

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