A Feature About Tattoos

Josephine Joseph, Moran Ben-Aharon, Yael Ardazi, Inbal Golan, Inbal Langer

Grade 10, Amal Comprehensive High School for Science & Arts, Hadera

Introduction:

Usually you can see them on the beach. Small ones on the shoulder, big and colourful on the back. There are some girls who wear bikinis to show their strawberry in a particular place on their bodies - TATOOS. The world is addicted to this "disease," and of course Israel too. Most of the teenagers do tatoos because they want attention. By law their young age forbids them to do tatoos, they are allowed to do it only with the permission of their parents. What do they do then? They fake their parents approval, and steal identity cards, in order to make the drawing on their bodies that will remain as a souvenir from their young days.

At the first step, we went to see exactly how it is done. In front of Avi Venunu who does tatoos, sits a young man who sweats like the Niagara Falls, but he does it quietly. Avi gives him a glass of water calms him down and starts drawing a Bulldog on his shoulder.

The interview:

Does the drawing take a lot of time?

"Tatoos the size of a match box take about 15 minutes. Big tatoos can take up to 4 hours. Once I engraved for 10 hours, a portrait of Dracula.

What are the prices?

"The price starts from NIS 80 and can go up to NIS 1900.

Have you ever screwed up in your job?

"Look, it's never like a macintosh, but there is nothing that can be seen by the eyes."

What do you do in order to protect people from AIDS?

"It's impossible to catch AIDS."

From what age can people do tatoos?

"From the age of 18, if there are under the age of 16, you need a parent with you."

Inbal Golan, 16 years old, did a tatoo on her shoulder:

Weren't you frightened when the needle touched you?

"I almost fainted, it hurt a lot, but the thought that afterwards it will be perfect on the body gives you a good feeling, because I wanted it very much."

Shay Day, 17 years old, remembers how on a winter day he drove to do a tatoo:

"I wanted to be one of the first people in Israel who did tatoos, I thought it was very beautiful and I was very excited." Shay did the tatoo when he was 15 years old. "When I was a child," he says, "I was influenced by my friends who did it."

Were you frightened?

"A little bit."

How did it feel?

"It was enjoyable. It didn't hurt as much as people expect it to."

Were you sorry after you did the tatoo?

"No, I did another two."

Did your parents know about it?

"No, not at all. I told you I was a child."

When they found out what did they say?

"My mother didn't want to talk about it at all. I told her 4 months later, and her reaction wasn't like I expected it to be. She was shocked and that was it."

What were the reations you got from other people?

"People were more excited than I was."

Do you want more tatoos in the future?

"Yes, I'm planning another one. I'm addicted to the pain."

	Interview with a doctor:
	Dr. Dan Meler, plastic surgeon for 32 years, says:
	"The worst danger in tatoos is that people don't like the results and then they want to get rid of the tatoos, but there is always a scar. I think that doing a tatoo on the body because of the beauty in it, is not justified. You need to be careful because there is no way back. When people want to remove a tatoo it coud turn out to be horrible. There is no way back, its not like a hair cut."
	How can the tatoo be removed?
	"With surgery or with a laser, both of these methods will cause scarring."
	Can you get AIDS from tatoos?
	"Yes because its an injection by a needle, and if you don't throw away the needle after one use, there is a big possibility you can get AIDS."
	End of the feature. We hope you liked it.
	(January 8, 1997)