Tattoos without pain: The club of benign masochists

It's been a long time since I got a tattoo. The hour-long, painful sessions have taken the fun out of me over the years. At first the adrenaline helped me dull the pain - I was finally doing something new and exciting. But the more I put myself under the needle, the more I felt the stitches. Then I recently read about a start-up in London that has apparently developed the solution for people like me: painless tattoos that are placed under the skin using plasters with extremely fine needles.

It sounds like a solution. But it doesn't feel right. Is suffering from tattooing really a problem that needs to be overcome?

The term “tattoo” has its origins in the Tahitian word “tātau”, which, depending on the source, either refers to the rhythmic noise in the traditional tattooing method or means something like “to strike wounds”. Pain originally played an important role in Polynesian society. The son of the chief of Tahiti is said to have been closely observed while tattooing to find out how much pain he could endure. In Samoa, it was said that tattoos for men were the equivalent of the intense pain a woman endures during childbirth.

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In Europe, too, the feeling of the skin played an important role in tattooing. In the case of the glacier mummy Ötzi, for example, the tattoos are located exactly on the body meridians that are used in acupuncture to relieve pain. Tattoos and the pain that accompany them have always been part of mysterious rituals and initiation rites.

These rites no longer exist in the Western mainstream. But pain still serves an important function. It is true that the person who has hit their knee will rarely enjoy it. However, the phenomenon of “benign masochism” is described in science, which translates as “benign masochism”. Accordingly, one can experience pleasure from physical stimuli that are actually unpleasant - provided that the brain signals absolute safety.

The tattoo studio is such a safe, modern ritual space. Because in a time when the vast majority of us move in virtual space for many hours, pain marks a certain authenticity. You finally really feel yourself again and are part of the club of those who prefer pain to numbness. It would be a shame if this rare experience disappeared.

This is probably why many tattoo enthusiasts today reject pain-relieving ointments. That doesn't mean you have to like pain. As I said, I find it extremely uncomfortable and there are places that I wouldn't or wouldn't put under a tattoo machine - for example my elbow. It's completely covered in paint.

The tattoo artist had to do that twice back then. It swelled to the thickness of a mango. For days I could only sleep with my arm stretched upwards. When I look back on it today, I always think: I really deserved the motif.