Body Art.

• Author: Rimensnyder, Sara
• Position: Massachusetts law against tattooing is overturned - Brief Article

In late October, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge ended the state's 38-year-old ban on tattooing, saying the law restricted free speech. Artists, many of whom campaigned for the repeal, now have state sanction to grace clients' skin with flaming phoenixes, jeering skulls, or anything else. But there's a paradox in this victory: Legalization may mean less freedom, not more.

When the state banned the industry (following a hepatitis scare in the 1950s), the tattooing community didn't disappear. It went underground. According to shop owner and artist Keith Marchand, whose Acute Body Arts Company sits 150 yards outside the Massachusetts border, many of the country's most famous inkers have continued working in the state, despite the ban. As Judge Barbara Rouse noted in her decision, "The current ban on tattooing has promoted an underground tattoo industry with no controls."

Though tattooing was...