Senior Megan Maynard has two tattoos and started the first of five body piercings at 15. The most noticeable one is on her nose. Maynard said the piercings were a form of expression when she was younger, but they have grown with her. "I don’t ever think of myself without them," she said. Of course, if one does tire of piercings, they can be removed and will heal in time. Tattoos are a bit more difficult to live with if one has a change of heart. Recently, permanent body art has became a little more accessible in Virginia Beach with the opening of J.D. Crowe’s Ancient Art Tattoo Parlor. After eight months of litigation with the city, Ancient Art finally had the necessary permits to begin business. The grand opening on Aug. 25 marked the first legally operated tattoo parlor in Virginia Beach in decades. As expected, business has been booming, since this is the only place in Virginia Beach to get tattooed.

Sophomore Heather Segraves was one of the first to be tattooed in the new parlor in celebration of her birthday. "I’m tired of everyone thinking I’m predictable, so I wanted to do something crazy," she said. Segraves said her parents were shocked when they found out, but she feels positive about her tattoo because it has special meaning to her. The tattoo is symbolic of her membership in Sigma Sigma Sigma, with a small purple violet and the letters of the sorority on her ankle. "I’m in it for life, so it should be on me for life," she said. Segraves felt positive about the entire experience: "It was awesome. Once he started it felt like a massage." Ancient Art Tattoo Parlor, located at 4978 Cleveland St., has seven experienced tattoo artists and samples of their work. They will do custom work and even offer a 10 percent discount for payment in cash. They also accept major credit cards and personal checks and are open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Sara Brown works at Ancient Art, answering questions and assisting customers in any way possible. Brown said customers should be prepared for a visit to the parlor and stressed a few key points. "Be prepared to wait in line, and please don’t come drunk or on any illegal substances or we won’t be able to serve you." It would be in your best interest to also consider the importance of a tattoo before branding yourself with the name of that special someone you’ve been in love with for an entire day. Choose carefully and consider the ever important question, "Is this something I really want?" If body art is just a trend, how long will it last? Disco didn’t survive past the seventies, but bellbottoms are still popular in some places. Will your piercing or tattoo still be popular to you once the novelty wears off?

For as long as I can remember I have loved tattoos, but lately I have become immune to seeing them. It used to mean something personal to the individual who sported artwork on his or her body. There was usually a story behind each one, and while not all were pretty, they were unique to the individual. My father had two tattoos, one on each arm. "I hate them," he used to say. "I was 19 and stupid." Just as my father has aged, so have his tattoos, to the point of being barely visible. Ink in the ’50s wasn’t as potent as today’s ink.

Junior Misty Parker has three tattoos. She was 20 years old when she got her first tattoo, two large roses with greens on her left calf. Now 26, Parker has no regrets about her tattoos. "I will have these for life," she said. "I may even get more." Parker said she had always wanted a tattoo, as long as it was feminine and could be hidden if needed. "I think the human body is beautiful, and as long as you decorate it nicely, tattoos can be very pretty." Parker’s other tattoos include a tattoo of Thumper, and a series of a rose and hearts. The Thumper tattoo represents her nickname and the other symbolizes her family. Parker said the large blue rose represents herself, accompanied by a large red heart for her husband, and three small pink hearts for each of her children. To those considering tattoos, Parker said, "Keep it simple and make it mean something to you. Tattoos are forever, and so are the scars when you need to get them removed."

Director of Security, Leo Therrien stuck to that advice before he got a chain tattooed around his right wrist. The tattoo symbolizes his achievement of circumnavigated the world during his time in the Navy. "The older guys already had theirs," he said. "It was our way of showing we had done it." Therrien said this tradition had gone on in the Navy for many years, and he has no regrets about the tattoo he’s had since 1967. "By no means am I bashing tattoos. I have also had one for a while. I thought long and hard about my decision and do not have any regrets. I thought of my future years and how a tattoo might look on different places on my body once I aged. Unless seen in shorts or a bathing suit, no one would know I even had a tattoo."

It’s hard to visualize what your body is going to look like 20 years from now, but you should think about it now. It’s also important to think of your career, what you want to do and how co-workers or customers may perceive you. It’s one thing to take pride in your individuality, but realistically, not everyone you run into will take time to get to know the real you because they can’t get past the vampire bites dripping with blood that you have tattooed on your neck.

Tattooing in America has evolved over time and changed drastically. What once was only used to show pride, honor and patriotism is now mainly used to display a unique design. According to Stephen G. Gilbert, who wrote Tattoo History: A Source Book, the first documented tattooing with a sharp tool or needle in which a dye was injected under the top layer of skin was first practiced in Ancient Egypt between 4000 and 2000 B.C. In America tattooing dates back to the early 19th century in records in ships’ logs, letters and diaries written by seamen. Gilbert’s book highlights Herman Melville, a sailor aboard a U.S. Navy frigate in the 1840s. In his memoirs he writes about people who would tattoo others: "Excelled in tattooing or pricking, as it’s called in a man-of-war. Of these prickers, two had long been celebrated, in their way, as consummate masters of the art. Each had a small box full of tools and coloring matter, and they charged so high for their services that at the end of the cruise they were supposed to have cleared upward of $400. They would prick you to order a palm tree, an anchor, a crucifix, a lady, a lion, an eagle or anything else you might want." Most of the early designs were symbols of the time, inspired by the experiences of soldiers and sailors during wars. The tattoos represented courage, patriotism, defiance of death and longing for family and loved ones left behind.

C.H. Fellowes was the first documented professional American tattoo artist in the 19th century. His books and collections of work are in the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Conn. Hundreds of designs in red and black decorate pages of examples of his work. Most of the work features religious, patriotic and nautical themes. Naval engagements which occurred during the Civil War and the Spanish-American War are illustrated in great detail. Since then people have moved away from tattooing historical events on their body. The majority of tattoos today are symbols that mean something to a person or just a design the person likes. "Most of the people I know design their own stuff," said sophomore Ryan Bush. "I think they do it to be original."

"I think people want to make a statement," said Ronnie Hawkins, security guard. "They use it as a billboard. I wouldn’t do it. What happens when you get older and you want to retract that statement you made? You have to get it burned off. I think that would hurt worse." Other people know that they only have a tattoo as a sign of rebellion and meaning. "I got my tattoo as a remembrance tattoo of my Dad’s initials," said sophomore Megan Bronstein. "And my mom won’t let me get my tongue pierced. So I got a tattoo." "One of my tattoos was for my dad. The other I just got on my 19th birthday," said senior Stephen Sturtz. The evolution of tattoos has come a long way, and while the choice to get a tattoo is still a personal one, the meaning of why people get tattoos has varied from generation to generation.

It all started about two years ago. I was a sophomore, about two months into my third semester at Wesleyan. I had been thinking about getting a belly button ring for awhile, but I didn’t have a car, the money or the guts. One Friday afternoon, all that fell into place. I heard a commercial on the radio that Ocean Mystique (a piercing place down at the beach) was having a special: any piercing above the waist was $20. Not bad, I thought, even I can swing that. I mentioned it to the two guys that lived in the room below me, and they offered to drive. Of course they would. These "piercing gurus" between them had a nipple ring, a belly button ring, an eyebrow ring, a couple of tongue rings, a cartilage hole and a few earrings. After convincing my roommate that deep down she really wanted one too, we headed down to the beach.

The piercing itself wasn’t so bad, and I didn’t have time to be nervous, because about halfway there, my roommate began ranting about her fear of needles. She went first, holding the hand of a very nice girl with about 20 piercings on her face. About two minutes later, she came out with her shirt pulled-up proudly, smiling. I was next. My piercing went pretty smoothly too, although I did kind of smack the lady as she pushed the six-inch needle through my belly button. My roommate and I invested in rubbing alcohol and Neosporin and headed back to campus. The next few days were not fun, but they were livable. We walked around like we were pregnant, and we couldn’t close the top button of our jeans for a while. But really, the worst pain probably came when I called my mother to tell her the happy news. She gave me that "I am so disappointed in you -- I taught you better than to do something so stupid" sigh. Never any fun.

About a month later, the piercing gurus from downstairs gave me and my roommate matching belly button rings for Christmas. I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to change my ring, since the silver hoop had been clashing with my gold jewelry for over a month. In retrospect, I probably should have listened to the piercer’s suggestion to wait six months before changing the ring. It was all down hill from there. My ring just never healed right. It hurt a lot, and I had to constantly clean it because it was always oozing not-so-cool stuff. But hey, I was a trooper, and I stuck it out. Even a year later, when the ring got caught on the button of my jeans in my Spanish class and almost ripped out of my stomach, I hung in there. I wasn’t gonna take it out after all I had gone through. No way! I had invested a lot of effort, time and money in that piercing. Plus, it was the principle of the whole thing. I hate telling my mother when she is right. Then last spring, about a year and a half after I got it pierced, the ring became particularly irritating, so I rotated the ball completely away from the infected side. The ring my piercing-guru-friends had gotten me had a ball on each end of a curved bar, which formed a twisted half circle. After I rotated it, the ball was really far under my belly button. But it felt a lot better, so I left it and didn’t worry.

The next morning in the shower, I tried to rotate the ring, as usual, but it wouldn’t move. I looked closer and saw that my skin had completely healed over one of the balls. There was no way to move the ring, or get it out. I freaked out. I called my piercing guru and well, he didn’t believe me. I went over to his room, he looked at it, and told me he thought he could fix it. I lay down, and he got out his biology dissecting kit. Now, as I was lying there, my belly button ring stuck in my stomach, I began to wonder how I had ever managed to get myself in this situation. And when I glanced over and saw him cleaning frog guts off of his scalpel with alcohol pads, I got REALLY scared. I mean, biology major, pre-med, whatever -- he wasn’t a surgeon yet. And his lack of qualifications (coupled with the growing infection on my stomach) began to make me queasy. To make matters worse, I had begun to draw a crowd. I looked up at the lofted bed above me and saw someone getting a bird’s-eye view of the -- well, surgery.

As soon as he touched the area I freaked out. He said to calm down, because he didn’t think he could do it anyway. It was too deep. I decided to call Mom. Initially, I heard a lot of "Are you serious?" and "You have got to be kidding me!" and "I told you so," but eventually, she told me to just go to the hospital. It was then that I was reminded of my piercing-guru’s large scar on his stomach, which was the result of a surgery to remove HIS infected ring from his belly button. I thought -- NOT ME. I reached down, bit hard on my teeth, and popped the ring through the skin. Needless to say, it did not feel very good, and it bled. Honestly, even after the whole fiasco, I was tempted to leave the ring in. I figured, hey, the problem is fixed! But in the end, I used my better judgement and decided to give my poor belly button a break. I don’t know if I regret getting my belly button pierced. For the year and a half I had it, I really liked it. However, I now have a very visible scar just above my belly button, which bothers me whenever I see it. I have been wondering what to do about it. I’ve been thinking that the best way to cover it up might be a little gold bar. . .