Much of the western religious philosophies deem it sacrilegious to alter the human body. In Leviticus 19:28, the King James version, there is a mention to making body marks, “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you ….” One must agree that to ban something in a culture, the culture must be doing it in the first place. Thus, tattooing was a part of the culture at that time.

In the race to spread monotheism, Jewish and Christian leaders connected tattooing with heathen polytheists. Tattooing in Europe and the Middle East at that time was done mainly for religious and superstitious reasons. Tattooing was relatively widespread among tribal people. In order to keep people from believing in anything that wasn’t monotheistic in nature, any form of tattooing that didn’t show a devotion to God was looked at as sacrilegious.

Over time, as the control of Christianity became stronger, religious leaders saw all tattooing as the work of heathens. It was the Roman emperor, Constantine, who banned tattooing because he thought it was “un-Christian.” This attitude made tattooing very unpopular in the Western world. Tattoos were associated with those who were “unholy” and not likely to receive “God’s blessing.” Later it was the crusaders and then the pilgrims who wanted to spread Christianity through exploration. When they would reach Jerusalem, the Christian Crusaders would get a tattoo as a sign of devotion and to mark this memorable journey, not unlike the exploring sailors who eventually ventured to the Polynesian Islands and got tattooed by the local inhabitants.

As Christian nations started to conquer and pillage foreign soil, they needed to break the hearts and minds of the peoples they conquered to make them easier to control. What worked at home would certainly work in these new lands. The Christian religion and all of its rules and regulations were forced upon the conquered peoples. Tattooing in most of the colonized islands was banned.

The heathens, who seemed to have done just fine over the previous thousands of years, were “saved” and brought to Christianity. This was just a tool to strip the people of their identity, breaking their spirit and their ability to stand up for themselves. It worked just as well as England’s divide-and-conquer routine (the act of getting two local factions to war with each other in order to make both factions weak and easier to conquer), in breaking the natives’ spirits. Not to mention that smallpox and other devastating diseases brought by the westerners killed off many. In 1887, the French took a census and counted 5,246 natives in the Marquesan Islands. There were 90,000 natives there around 1800. Much of the tattoo culture, which played a heavy part in the social structure of the conquered peoples, was lost.

Modern Christian conservatives continued the idea of tattoos as being for heathens. To this day, many religious conservatives still frown upon tattoos and other forms of body modification. In adapting to the evolving views of popular culture, the Catholic view on tattooing appears to be that it’s okay as long as you get tattooed in a safe environment with as little risk to infection as possible. Catholicism also recommends that the tattoos be of good moral taste and not offend or cause harm to your fellow human beings.

Sailors were known for coming into port and spending all their money on booze and tattoos while causing a ruckus. This kept the old attitude that tattoos were for the barbaric alive and well. After being confined to a ship for an extended period of time and without much of anything to spend their money on, sailors would come into port for only a few nights looking for something to do. Due to a tradition of taking souvenirs and not particularly being held back by the attitudes of mainstream society, getting tattooed became a popular form of entertainment. It was, after all, the sailors who ventured to Polynesia and brought back with them the tribal tattoos as well as a means to create them. Like these sailors, for many people there is excitement in traveling and getting a tattoo. For this reason, some of the busiest tattoo shops today are the shops located in tourist destinations.

After WWII, many soldiers came home with tattoos they had gotten when overseas. Some of those soldiers rode motorcycles during the war and continued to do so when they returned to the United States. Anyone who rides a motorcycle can tell you it’s fun to ride with friends. This enjoyment of riding with friends is what led to the formation of biker gangs. Thanks to The Wild One (1953) with Marlon Brando, which portrayed motorcycle gangs as rebellious and unruly, the motorcycle became a symbol of rebellion. Tattoos had been a sign of rebellion for years, so the two forms of rebellion became intertwined.