When you do a jailhouse tattoo, you jab yourself in the skin hundreds of times with a sewing needle. A lot of body art snobs had told me getting it done with a gun hurt a lot less. Let me tell you now, the snobs didn't know what they were talking about. The heavy lines hurt just as much, if not more, because the pinpricks are concentrated into one cutting line. It feels more like a dull knife cutting the skin sometimes. The fine shading didn't hurt as much. One thing was for sure, though, it took a lot less time to use a gun than it did to use a single needle.
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All photos copyright 1998 by Efrain Gonzalez. No reproduction without permission.
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