Body Art.

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 illegal, artists had little to fear from state authorities. Satisfied customers weren't likely to turn them in, and police-- as Marchand and others confirm--were more inclined to join their clientele than to bust them. There were no inspections, no regulations, and no taxes.

Still, most tattooists fought hard for legalization and the security it brings. Marchand, who lives in Massachusetts, has been driving an hour-long commute into Connecticut so that he can operate an above-board business. He says he hasn't heard of any health disasters resulting from the thriving underground, but he's all for law and order: "It's like a minicombat zone.... It's definitely got to be regulated."