by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

The other day in the Montreal Agglomeration I witnessed an exceptional sight. A young lady in her 20s leaned over in her midriff-baring spaghetti strap blouse and exposed part of her back. To my genuine disbelief, her lower back WAS NOT covered in one of those Celtic-Polynesian tattoos that every girl now has.

Tats are everywhere. Inkers are needling overtime. If you want to start a business, think tattoo removal clinic. You'll cash in.

I could never figure out the casualness of getting a tattoo. You can't march into a plastic surgeon and spontaneously and immediately get a 20-minute nosejob to regret forever, but you could do something extremely similar with body art.

I brought this question to the Oracle of Margaret Somerville, the McGill ethicist who spends her days mulling over such issues.

"I think that's a really interesting question," she says.

"Thanks," I reply.

Somerville agrees that it could be considered legally dodgy for a tattoo artist to welcome foolish young adults - theoretically baked like a bun - and send them out externally, epidermally, eternally stained.

"It's an issue of informed consent and we've never addressed it to tattooing, as far as I know. But any invasion of the body normally requires a free and informed consent. You have to be competent. If you are drunk, then the competency should be queried. You must be fully informed of all the risks and benefits. If a doctor does something without an informed consent then that doctor could be sued, it's a form of negligence or malpractice."

Cosmetic surgeons face the highest rate of medical lawsuits, "because what you get never lives up to your fantasy," says Somerville. So far it's rare - if not unheard of - to sue your tattoo artist, but it's not inconceivable that such a suit could succeed.

There sure ain't any shortage of Montrealers getting poked by inky needles. Last weekend, a tattoo conference at Windsor Station saw 200 inkers marking up many of the 5,000 participants and visitors, according to organizer Pascal Richard. The 37-year-old Richard, who got his first tattoo at 16, estimates that only five per cent of those who get inked regret it later.

A Harris survey from a year ago says 17 per cent of U.S. tattooees regret their body art. The American Society of Dermatological Surgery puts tat regretees at over half, and the British Journal of Dermatology says three-quarters of everybody who gets a tattoo regrets it later.

I should mention that it costs about 100 times as much to remove a tattoo by laser as it costs to get the tattoo.

The neatest tat I've seen was on a Frenchman's wrist, a smallish cut-along-dotted-line drawing, complete with tiny scissors. He wished he didn't get it. In fact every time I chat with somebody about their tattoo, they confess some degree of regret.

Why do they get them? According to that Harris survey, 42 per cent of tattooed women say that it makes them feel sexier. And yet the same percentage of the non-tattooed said they find tattooed people less attractive.

Perhaps regret is the aim. Maybe some seek to introduce a little bit of drama, some fluffy wistfulness into their emotional lexicon and to have a gimmick to talk about themselves at greater length in the kitchen at house parties.

On the other hand, the untattooed should ease up on their prejudices against the inky folk. It's quite objectionable that they often can't get hired for jobs. Personally, I welcome the day that somebody with LOVE and HATE knuckles serves me at my bank. I might even start insisting on it.

• • •

My friend has disappeared: Behind the Olympic Village sits a miniputt-for-residents that anybody can easily sneak onto. Inside this contraption lived an insanely territorial chipmunk that would fearlessly nibble your shoes while you're putting. I despised that chipmunk. He disappeared and I now realize that I actually loved little Chippy. If anybody has news of the crazy critter, please lemme know if he's okay.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca