Tattoo-Body Art Tattooing has been a Eurasian practice at least since Neolithic times. Mummies bearing tattoos and dating from the end of the second millennium BCE have been discovered in Xinjiang, West China. Japanese Tattooing is thought to go back to the Paleolithic era, some ten thousand years ago. Various other cultures have had their own tattoo traditions, ranging from rubbing cuts and other wounds with ashes, to hand-pricking the skin to insert dyes. Tattoos have served as rites of passage, marks of status and rank, symbols of religious and spiritual devotion, decorations for bravery, sexual lures and marks of fertility, pledges of love, punishment, amulets and talismans, protection, and as the marks of outcasts, slaves and convicts. Today, people choose to be tattooed for cosmetic, religious and magical reasons, and as a symbol of belonging to or identification with particular groups. Some M?ori still choose to wear intricate moko on their faces. In Cambodia and Thailand, the yantra tattoo is used for protection. People have also been forcibly tattooed for a various reasons. The best known is the ka-tzetnik identification system for Jews in part of the concentration camps during the Holocaust. European sailors were known to tattoo the crucifixion on their backs to prevent flogging (since it was a crime to deface an image of Christ). Tattoos are also placed on animals, though very rarely for decorative reasons. Pets, show animals, thoroughbred horses and livestock are sometimes tattooed with identification and other marks. Pet dogs and cats are often tattooed with a serial number (usually in the ear, or on the inner thigh) via which their owners can be identified. In Australia, the symbol ? is tattooed in the ears of cats and dogs to indicate that they have been neutered. Also, animals are occasionally tattooed to prevent sunburn (on the nose, for example). Such tattoos are often performed by the veterinarian him or herself and in most cases, the animals are anaesthetized during the process. Branding is used for similar reasons and is often performed without anaesthesia, but is different from tattooing as no ink or dye is inserted during the process. When used as a form of cosmetic surgery, tattooing includes permanent makeup, and hiding or neutralize skin discolorations. Permanent cosmetics are tattoos that enhance eyebrows, lips (liner or lipstick), eyes (shadow, mascara, liner), and even moles, usually with natural colors as the designs are intended to resemble makeup. Tattoos have experienced a resurgence in popularity in recent decades in many parts of the world, particularly in North America, Japan, and Europe. The growth in tattoo culture has seen an influx of new artists into the industry, many of whom have technical and fine art training. Coupled with advancements in tattoo pigments and the ongoing refinement of the equipment used for tattooing, this has led to an improvement in the quality of tattoos being produced. Movie stars, models, popular musicians and sports figures are just some of the people in the public eye who are tattooed, which in turn has fueled the acceptance of tattoos. During the 2000s, the presence of tattoos became evident within pop culture, inspiring television shows such as A&E's Inked and TLC's Miami Ink. In many traditional cultures tattooing has also enjoyed a resurgence, partially in deference to cultural heritage. Historically, a decline in traditional tribal tattooing in Europe occurred with the spread of Christianity. A decline often occurred in other cultures following European efforts to convert aboriginal and indigenous people to Western religious and cultural practices that held tattooing to be a "pagan" or "heathen" activity. Within some traditional indigenous cultures, tattooing takes place within the context of a rite of passage between adolescence and adulthood. A poll conducted online between July 14 and 20, 2003 (Harris 2003), found that 16% of all adults in the United States have at least one tattoo. The highest incidence of tattoos was found among the gay, lesbian and bisexual population (31%) and among Americans ages 25 to 29 years (36%) and 30 to 39 years (28%). Regionally, people living in the West (20%) were more likely to have tattoos. Democrats were more likely to have tattoos (18%) than Republicans (14%) and Independents (12%); approximately equal percentages of males (16%) and females (15%) have tattoos. However some employers, especially in professional fields, still look down on tattoos or regard them as contributing to an unprofessional appearance. Tattoos can therefore impair a wearer's career prospects, particularly when inked on places not typically covered by clothing, such as the hands, neck or face. It is not unusual for tattoo artists to refuse to tattoo these very conspicuous areas. In some cultures, tattoos still have negative associations despite their increasing popularity, and are generally associated with criminality in the public's mind; therefore those who choose to be tattooed in such countries usually keep their tattoos covered for fear of reprisal. For example, many businesses such as gyms, hot springs and recreational facilities in Japan still ban people with visible tattoos, in part because of their association in the popular imagination with the yakuza, or Japanese mafia. In Western cultures as well, some dress codes specify that tattoos must be covered. According to popular belief, most triad members in Hong Kong have a tattoo of a black dragon on the left biceps and one of a white tiger on the right; in fact, many people in Hong Kong use "left a black dragon, right a white tiger" as a euphemism for a triad member. It is widely believed that one of the initiation rites in becoming a triad member is silently withstanding the pain of receiving a large tattoo in one sitting, usually performed in the traditional "hand-poked" style. In the United States many prisoners and criminal gangs use distinctive prison tattoos to indicate facts about their criminal behavior, prison sentences, and organizational affiliation. This cultural use of tattoos predates the widespread popularity of tattoos in the general population, so older people may still associate tattoos with criminality. At the same time, members of the U.S. military have an equally established and longstanding history of tattooing to indicate military units, battles, etc., and this association is also widespread among older Americans. Tattooing is also widespread in the British Armed Forces. Tattoos can have additional negative associations for women; "tramp stamp" and other similarly derogatory slang phrases are sometimes used to describe a woman's lower back tattoo.