ABSTRACT
This chapter presents results from a larger ethnographic research project exploring the relationship between identity, Italian gay women’s sensibilities, and body modification. Particular attention is paid to tattooing and its potential to express and make visible gay women’s desires and attitudes, which mainstream culture had traditionally ignored or vilified. Body modification unveils intimate emotions and private lives and, when extensive, implies a consistent awareness within the public sphere. Tattooed interviewees usually decided to mark something on their skin when they understood that they were gay. Body modification is seen an initiation rite to symbolise a new beginning and, sometimes, to boldly show off same-sex desires.
