I ink, therefore I am

Have tattoos lost their street cred, asks Maggie Follett after an overdose of skin art

When I was 16, I desired - more than anything - to have a modest black rose tattooed on my bicep. Thwarted by a parental cadenza, this was followed by unfulfilled longings for a Sagittarian centaur; the yin- yang sign; The Stranglers's logo; a rat; "f**k you" in Irish; a zip; the word "peace" in Chinese ... Pedestrian though these yearnings were, I saw tattoos as badges of uniqueness and social rebellion. Caught in a spiral of inking angst, I missed the bus.

Can an icon on the skin adequately express the sum of our accumulated life experiences? Most owners of indelible follies piously refer to them as "rites of passage" (betrayed by a faint wince of regret). Once the preserve of various tribes, sailors, gangsters and other subcultures, body art has become a fad so effortlessly obtainable that it's slumped comfortably into the bourgeois mainstream.

There are, apparently, some six standard reasons for tattoos: honouring a loved one; marking a life-changing event; disguising a physical flaw; club membership; spiritual affiliations; and temporary insanity (drunkenness/a bet/sheer exhibitionist idiocy).

At last month's annual Cape Tattoo Convention, I met sultry, neo-Gothic soubrette Christy, the daughter of a former adman, who - following a client's injunction to "fill up the space" - is decorating tracts of skin with skulls. "Some people collect paintings," she said. "I prefer to wear art on my body."

Nearby, Gary was under the needle to create an elaborate Japanese mask.

Juli-Mari, who believes in "putting the inside on the outside", was adorned with Biblical quotations in Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic. Yvette, sporting two Siamese cats on her upper arm, called her inkings: "The trail marks of your luggage."

Catherine's body art "all means something personal". The Hindu goddess Lakshmi; a Buddhist prayer; her children's names; her late father's favourite fish. Marie's skin "reflects different life phases"; a moth as a tribute to a dead friend and a panoply of "gladiators, heroines and survivors".

Brandon, a photographer who works in the movie industry, has an "artisanal" tattoo: spiritual symbols hand-tapped with sharpened sticks by a shaman from a tribe of Iban head-hunters, in a remote village in the jungles of Borneo. Seriously.

After meeting occultists, fetishists and collectors, seekers, philosophers and spiritual questers, bikers, musos and sundry trendoids, I began to suffer sensory overload. Despite my admiration for talented ink artists (and people with the chutzpah to wear their renderings), there's a sense that - with formerly underworld imagery now adorning the soft-living bodies of corporate executives - tattoos have lost their street cred.

Once a daring vehicle for self-expression, they've evolved into fashion statements for little sisters, mums, aunties and grannies who flaunt discreet dolphins, rainbows, flowers, unicorns, dragons and butterflies above their butts, driving committed enthusiasts to ever-wilder excesses of embellishment.

Among hard-core devotees, it seems to be a desperate game of body art one-upmanship and overkill.

Tattooing is expensive, painful and permanent. In a world where less is no longer more, surely enough is enough?