Jonathan Zimmerman: Our tattoos, ourselves
[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. His next book, "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory," will be published in June.]
Our daughter wants a tattoo.
Nothing big or gaudy, she assures us. And not right away, either.
She's still in high school, after all, and she knows we won't allow it.
But once she's gone, there's a good chance she'll get one. Ditto for your own daughter, or your son. According to the Pew Research Center, 36 percent of Americans aged 18 to 25 have at least one tattoo.
Like many American parents, I'm revolted at the prospect of my children coming home one day with body ink. But when I try to explain why, I fail. Every reason to oppose tattoos turns out to be, well, unreasonable.
Let's start with the health objection. Only 16 states regulate tattooing, via licensure or sterilization laws. So it would make sense to worry about what else your little princess is getting when she gets her tattoo.
But the numbers tell another story. Since it began tracking HIV/AIDS in 1985, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not discovered a single case of HIV transmission through tattoos. Between 1985 and 1997, it did link 12 cases of hepatitis to tattoo parlors. That's 12 too many, of course, but it hardly qualifies as a national health crisis.
Sure, there are other risks. In 2004 and 2005, the CDC traced 44 cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, to unlicensed tattoo artists. But all of the victims recovered, and we haven't seen a similar cluster since. Nor do people who receive tattoos report unusual skin problems, aside from a bit of sun sensitivity in the first few weeks. As much as I'd like to rest my case on science, I really can't.
So how about religion? I'm Jewish, and tattoos are forbidden by the Torah, right? Even more, you can't get buried in a Jewish cemetery if you've got one. That's why Larry David bribes a gravedigger to bury his mother, despite a small tattoo on her behind, in one of my favorite episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
But it turns out that David -- and the rest of us -- are wrong. Nobody knows how this particular urban legend began, but there's simply no evidence that Jewish cemeteries bar people with body ink. So rest assured that your loved ones can go to their resting place, tattoo or no tattoo.
Indeed, it's not even clear that Judaism prohibits tattooing.
True, Leviticus 19:28 warns, "You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead nor incise any marks on yourself." But the same injunction would seem to forbid ear piercing, which doesn't set off any alarm bells where I live.
Tattoos still do. And that's because of their social and cultural connotation, of course, not their religious one. For parents of a certain age, tattoos conjure a shady underworld of drugs, danger and deviance.
There's a good reason for that. When we were kids, in the 1950s and 1960s, tattoos signified rebellion against middle-class conformity.
We associated them with street gangs, motorcycle clubs, ex-cons and drunks. And the problem ran in families, or so we were told. In 1959, the National Education Association advised schools that "potential juvenile delinquents" could be identified as "those with male kin who are tattooed."
And it was mostly males who got inked. In a culture of straight-laced Organization Men, tattoos came to embody a kind of rough-hewn, frontier-style masculinity. That's why Philip Morris Co. decided to adorn its Marlboro Man -- the epitome of 1950s machismo -- with a small piece of body art on his hand. "We wished to show a man who, during some moment -- some loose moment -- got himself tattooed," an advertising executive explained.
Fast-forward to earlier this year, when Mattel Co. released its Totally Stylin' Tattoos Barbie. It comes with a set of tattoo stickers that can be placed anywhere on her body, plus a tattoo gun that allows children to ink the doll -- or themselves.
That tells you all you need to know about the changed cultural meaning of the American tattoo. It has become just as common among women as men. If even Barbie is getting inked, and it's totally stylin', we can be sure that there's nothing remotely rebellious about tattoos.
And that could be the best news of all. As tattoos become more accepted, kids might find that the most defiant move is to leave them alone.
That's why the heavily tattooed ex-rocker and reality-show star Ozzy Osbourne warned his own daughter against body ink. "To be unique, don't get a tattoo," Osbourne urged. "Because everybody else has got tattoos." Of course, his daughter got one anyway.
Now let's see what mine decides.
Our daughter wants a tattoo.
Nothing big or gaudy, she assures us. And not right away, either.
She's still in high school, after all, and she knows we won't allow it.
But once she's gone, there's a good chance she'll get one. Ditto for your own daughter, or your son. According to the Pew Research Center, 36 percent of Americans aged 18 to 25 have at least one tattoo.
Like many American parents, I'm revolted at the prospect of my children coming home one day with body ink. But when I try to explain why, I fail. Every reason to oppose tattoos turns out to be, well, unreasonable.
Let's start with the health objection. Only 16 states regulate tattooing, via licensure or sterilization laws. So it would make sense to worry about what else your little princess is getting when she gets her tattoo.
But the numbers tell another story. Since it began tracking HIV/AIDS in 1985, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not discovered a single case of HIV transmission through tattoos. Between 1985 and 1997, it did link 12 cases of hepatitis to tattoo parlors. That's 12 too many, of course, but it hardly qualifies as a national health crisis.
Sure, there are other risks. In 2004 and 2005, the CDC traced 44 cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, to unlicensed tattoo artists. But all of the victims recovered, and we haven't seen a similar cluster since. Nor do people who receive tattoos report unusual skin problems, aside from a bit of sun sensitivity in the first few weeks. As much as I'd like to rest my case on science, I really can't.
So how about religion? I'm Jewish, and tattoos are forbidden by the Torah, right? Even more, you can't get buried in a Jewish cemetery if you've got one. That's why Larry David bribes a gravedigger to bury his mother, despite a small tattoo on her behind, in one of my favorite episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
But it turns out that David -- and the rest of us -- are wrong. Nobody knows how this particular urban legend began, but there's simply no evidence that Jewish cemeteries bar people with body ink. So rest assured that your loved ones can go to their resting place, tattoo or no tattoo.
Indeed, it's not even clear that Judaism prohibits tattooing.
True, Leviticus 19:28 warns, "You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead nor incise any marks on yourself." But the same injunction would seem to forbid ear piercing, which doesn't set off any alarm bells where I live.
Tattoos still do. And that's because of their social and cultural connotation, of course, not their religious one. For parents of a certain age, tattoos conjure a shady underworld of drugs, danger and deviance.
There's a good reason for that. When we were kids, in the 1950s and 1960s, tattoos signified rebellion against middle-class conformity.
We associated them with street gangs, motorcycle clubs, ex-cons and drunks. And the problem ran in families, or so we were told. In 1959, the National Education Association advised schools that "potential juvenile delinquents" could be identified as "those with male kin who are tattooed."
And it was mostly males who got inked. In a culture of straight-laced Organization Men, tattoos came to embody a kind of rough-hewn, frontier-style masculinity. That's why Philip Morris Co. decided to adorn its Marlboro Man -- the epitome of 1950s machismo -- with a small piece of body art on his hand. "We wished to show a man who, during some moment -- some loose moment -- got himself tattooed," an advertising executive explained.
Fast-forward to earlier this year, when Mattel Co. released its Totally Stylin' Tattoos Barbie. It comes with a set of tattoo stickers that can be placed anywhere on her body, plus a tattoo gun that allows children to ink the doll -- or themselves.
That tells you all you need to know about the changed cultural meaning of the American tattoo. It has become just as common among women as men. If even Barbie is getting inked, and it's totally stylin', we can be sure that there's nothing remotely rebellious about tattoos.
And that could be the best news of all. As tattoos become more accepted, kids might find that the most defiant move is to leave them alone.
That's why the heavily tattooed ex-rocker and reality-show star Ozzy Osbourne warned his own daughter against body ink. "To be unique, don't get a tattoo," Osbourne urged. "Because everybody else has got tattoos." Of course, his daughter got one anyway.
Now let's see what mine decides.