Ink Stink

According to an article at Raw Story, more women than men are getting tattoos. This is not really too earth shattering or important, I know, but listen to the reasons why some of them are doing it. Bear in mind these are grown-ups:

For some, tattoos still feel rebellious. Rosemarie Osborn, a former policewoman, said she’d taken the plunge at 35 to celebrate her divorce.

Wendy Richard got hers on arrival in New York from her home state of Wisconsin.

“It’s a culture thing and I am part of that culture,” she said. “It shows you are strong and tough… It’s a confidence thing, it shows you are not afraid of pain, and that you can make choices for life.”

Hannah Gopa, a photography student, was one of the rare visitors to the convention who did not already have a tattoo.

She said she was “considering” the move because her friends already have them. But she was still hesitating.

“It’s a way of showing your inner self without saying, ‘but I still don’t know who I am,’” she said.

Well, maybe, but to borrow a formulation from Freud, sometimes a tattoo is just a tattoo. And sometimes a shallow narcissist is just a shallow narcissist. It’s troubling to me that so many adults carry around these kinds of adolescent hang-ups. As long as we behave like children our political leaders are more than happy to treat us as such, even the ones who speak at a tenth grade level.

It occurs to me that Romney has the same problem as that mixed up photography student quoted above. He can’t show his inner self without saying, “but I still don’t know who I am.” (Or having other people say, “God, what an asshole!”) Maybe he should get a tattoo.