tattoo WHO?

right before sally hoisted her foot onto the dinner table to show off her tattoo, she'd been haranguing us about the state of popular music. " it's just noise," she whispered conspiratorially, " they're just screaming." she leaned back in her chair as if she expected someone to take a swing at her. her face was resolute. she damn well meant what she said. i guess to prove that she was still hip tho, her foot came flying up from beneath the table.

while i think michael was amused, personally i was stunned. not by the obvious absurdity of calling "todays" music noise when compared w/what we used to listen to, (o say, grand funk)& not even by her foot sitting right there on the table next to her manicotti, but by the tat. sally had a tat! this was groundbreaking! this was earth shaking! this was another chance for me to try & talk ann into getting one! i was deeply grateful to sal.

tats & piercings really demarcate the generations. they mean different things to different people too. when REsearch published the "modern primitives" issue, it was really quite shocking(& i'm not even talking about fakir mustapha)even to the younger kids who worked at the outrigger. it wasn't long before they were lining up at second skin in new orleans tho. i don't think they were swayed by the thoughtful philosophy as articulated in the journal. i don't think they were re-tooling their bodies into works of art or rejecting modernity & it's corporate manipulation of body image. they just looked cool & were, therefore, hot!



i imagine that was lynn's main concern when her daughter wanted her belly button pierced. there is an inherent sexuality in tats & piercings, the inarguable fact of the body, its attractiveness, its responsiveness. add to that the fact that standard tats & piercings are usually put on or near erogenous zones & you're definitely on thin ice w/a 16yo girl. lynn saw piercings as utterly sexual. they were not cool to her & probably never were. i'm sure lots of parents have put their feet down on this issue. at least until their kids turn 18yo. that's a different story all together. i wish i had a dollar for all the tats & piercings that get done the first month of every new college year.

my buddy nancy got her clit hood pierced in new orleans last summer. i encouraged it. what can i say? i don't care that we're older & that maybe it's a youngster's game nowadays. nan wanted something to augment her sexual feelings & from what everyone says, that'll do it. she confirmed that it did too.

as for me, i'm not baffled by any of it. i'm not repulsed. i'm not sure if i'm tuned into what's cool or not but i do know what's hot to me. tats & piercings imply a willful concentration on the body. they are figuratively & quite literally sexual enhancements. that's hot. to me.

for ann? not so much. the different attempts at persuasion? they didn't work entirely.