Confession: I don’t have any tattoos. When I recently visited an exhibition on the history of tattoos at the New-York Historical Society, I found myself admiring some vintage designs, but I think my moment to get “inked” has passed. When I was a college student, tattoos were still a rarity on my campus, sported only by a few punk rockers and metal heads. When tattoos became popular with mainstream twenty-somethings, I developed a certain level of scorn for the butterflies and “tribal” swirls and Japanese characters everyone suddenly seemed to have on their calves and shoulders and lower backs. And by the time tattooing became legal again in New York and some truly talented tattoo artists were available, I was trying to maintain a serious façade at my then-workplace, for reasons I can no longer remember.
Changing public standards and personal circumstances would now allow me to get a tattoo, if I wanted, but I still don’t think I’ll take the plunge. The main reason: I wouldn’t be able to decide on one image or even several images…