Living Canvas

And in the last several years, body piercing has taken off, inspired by the examples of fashion icons such as Janet Jackson (nipple, tongue and nose) and Dennis Rodman (ears, nostrils, navel, lip and scrotum--although the last was removed after an infection set in). Leslie Maltz, a 37-year-old Californian whose self-description--"an Encino housewife"--is virtually a byword for conventionality, recently had her navel pierced and put a diamond-studded horseshoe through it, after she rejected the idea of a tattoo. Now, she says, "I don't feel like an Encino housewife anymore, I feel like a sex symbol. My husband is turned on--in fact, every man who sees it is turned on. It changed everything about how I feel about myself." And if it makes a 37-year-old housewife feel like that, you can imagine what it does to teenage girls. Some high schools still enforce bans on tattoos and piercing, but others have adopted a policy of "don't ask, don't stick your tongue out at the teacher if there's anything attached to it." "I think it's become prevalent enough so that it's not strange to principals anymore," says Michael Carr of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

That, of course, raises the question no museum dare ask: how long can a trend survive once it no longer outrages high-school principals? "Not that long ago, ear piercing for men was way out there," says Clinton Sanders, a professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut. "Now the police officer who stops you has his ear pierced." Sanders thinks the next frontier in body modification is surgical implants. Satyrs' horns are starting to poke out on the foreheads of the fanatically avant-garde. Eventually teenagers who want to shock their parents will have to try something else, like maybe ties and jackets. And tattoos, says McCabe, can reclaim their function as a way to connect with mankind's primitive past--"a deeply spiritual thing, a defining thing. There are three things about it that haven't changed," he adds: "it hurts, it bleeds and it lasts forever."

Not Just for Outlaw Bikers

Tattooing and other forms of body modification are losing their power to shock as the infiltrate the mainstream - althought they can still really hurt and bleed

Tara Weingarte

© 1999