A nation of tattooed women

Warner Todd Huston

I was walking down the aisle of a clothes store with my wife the other day, looking at how high priced all those tiny little clothes popular with today's young women are and wondering what the heck MY wife was doing there. As we walked around for a few minutes I noticed a nice looking young woman walking into the store. Not that I WANTED to notice her, of course .. (My wife helps me proof read these things, you understand) She was dressed in the typically show all style of the lamented Generation Xers. A barely there top. Hip hugger jeans. Platform shoes. She turned around to look at a rack and I noticed a very large tattoo of a rising sun at her waist line on the small of her back.

Now, this did not surprise me since I haven't been living under a rock since the early 90's after all. I have noticed that it is quite popular for young women to get tattoos these days, apparently. But my curiosity was piqued. Since I really have little interest in clothes as any fashion consultant can tell by giving MY style a cursory glance, I began to take a mental note of all the tattooed women I could see in my little microcosm of America at the mall. I am not sure if my wife realized this was an experiment of observation for this piece or not but she did not give me the "eye" too often, in any case.

I saw tattoos on shoulders. Arms. Backs. Bellies. Hands. Necks. Legs and even one on a face, for Heavan's sake. Naturally, it was easy to see them with the dearth of clothing covering the young women there. All in all it appeared that a full 25% or more of the young women who frequent our mall have tattoos and tattoos in public places at that. I imagined that I could add another 5% at least for the tattoos in unseen areas not that I was imagining those areas... (Mental note: have my buddy proof read this)

It proved to me that tattoos are very, very popular among the average women from their teens to their mid 20's. Tattoos are not for the well used Biker Chicks of MY youth any more to say the least. It also occurred to me that I just can't seem to imagine my 85 year old Grandmother sporting one. Nor even my stately and proper Aunt who I can barely imagine would do any thing untoward.

It also occurred to me that we live in an era of self indulgence that 9/11 can't even penetrate. A time of almost nihilistic self aggrandizement. It used to be that the women of the United States were considered "paragons of virtue". That their bodies were their "temple". That to be chaste and pure was the goal. Now, I know as well as everyone else that these lofty desires were not always true to life and that many women fell far short of the ideal. But it WAS the ideal. What they all talked about, read about, hoped their daughters would be even if they were not.

Books were written about it in the 1700's, 1800's and 1900's. Articles were written about those ideals in newspapers and magazines. Radio shows were produced to expound upon them. Then, it just seemed to stop to be replaced with burning bras and doing without those awful, evil MEN. Now we have young women who have lost the role of keepers of the art of love, courtship, marriage and sexual intimacy. Lost the tradition of marriage for keeps to have it replaced with silly whirlwind flings that are thought of as long term relationships most of which end in divorce at least 50% of the time. We have young women displaying themselves like meat. At younger and younger ages they are sexualizing themselves then getting mad when young boys make comments to them or in their hormone inflamed stupidity grope at them (and those young men are just as badly trained in the art of propriety, but that is another article).

Now, I know I am not the first man to complain that our Father's had it better with their women folk than we do but I cannot help but observe this collapse of the role women should play in society. Certainly I am not saying they need to be barefoot and pregnant and I am not saying that they should stay home to cook for their men, necessarily. But a little MODESTY would be nice!

And all those tattoos. Aren't they a fine manifestation of the cavalier attitude young women have for their bodies, their sexuality and their acknowledgement of propriety? But, maybe I'm just getting old.