Tattoos as Social Networks

Play: “A paradox to be accepted, tolerated respected and not to be resolved.”

I've always been fascinated by tattoos. Whenever I could get my hands on those proto-flash stick-ons, I excitedly decorated my forearms. They were expressly off limits at my Catholic grade school but luckily the long-sleeved blouse of our mandatory uniform protected me from being exposed as an emerging delinquent. Dynamic meaning was far from my mind. Instead, I was in the thrall of the kind of excitement Winnicott describes about play: “the always precariousness of the interplay of personal psychic reality and the experience of control over actual objects” (Winnicott, 1971 p. 64). This triad of imagination, control over my body and transgression was (and remains) irresistible. Now, half a century later, tattoos have become cultural icons. It's estimated that 40% of people in western cultures between 26 and 40 have at least one. In this paper, I'll begin by describing the experience of getting a tattoo, identify some dynamic themes that under-write the drive to modify our bodies, and, finally, I'll speculate about the persistence of elusive, preverbal sensations that animate the decision to mark the skin. The examples used throughout the paper are drawn from a collection of formal and informal interviews outside the consulting room with individuals who have chosen to tell a part of their story by inscribing the surface of their bodies.

True to the spirit of specularity, I'll show some tattoos collected from generous subjects. (See pages 30 and 31.)

Long before psychoanalysis came on the scene, body markings were used as a way of communication, confirming the body as the essential voice of interrelatedness. Tattoos are a language that binds tribal and contemporary civilizations — the first social network. I suggest that the allure of tattoos is their scope as a projection screen. What other vehicle offers the possibility of expressing separation as well as differentiat