Written by Sarah Kyle
Scott Adair, a professor in Harding’s College of Bible and Religion, recently conducted a survey of why students choose to get tattoos for a presentation at the conference before the commencement of the 2009-10 school year.
“The administration asked me to do something on youth culture,” Adair said. “Why do our students have tattoos? Why are they getting tattoos? This is a window into youth culture.”
Adair conducted the survey by requesting information from 383 former and current students through Pipeline. He received responses from 100 students, 37 males and 63 females. Sixteen of these respondents currently had a tattoo, while 84 did not, though a small percentage of those who did not currently have a tattoo stated a desire to get one in the future.
When asked why they chose to get a tattoo, Adair said many students said their tattoo was for a memorial to someone, a religious reason, individual expression and the like. However, Adair said he believed tattoos stood for something deeper.
“What I think is really going on that I don’t think students really realize is going on, is that it’s a rite of passage,” Adair said. “Nobody answered that when I asked why they got a tattoo, but I think that’s the main reason. I think that pulls a lot together.”
Adair backed up this theory primarily with the age at which the majority of students got their tattoos: between the ages of 19 and 21.
“That’s the time of life when they leave home; that signals a new stage of life,” Adair said.
It is at this new stage of life that students begin to become their own person and make their own decisions, Adair said.
“I have to know myself well enough to put something permanently on my body. Children don’t know themselves well enough. Adults do,” Adair said. “Children are told who they are. Adults decide who they are.”
In a world of confusing messages regarding the age of adulthood and responsibility, Adair said that the current generation has been forced to make their own “coming of age” statement. Also, as with primal rites of passage, Adair said the pain factor plays a part in tattoos and their role as a modern-day rite of passage.
“A rite of passage is usually some sort of difficulty, some sort of trial. It’s some desert experience, some wilderness,” Adair said. “Figuring it out, planning it, practicing your art or your phrase … and then taking the journey. I think it’s a ritual.”
As a decision that is made fully by the student that will have permanent effects, Adair said tattoos are a way for students to signal that they at long last know who they truly are.
“It all signals to me a statement that ‘I know myself. I know who I am. I know what I’m about. I’m no longer a child. I’m big enough to make my own decision. I’ve saved up the money. I’m willing to endure the pain. This is my decision,'” Adair said. “It signals autonomy and identity.”
