Tattoo: Not Taboo!

Did you hear? Tattoos are totes no big deal now! Even neck tattoos are becoming less "edgy," and the New York Times wants you to know that, as televised stars like Prodge Run's Jeffery Sebelia brought an etched neck to the soccer mom set. Thanks NYT for telling this to us... Over and over and over and over again. They want to make sure we know that moms and dads and heartbroken doctors and heartbroken writers and even the Jews are getting inked. Here are some passages - from six articles this year ALONE - from these "taboo" busting articles that show, once and for all, that getting a tattoo is about as transgressive as eating a donut (think of the transfats!).

1. From today's Tattoos Gain Even More Visibility: "Watching a show like Project Runway, where the guy who won Season 3 had his son’s name tattooed on his neck," Ms. Handelman added, referring to Jeffrey Sebelia, "I was, like, 'Whoa.' It wasn’t a prison tattoo. It wasn’t sailors or criminals. It was this real-life person that you saw being creative and successful, and it really affected your perception about who gets tattooed."

2. From September 14, 2008, With This Tattoo, I Thee Wed: "We live in a heavily inked Brooklyn neighborhood, but I’d never seen a wedding ring tattoo. I liked the dare. If we actually made it to the altar, I said, I would… My spouse was shocked, but pleased. One of my daughters hated it, the other at least pretended not to. There was clearly one bit of genius in that — nothing makes a tattoo as unappealing to a teenager as seeing her father get one."

3. From July 17, 2008, For Some Jews, It Only Sounds Like 'Taboo': Nicki Carnes and her sister, Rebecca, who now also has a tattoo, say that being permanently marked was just something they wanted. Others say they were tattooed to rebel or, surprisingly, that they wanted a Jewish tattoo as a way of connecting with their religious and cultural identity…Todd Weinberger, the creative director of Inked Magazine, grew up in a family that kept kosher, and recently got his first tattoo with his girlfriend, Jennifer Goldstein, an editor at CosmoGirl magazine.

Does the NY Times have no other topics to talk about?!?!?