men and love

known among the customers as the Queen of the Air. Thetattooists say that the design is a special favorite with armymen. But whether it is a flyer- girl, an angel- girl, a pirate- girl,a Red Cross girl, a geisha girl, a butterfly- girl, or any othergirl, her features and curves are suspiciously like those of ahefty dancer from the burlesque: sensuous, coarse, attainable.When a man neither loves nor hates a woman, but ismerely afraid of her, again he expresses it in tattooing. Pro-fessor Jack Gavett says that a prominent San Diego residenthad his wife's birth date placed on his arm" so he wouldn'tforget it." Charlie Wagner tells me that his customers occa-sionally order tattoos of devils or human skulls or terrible-looking pirates to spite or frighten or awe their wives," mostly after a quarrel." But this is just whistling in thedark. Wagner thinks that this method of counter- frighteninga wife into reconciliation is, on the whole, more effectivethan the other method, of placating her into peace: namely,ordering her photo to be copied onto the man's arm, or hav-ing her name or their baby's picture tattooed onto the skin.Says Charlie:" They cry as I work on' em. Gosh, you oughtasee their tears. Not for the pain, y'understand, but becausethey're sorta sentimental. But it's no good. When the womansees her picture on him, or the baby's picture, she knowsshe's got him for keeps alright, an' she don't care for him nomore. You'se got to keep a woman guessing, mostly."

3

The sense of guilt is intensified in some by reason of theonanistic or homosexual character of tattooing. The sexualelements of sadism and masochism- the pleasurable inflic-tion and endurance of pain- are more than evident in theact of man's tattooing. In 1881 a writer in the London Satur-day Review remarked:

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