The ever-rising frequency of tattoos and body piercings—fully a third of Americans are tattooed, and nearly a quarter have more than one tattoo while around a third of young Americans now have something stapled into their bodies in a site other than the ear—is a visual depiction of our cultural disintegration.

No, I am not going to speak in the ethically marble-mouthed way so many do when discussing this phenomenon. Tattooing and body piercing are a cultural disease. The expansion of this loathsome, deformative practice is the result of the collapse of the value system that once clearly dominated American society and the emergence of a perverse new set of values oriented around radical individualism, materialism, and nihilism.

It is of note that the virulence of these practices extends across the American political divide. Those suffering from the malady can be found on the MAGA right in approximately the same frequency as on the woke left.

The evidence is overwhelming that the tattooed are more likely to have suffered from a host of negative childhood experiences, related psychopathologies, and self-destructive behavioral predilections than those who have not marked their bodies with these coded indicators of mental illness. Tattooing and body stapling correlate strongly with childhood trauma. (It is interesting, though, to note how advocates attempt to spin—without evidence—tattoos and piercings as a way of successfully coping with trauma rather than recognizing it as a form of acting out because of the psychological damage caused by trauma.)

The tatted and pierced are more likely to be smokers, more likely to have spent time in jail, and more likely to have had a high number of sex partners. Drug abuse, alcoholism, self-harm, impulsivity, and risk-taking behavior are all higher in this population than in the non-tattoed and non-stapled.

Significant segments of elite culture are trying hard to normalize this kind of body modification and mutilation, but the behavior is a sign and a symptom of serious unhealth. It is widely recognized as such by the morally normal. People correctly judge the tattooed and the stapled as statistically more prone to risky behavior. For example, men will more eagerly approach tattooed women because they believe (again, in keeping with statistical evidence) they are more likely to have quick and commitment-free sex this way.

Tattooing and body stapling are also an indication of comparatively low intelligence. Those with lower educational levels are considerably more likely to have tattoos and piercings. The likelihood of getting a tattoo correlate perfectly with IQ according to groupings. That is, being tattooed and/or stapled is more to least likely in racial groups in this order: blacks, Latinos, whites, and then Asians. Tattoos and piercings are correlated within racial groups with lower social class, that is, even within groups where the propensity is relatively high, those higher in intelligence are less likely to engage in it. Negative views of tattoos correlate with higher education and higher social class. Religiosity, furthermore, correlates with a lower likelihood of tattoos and being homosexual or of any other deviant sexual identity. These deviancies are all significantly correlated with tattooing. And though I have not found any specific data on this, I strongly suspect that when you see tattooed and stapled young people, and perhaps especially young women (who are significantly more likely than young men to be tattooed or stapled), you are seeing people disproportionately from families characterized by divorce and the lack of two parents. Social decay and isolation and the mental harm that accompanies these things frequently lead to the tattooist or the piercer.

Some portions of the population sporting tattoos and piercings recognize, however vaguely, the wrongheadedness of these practices. At least a quarter of those so disfigured regret disfiguring themselves.

If it is broadly low intelligence and various psychopathologies that drive people to such behavior, how do they explain it to themselves? Typically, those involved in deviant and self-harming activity justify the acts to themselves with some kind of rationale. The self-mutilated community often claims it as a sign of “individualism,” the expression of a unique, non-conforming, and (it is presumed from the non-conformity) exciting and interesting identity.

Yet an examination of tattoos and piercings reveals how deeply formulaic and conformist they in fact are. They give off the same aesthetic as spray-paint tags on train stations and other public sites. The next time you are in a large city, look closely at a number of any of the purported examples of “creativity” and “individuality” painted on walls and subway cars and marvel at how limited the aesthetic range is. It is astonishing how similar all of it looks after you have seen a few examples. Now look at tattoos and piercings and note a similar uniformity. The same predictable range of images, of messages, of aesthetic structure and design. Tattoos and piercings are fully as individualistic as contemporary pop music, with its droning rhythm and one repetitive and simplistic melodic line throughout the song. One size fits all in this “individualist” form of expression. It is the individualism in which all seem to be expressing exactly the same thing.

Tattoos and piercings are not only aesthetically blasphemous insofar as they pollute something sacred; it turns out they are also bad for your health. Tattoo ink can be toxic, and piercings can lead to serious infections. This should be more widely known. One would think those people who are typically endlessly concerned about  toxic materials they might ingest would have something to say about this. But do not worry, the tattooists and piercers assure us, you can trust them to cover all the bases to protect their clients. And as you look at your typical tattoo artist or piercer, himself generally covered from top to bottom and with metal protrusions—do they not have the appearance of just the sort of people you would know at a glance to be of the utmost moral integrity?

It is one of the most untouched moral catastrophes of our culture. The evidence of the harm attached to it is clear, and yet almost no one talks about it. Increasingly, the only reaction to the kind of observations I make here is along the lines of “Hey, they are not hurting you, why do you care?”

I care because my culture is disintegrating, and my children have to grow up in this culture. I care because it is frequently the case that those who self-harm (think of drug addicts and alcoholics) do not recognize the destruction they are visiting on themselves, and they need objective external voices to help them come to understand it. We should not stand by and let people harm themselves just because they indicate—as a result of their own previous suffering and lack of critical insight—that they want to do it.

The normalization of the thing is not evidence of its benign nature or its safety. Diseases often spread. American flag and eagle tatted Trump voters and eyebrow-pierced, nose-ringed Harris voters are united in this collective insanity. College professors give classes celebrating it as “the new tribalism.” Many of the younger cohort of professors and professionals are themselves drowning in tattoos and body staples.

We need a new generation of young cultural traditionalists to emerge to call this what it is—self-harm and cultural dissolution—and to combat its advance.