You know, when I sit down to write these blog posts I’m always hoping to find anything and everything impressive that relates to tattoos to report on. As much as I want to bring that news to the people who visit this blog, sometimes there’s tattoo news that just isn’t impressive, but horrible. Crazy stuff goes on in the world and when tattoos are involved in something crazy but newsworthy, even though it doesn’t showcase tattoos in a positive light, I have to get the story out there. So I’m sorry if you’ve come to the site today wanting to read something impressive or good, but I need to talk about something that happened where not only was a human being mistreated, but in which tattooing was misused for harmful and demeaning purposes.
After being told that he would no longer be bullied if he permitted a tattoo to be placed on his buttocks by the boys who regularly harrassed him, a 14-year-old Concord, New Hampshire high school freshman underwent an illegal tattoo in the basement of the home of one of the bullies. The young victim was also originally promised a tattoo of a celtic cross on his arm if he went along with the plan to have his buttocks tattooed. The tattoo of the celtic cross never materialized, but the tattoo on the victim’s buttocks did.
Donald Wyman, 20, Travis Johnston, 18, Blake VanNest, 18, Ryan Fisk, 19 and an unnamed 15-year-old suspect have been arrested and four of the suspects now face criminal charges. The tattoo on the victim’s buttocks read “Poop Dick” and included an image of a penis. The victim had already been bullied to such an extent by these people that he suffered from pretty severe self-esteem issues. He also suffered from a learning disability. The boy will now require surgery to have the tattoo removed. You can read the rest of the story here.
This just turns my stomach. The fact that bullying can exist to such a degree where someone is dehumanized by a tattoo is a very sad and sorry situation. There are a number of things that the sickos who did this to this kid should be charged with and I also think that something like this should bring to light the issue of having stricter regulations on tattoo equipment. Someone who is not a tattoo artist should never have a tattoo gun in their possession. Yet it’s easy as hell to get your hands on one at any time. We need better laws that treat tattoo equipment as equipment strictly reserved for professionally trained artists. I’m not trying to say that doing this would eliminate bullying, but if something like this could have been prevented by laws that make tattoo equipment difficult to obtain for non-licensed professionals, well then there would be at least one 14-year-old kid out there right now who isn’t scarred – mentally and physically – for life.