In this text David Le Breton continues the work he began in Risky Behaviors. That is, to give an account of the place of identity and the risks that the young generations assume today. During the investigation he has collected numerous testimonies, such as those of tattoo and piercing practitioners, in which the subjects evoked deliberate wounding practices. As he writes in the Introduction: “I was moved by the importance of the bodily wounds that young people in a state of suffering inflict on themselves with complete lucidity. Especially since we are not dealing here with behaviors related to "madness", as they say to get rid of unusual behaviors, but rather a particular way of fighting against the discomfort of living. Men and women, especially women, perfectly inserted within the social bond, resort to this as a way of regulating tensions. No one could guess their behaviors. Or that they went through that situation at a painful moment in their history. In general, they have never told anyone about it, experiencing a feeling of shame for having lived through such an experience. Bodily injuries (incisions, scratches, scarifications, burns, lacerations, etc.) are the last resort to fight against suffering (like risky behaviors, but on another plane), they refer to a use of the skin that also implies a sign of identity, but in the form of wounds.”

This is a must have book for all those who work with youth. The author, in clear and forceful language, develops a characteristic symptom of our time in which we find "the marks and pains to exist."