Misogynists hate, hate, hate it when women get tattoos. They just can’t all agree on why. The standard misogynist line on tattoos for women is that they are all, essentially, “tramp stamps” – a way of broadcasting that the woman displaying them is a slut, a skank, a whore. You know the drill.
But the “alternative right” racist/sexist/homophobe who goes by the handle agnostic has a rather different take. In a post on his blog Face to Face, he argues that women with tattoos are actually trying to broadcast their Puritan prudery.
Tattoos, you see, are just plain ugly, and help to accessorize a dreary look designed to repel men.
Notice how those girls dress in drab, dark monochrome colors, wear no girly jewelry, and sport flat hair rather than Big Hair. Their sassy, sarcastic, even nasty attitude echos their off-putting look.
Fundamentally, they are part of the larger trend toward drab dressing, and its signal of reluctance to get loose. Their personalities are more anti-social, so they express the neo-Pilgrim style in a more antagonistic fashion than the less abrasive girls in their generation, but they’re both variations on the same theme.
The tattoo-bearers are likely to be man-haters as well.
They are also part of the larger trend among women toward fear of or hatred toward men. …
In such a climate, women will alter their appearance and demeanor in order to deflate rather than excite the male libido. They act like prey trying to give warning signals to potential predators. The tattoo chicks are only the extreme version of this widespread trend. Girls sure don’t look or act as cute and flirty as they used to in the boy-crazy Eighties, when they thought of guys not as predators but as conspecifics who they wanted to court with engaging mating displays.
“Conspecifics” simply means “members of the same species.” Agnostic loves to drop that sciency lingo in order to make his prejudices seem smart.
Anyway, he continues by arguing that tattoos are especially offensive to pickup artistes and other “assertive” dudes.
Off-putting style also serves to filter out the more assertive and independent males, who would rather spend time on a girl who looks cute, rather than settle for one who’s all marked up or not willing to show anything at all. … By inking themselves up, girls ensure that only the guys who are willing to get walked over and slapped in the face will approach them. Why go through the long hassle of having your new boyfriend fixed when you can advertise that only the neutered need apply in the first place?
Ah, but this last bit is perhaps more revealing than agnostic means it to be. Tattoos are an affront to misogynists because they’re seen as too assertive, too masculine – a challenge to traditional femininity, and to men who prefer traditionally feminine women.
Tattoos on women make misogynistic men angry because on some fundamental level these men don’t think women have the right to decorate their bodies in a way that displeases men –or at least their kind of men. It’s the same kind of creepy, possessive anger that many misogynistic men show towards women who cut their hair short. It’s as if these men on some level believe women’s bodies belong to them, and not to the women themselves.
And that’s pretty unattractive.
Thanks for the crotch update, Elle.
No one cares, Elle. I didn’t get tattooed to please men OR women. I got tattooed to please myself. If you find me that hideous, keep it to yourself and just don’t associate with me. Problem solved!
Well, my guy and my lady seem to like the one I have… If you don’t, it’s a free fuckin’ country.
What about them “Elle”? Internalized misogyny is a thing.
Are women with tattoos not paying enough attention to you? Is it so unfair that they don’t give even one solitary fuck about what you like before they make choices for themselves based on what they like?
Aww…
That’s so sad.
http://c3e308.medialib.glogster.com/media/d3/d318333a5ca913a9d00d75a496ad39fa7a3a0587e9189b929d553950e5642168/juice-box-gif.gif
http://www.totstowntoys.co.uk/images/pink%20blankie%20bear%20new.JPG
You just go watch some Spongebob until you feel better. Then we still won’t give any fucks about how you want other people’s bodies to be. Won’t that be nice?
Not everyone who meddles in other people’s private affairs is a misogynist. However, when the meddling has to do with women’s bodies, and treats those women’s bodies as if they belong to the public and exist for the consumption and pleasure of randoms on the street, then yes, that is a misogynist statement.
As others have said, thanks for the boner/ladyboner update, but nobody asked for or needed it.
You know, Sneak and I got a couple cuffs together as a way to bond and celebrate our system. Zie has a very low pain tolerance, so getting the tattoos was difficult for zer, and I was really proud that zie made the decision to plug through it all. The tattoos are graphical timelines of our system, charting births and deaths, so that nobody can erase our history from us again.
Before that, I got tattoos celebrating me and Mac’s marriage. They were taken from a Shakespearean poem I had read at the service, symbolizing fidelity, rebirth, and everlasting love. I got them done so that even when I was at my family’s holidays, closeted and pretending to be single, I could always wear my true status on my skin, where nobody could ever take it away from me.
But apparently none of that should matter, because Ellie thinks they’re hideous, and I should just magically give a fuck.
Misogyny, shmishogyny. One more pot-stirrer attempting to bring out some profound social insight by attributing what amounts to a personal preference to some deep dark tendency to want to dominate women. The same tired old song-and-dance that gets trotted around whenever someone makes a person choice (like getting a tattoo) and then feels like everybody should be forced to like it otherwise it is consider ‘hate’ ‘misogyny’ ‘intolerance’ or whatever other buzzword professional victimologists like to use during these little tantrums that in the hopes of embarrassing people into just simply giving in.
This is all the more amusing coming from a writer who is presumably a man – one that is seemingly so ‘progressive’ that he finds that another man who prefers an older or more traditional type of femininity more attractive is naturally a ‘misogynist’ by default. Talk about progressiveness and tolerance.
Like art, appreciation of the feminine is in the eye of the beholder. Have you ever thought that maybe when a man says ‘i think tattoos on women are ugly’ it is simply just as simple as that? I guess if I prefer Rembrandt to Malevich that makes me an ‘art hater’ too?
I have a preference and deep attraction for raven haired women and don’t find blondes as ‘naturally attractive’ as most people make them out to be. Does that make me a misogynist? I like traditional femininity because i think it is sexy and attractive and that’s what I look for in a woman amongst many other qualities. I don’t find tattoos attractive period because to me it is like visual static – especially on a woman. am I filled with hate?
You see unlike limp-wristed ‘male feminists’ such as yourself and other so-called progressives who seem to stumble all over themselves to make inane generalizations about other members of their own sex (or race)- I’m not sitting around preaching to people that they are evil and wrong to do or think the way they do. Live and let live. That includes living with the consequences of your choices.
If you decided to tattoo up and put a bone through your nose fully knowing that you are generally outside the ‘norm’ socially – don’t then play stupid and lament how unevolved society is because you get funny looks from people. Also don’t be surprised that others might have a preference to avoid you because their personal taste does not mesh with yours.
‘Tolerance’ does not mean people must be compelled by force to believe what you believe or made to bend to your wishes.
It’s really that simple.
Thanks, Nick! This year-old post was greatly improved by your defensiveness, misogyny and homophobia.
Oh gross. Our bodies are not works of art, put on earth for men to appreciate them. We’re human beings.
Nick: “I’m not sitting around preaching to people that they are evil and wrong to do or think the way they do.” In the middle of doing just that.
Teal Deer! And boner notes! Gee, thanks, Nick, I’m sure everyone here appreciates that you stopped by to let us know what your dickhead is thinking.
Now piss off.
“It’s just a preference!” men everywhere cry as they call every woman in their line of sight with a tattoo a “slut” because they have one, as if their ink is a sign that they want to bang every man in a fifty-foot radius at all times, while not applying that same logic towards other men.
“We’re allowed to not like tattoos on women!” They cry as they say that tattoos on women are off-putting and that only undatable women have them, as if their ink ruins their beauty for men, while simultaneously ignoring every man who has ever had a tattoo, ever.
“You must be a woman!” They shout at David, a man who points out that this might be a symptom of some bigotry towards women.
Fuck off, Nick. This isn’t about “preference” when someone’s saying “women” as a huge, monolithic whole, nor is it about “preference” when they go on to say that all women who have tattoos are one thing or another, while also ignoring the simple fact that men have tattoos too.
Women are not here to please your boner. Women will do what they please with their bodies, and no, we don’t care if you don’t like it. Keep it to your damn self. (And do some introspection while you’re at it. Someone’s an obvious homophobe, and it ain’t us.)
Honestly? Guys like you just make me want a tattoo. Good thing I have a few planned!
I’d GET a tattoo right now, if I could think of one I wanted. Maybe I’ll get one on my ass saying “MINE, NOT YOURS”.
@Nick:
Original quote, from the article:
Yeah, that’s clearly just “personal preference” and not at all a sweeping sexist statement accusing women who are behaving in a way that does not suit the man as being devious, manipulative harpies out to deliberately ruin men’s boners, instead of normal people who do the fuck what they want with no interest in the boner of some self-righteous sexist douche.
I love it when misogynistic assholes attempt the “you’re seeing patterns where there are none!” approach when defending a statement about seeing patterns where there are none.
Glad to find out that just because I don’t prefer to have a tattoo, or prefer to date women with tattoos, I’m a misogynist. Investigating mate preferences due to evolutionary psychology or as having anything to do with social structural theory would have been too hard. Glad I can just be judged for my preferences and be done with it. It’s so obvious I hate women because I don’t like tattoos.
No one cares about your boner, Joe.
(Or your lack of reading comprehension)
Small tattoos are cute on women but sleeves on women make them look aggressive and butch.
Nobody asked you, Tony.
It’s sad and telling how many times this thread is necro’d with folks who feel they need to let everyone know their opinions on how unattractive they find tattoos on women.
And unrequested comments on what women choose to do with their bodies makes anyone look like an entitled asshat.
“how unattractive they find tattoos on women.”
And some find sleeved men a bit disturbing as well. I remember one of our older football commentators here commenting a few years ago on current players who were beginning to display larger tattoos.
Looks like he went to sleep on a wet comic made me laugh out loud.
20 years ago only men got heavy tattoo work.
Everyone is entitled to have an opinion.
Peace.
Why does it make someone an asshole for not liking women with tattoos ?
I don’t think tattoos are disgusting for any of those dumb reasons I think they’re disgusting because they look trashy on either gender. Tattoos are a sign of low self esteem major lack of class and flat out trashy taste. When my wife got drunk and came home with some disgusting smut on her shoulder blade I lost all attraction to her and respect she knew I hated them and did it anyways because it’s always easier to ask forgiveness than seek approval or at least tell me what she wanted to do. It devastated me I literally could not stand to see it I felt so disgusted. Before she was a beautiful woman and instantly I lost that feeling for her physically I wanted to die or leave her but we have 2 young kids and every time I wanted to tell her I wanted a divorce I would see my girls and I couldn’t leave them. I hate all so called tattoo artist they are all low life white trash it’s not art it’s desecration it turns beauty into filth and is absolutely the biggest turn off of all time. Thankfully I was able to tell her how bad it hurt and I couldn’t bear seeing that awful reminder for the rest of my life and she actually showed she loves me enough to get it removed and it is 90% gone now the removal was expensive but worth every penny and without the daily reminder of that terrible night we have been healing in our lives together.
You want to get a divorce or die over a tattoo? Seriously? I guess you never loved her or took your vows seriously.
Nobody needs to seek forgiveness over something they do with their own body.
Perhaps your marital issues go beyond tattoos. Just a thought.