Are tattooed women a threat to Men’s Rights? Last week, the editors of A Voice for Men decided to promote “compassion for men and boys,” as the site’s old motto had it, by publishing a long and exceedingly creepy jeremiad against young women who taint their “radiant” young skin with icky tattoos, thereby ruining things for the men of the world.
In a post titled “Tattoos, good judgement and women,” Doug Mortimer, a self-described Man Going His Own Way of long standing, reminisces at length about the good old days, when the dancers at his favorite “topless bar” were as free of tattoos as they were of tops.
I used to occasionally pay a visit to one of the many local topless bars – pardon me, gentleman’s clubs – so I could wallow in a state of beer-buzzed, middle-aged, semi-arousal.
Sorry to put that image in your head so early in the day. (Or, whenever you happen to be reading this.)
By the late 1990s, tattoos were all the rage. It was almost impossible to see a dancer without a tramp stamp or some other symbol or picture, meaningful or meaningless (to me if not to her). I simply could not fathom why a young woman, with her skin at its peak of radiance and health, would do anything to detract from it.
Readers with sensitive stomachs may want to skip the next bit here.
Flat-chested or full figure; statuesque or petite; blond, brunette, or redhead, healthy skin tone is a key component of neoteny and nubility.
I’m not sure I really needed to hear a dude who was already middle-aged two decades ago wax poetic about the “neoteny and nubility” of women young enough to be his granddaughters.
In 1998, Mortimer tells us, he grew so frustrated by the tattoos adorning the “female flesh” he was paying to ogle that he quit going to “gentlemen’s clubs” altogether.
Despite Mortimer’s bold and principled stand, the young women of America continued to get tattoos. Today, Mortimer reports with horror, one survey found that “25% of all men under 25 have at least one tattoo; for women in that age group, the number is 47%.”
He warns young men to think twice about getting into relationships with these terrible tattooed women.
After all, you’re going to be looking at them every day, possibly till death do you part. Do you really want to cuddle up long-term with a dickless Queequeg?
Mortimer goes on to suggest that the popularity of tattoos amongst young women suggests that maybe they really don’t deserve freedom after all.
Ultimately, you have to seriously question the judgment of a young woman who would make a permanent commitment to something as trivial as body art. Of course, good judgment is only rarely associated with young women, which is why young women are kept on a short leash in traditional societies. When young women are given freedom, they often fuck it up.
Mortimer doesn’t address this directly, but presumably he believes that young men handle their freedom far more wisely, despite considerable video evidence to the contrary.
Mortimer is quick to assure his readers that he is well aware that young women without tattoos can also be terrible freedom-abusers who should probably be kept on a “short leash” as well.
That doesn’t mean a tattoo-free woman can’t be fucked up, but one who is tattooed…well, no matter what the design, it might as well be a big red warning flag.
Well, no. But, given the disgust that Mortimer and many other denizens of the manosphere feel towards tattooed women, tattoos could perhaps be better described as magical talismans offering protection from a certain kind of creepy woman-hating shitbag.
In any case, it’s pretty hard to imagine Mortimer’s post convincing any self-respecting woman, young or old, to cancel an appointment at the local tattoo parlor; I suspect that, if anything, it could have an opposite effect.
*looks at her back tattoo* *looks at the drawings and images found for her sleeves and the idea for her eyebrows* *looks at her saving account* *throws more money in* GIVE ME ALL THE TATTOOS. Especially if they’ll keep assholes like this far, faaaar away from me.
Seriously, if I was running a tattoo parlor, I’d be reposting this douchebag’s screed all over the internet, with the tagline, “So, to all the women out there–you want a way to keep this loser away forever?”
Also, he should be made aware that neoteny and nubility are actually opposite forces–nubility is specifically about being visually sexually mature, and neoteny is about retaining pre-maturity traits. Anyone looking for both thinks 12-year-olds are sexually mature, and should be housed in a suitable institution to be kept away from potential victims.
I’ve been sort of considering getting a tattoo the past couple of weeks but this makes me consider it more seriously. The main things stopping me are money and not being sure what design I want or where I want it. I do have some ideas but I’m still afraid of committing.
Fuck it. I’m going out to get a tattoo this weekend.
But EJ, aren’t you male?
Yes I am. And may I say what a devastatingly handsome rhetorical questioner you are. But my hope is that if I get tattooed, I will normalise tattoos ever so slightly and so make it more acceptable for women to get them too.
Guess what? It doesn’t have to be meaningful to you. It’s not on your body.
Oh, wait. I forgot that the whole world revolves around men and their boners.
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdy4mpnIpG1ro2d43.gif
I really didn’t need to read that.
ew ew ew ew he thinks NEOTENY is sexy! that’s preserved infantile characteristics! (ie what makes puppies and kittens totally adorable)
I think the real issue is that tattoos on young women remind him that their bodies belong to them, not him, thus killing his boner.
Sigh. Okay, quick refresher course for the lurking MRAs out there:
http://animalsadda.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Axolotl-7.jpg
This is neoteny.
http://i.imgur.com/0m0HhRf.jpg
This is also neoteny.
http://i.imgur.com/UkAmCP0.jpg
This is not neoteny. Jesus, I understand that believing in MRA evo psych requires a sub-insect level of biological knowledge, but please check a fucking dictionary before using shiny new words, okay?
And, really, if neoteny is so arousing, these guys could just date axolotl salamanders.
My dad has the same bad attitude about tattoos. He thinks they’re trashy and only carnies and convicts get them. He regularly tells me not to get a tattoo, even though I’ve never considered it and probably never will.
I still wouldn’t get a tattoo myself (I tend to pick at scabs and I think I’d pick at any tattoo I got and screw up the design) but my family’s bad attitude about tattoos colored my judgement about them for a while. It took a few years for me to be able to appreciate other people’s tattoos, and the reasons they wanted to get tattoos.
Seems like this tattoo hating is a kind of entitlement– people like my parents feel entitled to tell other people what to do with their bodies.
Scented Fucking Hard Chairs just stepped on my joke. *shakes fist*
Also, does referring to tattooed people as “Queequegs” sound like a racist dogwhistle to anybody else?
Well yeah. Women are kinda dickless by definition. (Well except Transwomen but that’s not as catchy.)
Also go tell a biker that he’s a Queenqueg for having a Tattoo. Or a Marine… I’ll wait.
My wrist tattoo, a rosemary branch with flowers, is in memory of my son. We talked about getting tattoos many times and never did it. It, along with the Darth Vader cookie jar that holds his ashes, are deeply meaningful representations of his lasting presence in my life.
This whole attitude is such a double standard. Where did tattooing in the US come from? Alpha male servicemen on leave getting anchors and mom and pinups on leave. But we’re supposed to ignore that tradition, of course.
I’m long past being interesting to these idiots at 60 but I love to see young women using this tradition to express themselves. Tattoo art can be so beautiful.
And, yes, yes, yes, Queequegs is racist as hell.
If only a tattoo could protect you from assholes.
OT
Also, I just want to repost this from the last thread ICYMI. Julien Blanc.
http://julienworldtour.com/
If they were really concerned about men’s issues and thought tattoos were bad, shouldn’t they be protesting against men “ruining their precious skin” with tattoos? They’d still be wrong and sound ridiculous but at least it’d look like their focus was actually a men’s issue for once.
But no, of course not. Once again the most important men’s rights issue of all crops up. Boner feels, and more specifically how women aren’t providing enough/the right kind of boner feels!
On the plus side, it’d be nice if they did stop trying to date women with tattoos entirely. The more categories they exclude, the better.
Here’s a picture of a cat getting a tattoo.
http://asset-a.soup.io/asset/4075/5440_a87d.jpeg
Aww, so that’s how kitties get stripes.
My wife is inked like hell and is a successful body piercer. She in no way is a freedom destroyer.
I hope she gives this guy an involuntary prince Albert with a used needle
Ah, yes – referring to women as the terribly racist representation of the tattooed cannibal black man in Moby Dick. That’s… fucking racist.
I’d forgotten how cool irezumi tattooing is.
I want to keep dipshits like him away but I don’t want to get a tattoo. Will henna do? Can someone ask Katie for me?
Sharpies are all you need.
I get sick of the older gents in my workplace asking me to explain my need to have tattoos, they have all at some point told me to respect my body… while staring at my breasts without shame.
I have had the similar conversation about my Uggs which I wear for warmth in winter and also so I don’t slip over onto my ass. BUT apparently these are not attractive to men?! I should not think of comfort but instead wear heel in blizzards so men have something nice to see.
It seems completely inconceivable to some men that I might make decisions for myself and not for any man or women out there….