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.
Though that black with UV does sound awfully cool….and I’m pretty pain tolerant when it comes to most things….
I notice a lot of folks are asking how to ward off jerks without getting a tat. I have some advice in this regard.
Certain jewelry can also trip the misogynist’s need to make disparaging comments, just like a tattoo would. I wear a silver pentagram and it’s a perfect test: cool people tend to compliment the pentagram and frat jerks glare at it like the jewelry insults them. Some of them even ask jerk questions about it, or accuse me of wearing a pentagram to get attention.
Ankhs, eyes of Horus, spikey jewelry, and tentacle motifs usually will do the trick too. But a pentacle works the best. “Normal feminine” jewelry like crosses, Magen Davids, pearl necklaces, or those Irish heart rings generally won’t work for this. You need jewelry that’s a little outside of the norm and noticeably “alternative”.
But in general, any dude who gets on your case for wearing your hair/skin/self the way you like to is basically declaring he’s a huge jerk who feels entitled to your appearance.
So, pentagrams. They’ll show the jerks in your group like some kinda jerk dowsing rod.
@GhostBird
Best part. Only shows up under UV lighting. It’s invisible otherwise, unless you use UV ink that’s suppose to show in normal light.
@idledillettante
Sweet, already have a pentacle I wear all the time. Even sleep in it.
Dudebros are like vampires, ya know.
I have never ever wanted a tattoo in my life but this post makes me think I should get one just to keep these losers away.
@pandapool – absolutely. They won’t be able to resist getting offended about the pentagram. It’s winnowed out so many bad dudes for me that I don’t know what I’d do without it.
Unrelated note: my antivirus keeps detecting (and denying) a download of one of the tattoo images someone linked to on this page… “Watercolor skull tattoos by britta Christensen”.
I’m using Kaspersky and it says the image contains a Trojan heuristic. I’m sure nobody intentionally linked to bad code but I want to let other viewers know.
The image detected is the third one in paradoxical intention’s post at the top of the page. It shows up as a broken image to me and my antivirus repeatedly blocks it from downloading malicious code each time I reload this page.
Perhaps the Dark Lord could remove the link? I’ll email him.
@idledillettante
It’s a broken pic that Paradoxical linked above the hibiscus one and below the cat tat.
To be fair, this dude makes a pretty good argument against tattoos
http://i.imgur.com/svDQJx2.jpg
For what surely must be the world’s greatest song about tattoos (performed by Ethel Merman and Mitzi Gaynor in male-sailor drag, no less), check out “A Sailor’s Not a Sailor (Till a Sailor’s Been Tattooed)” from the Irving Berlin musical “There’s No Business Like Show Business”.
Can’t find the actual clip from the movie online, but you can find the cast recording audio at
and a cover by Carlotta Gurl and Mandy Kamp at
This reminds me, I need to schedule that appointment now that I have time for it. I want the Autobot insignia on my chest because I am a nerd lord.
“I would love for James to write the new books as a revelation that Christian is, indeed, just a narcissistic sociopath, maybe even throw in the twist that the abuse he talks about never actually happened, it was just a ploy to try and get Ana to pity him and thus overlook his abuse. More so, I would love for her to write with all the character development, mature prose and engaging plot that the first trilogy lacked – and lo, it will be revealed that she was just trolling everyone with the initial books all along.”
That would only happen if Margaret Atwood or Susie Bright kidnapped James and locked her in a room somewhere, then stepped in to ghostwrite for her.
No, I’m afraid that since these are Twilight fanfics, they will contain the Twilight ethos (and do remember that the Twilight series was written by a Mormon authoress and praised by the high Mormon misogynist himself, Orson Scott Card).
@Catalpa
That is the greatest coincidence of all time.
OF ALL TIME.
And Isis is such an awesome goddess, those dicks.
@cupisnoque
I’ve known a lot of MRA types who tried to sell their sexism to me by telling me that I’m an exception to their rules about women. One literally said that he considered me to be “slightly deviated from the standard female.” But somehow, those deviations never made them behave more respectfully to me
Considering that James says things like pointing out abuse in her books marginalizes abuse survivors and demonizes women who like BDSM, I’m going to say…no (unfortunately).
Aw, really? My antivirus didn’t say a word. : / And it’s showing up just fine on my browser (Opera).
If it is doing that for some people though, David should remove the link.
@Paradoxical Intention,
Yeah, she really is awful, and she seems to be deeply in denial about her books. Sometimes I wonder if someone handed her a pamphlet on identifying relationship red flags, and she mistook it for a guide on writing a romantic hero.
As with all tattoo-related threads, I feel the obligatory need to link to this article.
If tattoos keep MRAs away, then ink me up.
Hey all, been lurking for ages, but had to share this as relevant to the topic:
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/nov/16/sp-the-tattooed-trafficking-survivors-reclaiming-their-past
In regards to the image in question, I ran a scan of it on virus total, and it came back clean on all of the URL scanners that had a result available. Of course, it’s possible those scanners don’t have the signature that is tipping off your virus protection, or it could just be a false positive from the virus protection. It’s never easy to tell with these things because new malware emerges constantly, so it’s best to be safe and remove it.
https://www.virustotal.com/en/url/12b91b46c28b9d76bb068fd6f86c62a8822dc744c2eaf615b3a78aa642d34ca3/analysis/1433215500/
This just makes me even more antsy to get the Mystery Science Theater 3000 silhouette tramp stamp I’ve been wanting for five years now. How many minds would I blow with that thing? Especially when I say it’s in remembrance of my late father, who was a big fan.
I’m definitely planning to get more tattoos than that one, and I want Joel and the ‘bots to be riffing on every single one.
@shaenon:
D’awww.
@PI:
Dammit, I’m going to have to showcase my execrable art skills now, because that image is a thing that needs to exist.
@fruitloopsie:
To be fair to poor Queequeg, his owner was elderly and passed away, and no one found her (or fed him) for several days.
Lord knows what that dear old lady called him, but there’s a reason Scully named him Queequeg.
If I didn’t lose my tablet pen, I’d totally be doing it myself. : I
Maybe this can be a new contest for us here, Cats with Tattoos? Not real ones, of course, but photoshop….