"Tattoo culture objectifies women"

[BeyondStrongAndStable]

"Living canvas". Only opinions that I have read btw, not like an official theory

Hmm. I think I need some help unpicking this one, this is the first time I've umm clashed (not sure that is the right word?) with class analysis?

Is the argument that men in "tattoo culture" objectify women, or that the women are objectifying themselves?

Not getting your point. Men and women have tattoos. Some of them are rubbish, many of them are beautiful. Tattoos are usually a collaboration between the tatoo artist and the person commissioning the tattoo. I've read plenty of accounts from tattooed person describing their tattoos as a living canvas or similar.

Your assumptions about "objectifying themselves" are rather patronising.

Not my assumptions lass, assumptions I have read (being liked by many) in a feminist group.

I'm very tattooed, because I want to be. But am I being "choosey-choosey" to think that? Iyswim?

Are you talking about the whole "lifestyle" thing that goes with ink here? So, the magazines, expos, conventions etc?

In which case, yes, I'd agree that a lot of them objectify women in the same way that other "lifestyles" do. A few years back there was a small expo where they had a kind of fashion parade for inked people, not too many hairy bikers on the stage, more models who had fairly obviously airbrushed "tattoos".

Oh right then. In that case their assumptions about objectification are extremely patronising.

If by "tattoo culture" you mean the way some tattoo magazines/blogs etc usually photograph tattooed women wearing corsets or lingerie/fetish gear, in highly sexualised poses, then yes, that is objectifying women, and is a feminist issue for me. The fact that the women are heavily tattooed doesn't make it any different from regular babestation-style 'glamour' modelling, for the benefit of the male gaze.

The 'living canvas' thing isn't a feminist issue as it's a common way of thinking for both men and women who like tattoos.

But maybe asking this question on the group it's being discussed on might make more sense?

Oh, I am sure tattoo culture objectifies women, same as any male-dominated culture.

However, the theory that the act of getting a tattoo is objectifying regardless of what kind of tattoo is, just doesn't fly.

Men get tattoos all the time, and they aren't known to happily objectify themselves. Since getting a tattoo (unlike, say, engaging in PiV sex) is the exact same for women and men, it therefore follows that having a tattoo, in and of itself, cannot be objectifying.

Thanks, this is helping

Yes I would utterly agree that the magazines with corseted etc women are objectifying, but that is just because of patriarchy surely - not because of the tattoos? As in it happens anyway outside of the "tattoo culture"

I'd agree with that.

I'd also suggest that the "lifestyle" stuff around tattoo culture is also selling a slightly surreal dream.

'Yes I would utterly agree that the magazines with corseted etc women are objectifying, but that is just because of patriarchy surely - not because of the tattoos?'

I agree with this! There may be a culture within tattooing that does objectify women but that doesn't mean tattooing does per se. In the same way that photography can be used in a negative way but isn't in itself objectifying.

That's why I was asking what was meant by "tattoo culture"