Tattooing defended

Green Fairy, who I always mean to add to my blogroll, has a great defense against this guy who thinks that women's one and only goal when making appearance-related decisions should be adhering to his idea of elegant feminine beauty. (His quote in green, hers in orange.)

The beautiful skin she was blessed with now evokes a filthy english alley. (I am overstating---she is still beautiful, but it did really DESTROY her elegance---a horrible crime for a woman to commit, in my mind.)

Tattoos that enhance a notion of fashionable femininity, good, Tattoos that work against prevailing conceptions of female beauty, bad. Very bad. Graffiti. Filthy. Idealised societal expectations, what a terrible thing to destroy. How dare she.

*snicker*

It's always a shame watching liberal guys fall into the trap of romanticizing women like this. They have the raw material to have decent relationships and can be really nice, but girls learn to avoid them because it's just a matter of time before the imperfections that every woman has start causing issues.

Defining "beauty" as perfection sans any individual and instantly recognizable markings of the sort that men are allowed to have makes my alarm bells go off. Women who look too much like themselves, too comfortable in their skin can't be beautiful. Beauty is looking as much like a blank slate as possible so that it's easier for others to project their own fantasies onto you. I know that's not the intention behind this draconian anti-tattoo attitude towards women, but that's what comes across.

I won't even get into his suggestion that tattoos signal "easiness" to men, except to say that I have a couple tattoos, I have girl friends who have a significant number of them, and as far as I know nobody's ever thought that meant anything besides, "She likes tattoos." Sounds like wishful thinking to me.