Content warning: sexual abuse, violence by the state against prisoners

A common theme in the sociology of tattoos is the observation that tattoos can often be an expression of one’s own control over one’s body. This is frequently seen in communities who face discrimination or oppression by mainstream society or by specific institutions.

I find it interesting that the cultural subgroups who express themselves in this way are pretty diverse—everything from queer people (including me!) to Russian criminals living in prison. That latter group is certainly not friendly towards gay people, but it is interesting that these groups nevertheless share a common form of self-expression and assertion of control.

Women

Mifflin (1997/2000/2013) writes:

Tattoos appeal to contemporary women both as emblems of empowerment in an era of feminist gains and as badges of self-determination at a time when controversies about abortion rights, date rape, and sexual harassment have many women thinking hard about who controls their bodies—and why. Their significance can lie in the mere act of getting tattooed (as a form of rebellion or a way of reclaiming one’s body after rape or sexual abuse) […]

Mifflin also provides an interesting counterexample, describing the risks of placing too much faith in this form of self-empowerment:

In “Totem and Tattoo,” I discuss the risks of mistaking control over one’s body art for control over one’s body, a concern that’s perfectly distilled in a recent ad for ThePro-Choice Public Education Project. Countering the assumption that body modificationserves as a kind of armor against external threats to the self, the ad shows a pierced andtattooed twenty-something slapped with the words, “Think you can do whatever you want with your body? Think again.” Body art, it implies, may symbolize self-empowerment, butunless your political involvement matches your body consciousness, you’ll be thoroughlydisempowered when, say, George W. stacks the Supreme Court with pro-lifers.

Queer people

Kiskaddon (2024) offers this anecdote from his practice as a tattooer:

As we were already in the booth, I stood before him and asked him for consent to touch his body. I said what I always said: “Can I touch and workwith your body today?” He thanked me for asking, even though it was obvious I’d be touching him. Most of my clients offered a similar thanks. The majority were women, queer folks, and young men dedicated to a politics of bodily autonomy. They approached the world with heightened attention to the relationship between power, language, bodies, and action.

Castellani (2019) reports a field study of tattoos among lesbian women in Italy:

Among lesbian and bisexual women, decorating the body could also be seen as a response to homophobia, violence, and lack of visibility. As Silvia states: “as bisexuals, gays, lesbians we experience this insecurity. We live in a world in which everything rotates around straight people. Tattooing, piercing is a way to affirm our identity and personality”. Especially, heavily tattooed lesbian women assert their bi- ography through body modification.

Prisoners

Shoham (2015) writes about tattoo cultures among imprisoned people from the former Soviet Union:

Different tattoos contain parodies of Soviet regime propaganda. In other words, the regime may have been able to hurt a prisoner, but as long as he lives his body continued to represent his protest against the symbols of the regime and its authority. In this way, criminals can rebel against the conventions and authority of prison and normative society; for skin can be neither conﬁscated nor supervised. The tattoos that symbolize resistance to the regime appear in various camps and among different crime families in multiple versions, but their meaning is always the same—rejection of the institution and its set of values.