NEWS: Needled News: Marisa DiMattia's Tattoo Revue

CULTURE: Needled News: Marisa DiMattia's Tattoo Revue

While the tattoo news this week was dominated by demure, feel-good stories about tattooed women, I'd first like to take a moment and give a shout out to the ole tramp stamp.

Call them ass antlers, hag tags, or cum catchers, the lower back tattoo has been getting a bum rap—particularly by the heavily tattooed—as a poseur girl fashion trend, labeling the wearer as deep and stimulating as Nelly Furtado lyrics. I dissent. A lower back tattoo does not render one vapid just as full sleeves or unmarked skin does not make one Proust. But I do agree with the stereotype where the tattoo evokes sex.

"Tattoo on the lower back? Might as well be a bulls eye."

This oft-quoted line by Vince Vaughn's character in the Wedding Crashers hits the mark. It relays the idea that frigid women just don't pull down their pants at tattoo studios and get needled. I can vouch for this by personal experience.



I, too, was once a member of the tramp stamp club [see above] until I extended it to a full backpiece. My first tattoo, over twelve years ago, was a small symbol derived from Alexander the Great's crest to mark my (then) philosophy, ethnicity, and to separate me from some of the conservative asses I met in law school. Yet, what I noticed when I bent down in my hip huggers (a cyclical fashion trend) was that people didn't see my lower back tattoo and think I was a scholarly free-thinking Greek. They thought I was a hot babe. And I liked it.

I had strategically placed my tattoo above the butt to hide it but because of the reaction I received with my inadvertent displays, that all changed. My shirts got higher, my jeans even lower, and underwear became optional. If I liked someone in class, I made sure to sit in front of him. Leaning over a bar assured a phone number as it instantly became a talking point for the guy next to me to approach without having to come up with a cheesy line.

I subsequently got more tattoos and, while they were all custom and had other significance, they also took into consideration that the work attracted men, especially tattooed men for whom I have a certain weakness. The moment I went further and tattooed a most visible part of my body, my hand, I wound up sleeping with the sexiest man I ever met, my husband.

So, for me, tattoos have always been about sex and attractiveness as well as about art and ideology. This brings me – finally – to this past week's news and what can be seen as the homogenization of the tattooed woman.

For mainstream journalists, tattoos on a biker mama is not news. Tattoos on a soccer mom is; it's all part of the man-bites-dog genre of reporting as opposed to the other way around. So in articles on the popularity of the art, the focus is on how "normal" people are getting tattooed. This notion and the resulting societal acceptance is arguably a great thing for tattoo artists and aficionados; the problem is when the reportage leaves biker mamas on the side of the road. Bikers, criminals, soldiers, sluts et al are still getting tattooed. They just don't make for good headlines any more.

For example, not one but three articles this week looked at mothers as a large demographic of the tattooed population.

In one entitled Tattoos: increasingly a family affair, the focus was on women getting tattoos to commemorate the births of their children, even likening the pain to labor, and quoting on tattooer as saying, "daughters will buy their moms tattoos as Mother's Day gifts." Heart warming but not sexy. What about adding a line on women who get tattoos to attract a sperm donor?

Then there's the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's MOMania column talking about the new Mommy Has a Tattoo children's book.

I thought I had lost all sex appeal, and street cred, via body art until the Miami Herald threw me bone. In its article, also titled Mommy has a tattoo, reporter Jenni Person writes about the different kinds of moms going under the needle. She started worrying me at the start with talk like this:

This quote is followed up by a former Miss Alabama talking about her tattoos on her pregnant belly as a blessing on her child, and an owner of a tattoo studio describing herself as "a scary-normal soccer-mom kind of person."

Yet, the article does go on to paint a full picture by adding this story:

That's what I'm talking about.

Now, I fully support the democratization of tattooing. In fact, I'm a flag waving revolutionary. But in celebrating the diversity of tattooed folk, let us not forget that point where, for many, it all began: right above the rear end.

Marisa_DiMattia is a lawyer and editor of Needled.com, a blog on tattoo art and culture.

The tramp stamp, if it's well done, fucking kills me. Great article, Marisa.

By the way... cum catcher!? Awesome.

Thanks for shedding a few layers of stigma from the lower back tattoo. As they say, familiarity breeds contempt, and in the case of the "tramp stamp" the fact that it's so prevalent has made it a cliché in today's society. It's still interesting to see though.

I felt I should mention, in the last Pixar movie Cars there is a scene where the racecar get all revved up because he sees the Porsche's "pinstripe tattoo" on her rear end.

I didn't see the Cars movie but heard about it. Talk about tattoos engrained in the mainstream!

great article.

i have a vodou veve on the small of my back as well, and though i don't often show it off, i still get the occasional "tramp stamp" comment. it used to piss me off, but now i don't care so much. the lwa it is dedicated to is rather mischievous anyway, so i suppose it's appropriate that it has made me the butt of frat guy jokes, after all.

Once again , great write up Marisa . As far as the lower back tattoo goes , I love looking at a womans lower back plain or adorned with ink . It's just one of those things that gets me going . That said , I do find the " antlers " to be getting a bit old . There are so many other great designs out there you could go with . Why do the same old boring shit everyone else has ?

It used to be that the only people who cared about tattoos were untattooed people. Now everyone is a freakin critic, who is anyone to judge anyway......

An interesting tattoo is interesting regardless of location, I think. I have a sleeve, like every other cat I know, but no one says that is trite. I think the stigma is a bit unfair.

Love this article! Thanks for the link to the Mommy Has a Tattoo book! Although my 3 year old is my biggest fan of my tattoos. He will proudly tell everyone in the coffee shop "That's me on my mama's arm!" Whether they asked or not.

what a great article!

bah, my tattoos hurt much much less than giving birth, but i am getting a tattoo soon to celebrate the coming of my little bundle of joy.

i never did like the tramp stamp. i think it has to do with the people i know who have them... the tattoos themselves can be very gorgeous, but the people are just dorkwads.

I guess its called the tramp stamp because you can see it when someone bends over ...

My appreciation would come more from the artwork then the placement ...

the Tramp stamp is also refered to as the Slut stamp over here