Tattooed Belly Dancers's topics - tribe.net

Dancing with a new tattoo????

2008-07-21T06:45:51Z

I have a small tattoo I got recently and am going to get another larger one this week. I work as a fitness instructor (yoga and dance) and am a professional belly dancer and polynesian dancer as well.

Any advice on after care? I plan to scale down the first week...but I'm curious to see what the veterans' opinions are. I can only imagine that sweat negatively effects the healing process. What about stretching? This one will be on the upper back, but the next one will be on the abdomen so I'm concerned about twisting.

Thoughts, advice, personal experiences???

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 1 reply

Blacklight tattoos

2008-07-18T09:26:07Z

Does anyone have an opinion about blacklight tattoos?

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 11 replies

How to get the most from your tattoo experience

2008-07-09T04:25:23Z

Hi all~

I've got my appointment to get my first big tattoo, in 3 and a half weeks, and I'm so excited!

So, my question is - how do you like to enjoy the tattoo experience most? Do you bring friends along? Do you meditate upon the experience while it's happening?

Also, do you have any recommendations for pretattoo body and mind care? I was thinking about taking some ibuprofen. :)

Thanks!
- Ayperi

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 6 replies

Looking to commission artist to draw tattoo designs!

2008-06-19T04:28:28Z

Hi Everyone!

Been lurking here for a while & thought I would post. I'm living in Texas now (the DFW area) but my former tattoo artist is in New England & I've been unable to reach him. :( So I'm on the hunt for a new one in the ara but FIRST I want to get the art I want squared away. Thats why I am looking to find an artist willing to actually draw out my designs first!

Right now I am in the process of losing weight. Once I reach my 'goal' (I am about halfway there) and maintain for a bit my 'prize' is a waist/hip tattoo. Heres what I have in mind. Well, actually BOTH ideas I have in mind; I can't decide which I like better yet.

I want the tattoo to start at the small of my back. I already have a tattoo at the center http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/A_Dark_Horse/linsnerwings.jpg which will need to be worked into it. It is not exactly like the pic color wise but you can see the details better on thre which is why I posted it. Here http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/A_Dark_Horse/100_2181.jpg is a picture of it on me (this was last summer I think) for reference.

Both of the designs I have in mind are tied into that tattoo. I want the tattoo to start in the back 'behind' that tattoo. I either want wings or roses and thorn vines.

I found some photos of a wings tattoo that shows my idea for them (no I didn't get this idea from them; I went looking for examples). I don't like the actual wings as I want them to look more like the feather wing on my tatto and realistic rather than pointy / stylized. Here they are:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/A_Dark_Horse/wingsfront.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/A_Dark_Horse/wingsside.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/A_Dark_Horse/wingsback.jpg

As for the roses and thorn vines. I want multiple roses with the largest ones right at my hip bones in front with the vines trailing back to the tatto with a few smaller roses scattered along the vines(I think). I don't want JML's style (the artist who drew the original tattoo for me) of roses and thorns but they need to sorta match (at least the vines) but I'm REALLY wanting realistic roses. Like hoping they look like actual roses sitting on my hips rather than drawn versions. Also, I want both sides symetrifcal. So you really only need to draw one 'arch' of art and then we'll mirror it.

I looked around for some larger images of JML's roses; here are some images that might be helpful:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/A_Dark_Horse/nude-rose.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/A_Dark_Horse/goddess202816429.jpg

Right now I am leaning towards the roses and vines rather than the wings. Since I already have the tattoo with wings in the small of my back I thought having a second pair of wings might be weird.

Anyways! Please contact me via PM if you have any interest in sketching these out and what your rates are!

Thanks!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 8 replies

Space Cadet, here!

2008-06-02T02:40:44Z

I may have posted this already, forgive me.
I am looking for a certain pic of Jamila Salimpour. Its from the 40's or 50's....maybe 60's. She is holding her belly and looking off to the side. Her hair is pulled up and she is wearing harem pants w/ a (perhaps) gold bra and belt. I have had so much trouble finding this pic. I once saw it on a flyer.
I plan on tattooing her as a half-sleeve. Anyone know a pic of her similar to this discription???

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 0 replies

The $5 pants!

2008-05-29T12:02:11Z

We've all seen those fabulously hot Melodias
Soooo, what do you say to getting a $72 (plus S/H) for ONLY $5???
Check it!

Melodia Promo
www.beledibay.com/Win_Melos.html

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 0 replies

GINGER MAGIC.........Reflexoloy, Reiki, Hand and Foot Massage

2008-05-27T15:59:34Z

GINGER MAGIC are at Raq's.....from June 13th - 15th

After Performances and Workshops....

To Feel Like Your Walking on Air....

Book now for 10% off full reflexology treatments

Hand Massages, from £5.00

Reiki Treatments, from £5.00

Foot Massages, from £5.00

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 0 replies

when is it too much?

2008-05-15T14:42:44Z

I was wondering, when is it too much too soon for ink? since I was little I always knew I was going to have a lot of tatts, and I alwyas have ideas in my head. recenly I've been going through a lot of shit, and there is a design I really want to get, it's more like I need to get in order to get through this point in my life. the only thing is, I just got a new tatt about three months ago. I know that is a short time, but it's like I need this tattoo. advice anyone?
thanx :)
~FIona

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 12 replies

New tattoo

2008-05-12T00:18:42Z

Can't remember how to put it here, but it's in my profile. 6 1/2 hours, and could have taken more! LOL

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 0 replies

My first tattoo

2008-05-03T13:39:37Z

Hi there! I have to say, I have been living vicariously through my husband who has 4 tattoos now. I have been with him for each one. I really enjoyed being an integral part of the process with him. Although I have peircings, I kept telling myself that if I really ever got a tattoo, it would cover my whole body and there for I was against getting any......

Until the last time my husband, Dave, went in for his. Something snapped (in a good way), and I started to research everything about tattoos. Then I decided I would get one....The idea grew over the first week of research to a whole body themed design.

So here is my first tattoo, on both feet. Done last night. I am very excited and I absolutely LOVE them. So the next ones are going to continue the vine up my body starting at the outside of the knee, fibula, will wrap around and under the knee to the inside of the thigh. The length will be about the same as on both feet. But the over all design is going to continue to travel upwards to an entire rib, side body, upper back and over the shoulder. The design will be the same as on my feet. What can I say, I like themes. The ribs I think I will add a lilly.

I am so excited! When something is right it feels so natural, almost seamless. This is how I feel about my first tattoos.

Tattoos have so many different meanings for us all, what was your experience with you first tattoo??

I am thinking about asking my artist to work around a specific intention on the next tattoos I have done. He is very open and receptive to energy and I feel very lucky to have found him!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 0 replies

Looking for help with custom and finding artist around Harrisburg/Philly

2008-05-03T11:26:47Z

Hihi =)

I have a tattoo already on my lower back, and my original intent was that it was the first of two parts. Finances have said SCREW YOU! since I got the first one but I'm still wanting to finish part two, which is the bigger part (full back). What I'm looking for is a) some design help and b) a good, trusted, talented artist in the Harrisburg/Philadelphia PA area. I'm IN Harrisburg but considering what I'm doing, I'm willing to travel a bit to find someone who can do this right.

Help?

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 6 replies

haven't popped the tattoo cherry...yet...

2008-04-15T07:00:27Z

Just curious if anyone was as fickle as I am with picking out a tattoo...whenever I think I found something I want, I change my mind again. I know tattoos are a very personal thing, but does anyone have any tips or suggestions on how I can get over being so indecisive?

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 13 replies

Black Rose designs, suggestions

2008-04-09T18:48:10Z

I had a dream a couple of months back in which I had a black rose tattooed on my left calf. It was so real and vivid that I actually looked for it when I woke up ... wouldn't that be cool if we could just dream tats into existence.

The more I think on it the more I know I want to have it done ... for one, my daughter is named Roisin, an Irish name which means "little rose". The name is also linked to the poetical "Roisin Dubh" or "Black Rose," the object of love songs as a metaphor for the lost nation of Ireland during British rule. So it's both political and romantic and a tribute to my daughter.

The problem is that I can't see the exact rose from my dream any more. I thought perhaps getting it done in black and gray but then thought perhaps the color would be better if were a mix of purples and blues to create the dimensionality of the rose. I see it as a rose in full bloom with a long stem.

Does anyone have any suggestions or perhaps someting similar that might give me some inspiration?

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 1 reply

Tattoo Artists in Dublin, Ireland?

2008-03-31T20:17:16Z

I'm going to Dublin in October, and would love to get some work while I'm there. Any recommendations?

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 5 replies

New member intro/wants tat!

2008-01-24T21:30:15Z

Greetings sisters-in-dance!

I'm a Belly Dancer in the Monterey bay area of California, and I'm planning on my first tattoo for my 50th, 3 years away (now that I've convinced my wife that it'd be "OK"!). Yea, I plan things WAY in advance!

I'm researching artists now, and have found three so far that interest me. Any leads towards "dancer friendly" artists would be appreciated - but I do want a woman artist. I trust a woman's aesthetic sense/artistry. There's one gal local to me who has been recommended, there's "Gypsy Jill" in Seattle who comes with VERY high recommendations, and a gal in Portland that I found on the 'net who seems interesting.

I'm also in the Orlando area frequently, and Albuquerque occasionally.

-Zorba
"The Veiled Male"
http://www.doubleveil.net

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 6 replies

Back Tattoo's

2007-10-25T07:25:49Z

Hi all, having a tatoo on my nback shortly, picture in profile. How much does it hurt, have one on my upper arm which was fine but this is going to cross the bone. Am i just being a wimp!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 7 replies

has anyone been tattoo'd in San Diego

2007-10-09T05:35:06Z

By Bill?

http://www.billshead.com/

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 2 replies

Tattoo Convention!

2007-10-03T20:44:18Z

Hey my fellow tattooed dancers!

There's a tattoo convention October 12 - 14 in Denver, at the Merchandise Mart. Website: www.bodyartexpo.com

I'm seriously thinking about going since I've never been to a big ol' tattoo show/place before! Just wanted to let everyone know!

Stef.

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 1 reply

Cover-Ups? X-post

2007-10-01T20:53:13Z

I have a very old black portrait-type tat below my belly on the right - almost on my hipbone. I'm thinking I would like to get it covered up with a color piece and was wondering if any of you had any experience with anything like that? I don't know if black work is hard to cover or what (she's very faded), but I'm feeling more and more like this is something I want to do. The placement is awkward (the one thing I would change and one of the main reasons I want to cover it up) and, after 13 years I'm just not happy with it.

Any advice or stories to share?

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 3 replies

Hmmm what to do - I have the itch!

2007-08-30T17:58:24Z

FOR NEW INK! ahhhh! What to do!

I have been pondering this for like 2 years now. I have a hand tapped piece on my back, which is an upside down triangle from the top of my butt to my waist. I'll post a pic soon. I was at raqs B and had some henna done over my hips to see what it would look like. I liked it, but I don't hink I want the symetrical thing going on. Coz althought my piece on the back looks symetrical, it actually has subtle differences. Ita a polynesian piece done especially for me.

But I think I want something more organic and fluid, maybe even with some colour. Can anyone recomend a site to look for ideas. I just don't know - and thats bad, you need to be sure!

Sian x

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 5 replies

Tattoo expos?

2007-08-15T19:22:49Z

We're having a real live tattoo expo here in Augusta during Labor Day weekend....I've been wanting a new piece for my lower back anyway, replacing the little tramp stamp with a big old ho stamp - but I have been taking my time checking out the local artists....

There's an impressive list of artists coming, from Cali and Atlanta and New York and all over - I'm afraid that if I go "just to look" I'll get intoxicated with all the beautiful ink and end up getting one done there.....

would that be ok, or a really a bad idea? anyone ever done the expo thing?

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 1 reply

New to the list and very tattooed!!!

2007-07-21T22:34:45Z

Hi all! I can't believe it took me this long to find this tribe. I've been dancing since I was 18 and I have two tattoos. one is a memorial piece for a friend who died when we were hit by a drunk driver, it's on my lower back. My other is my pride and joy, a Green Man that covers the rest of my back. That one I started in January and just had finished on july 17th! It has been such a journey. 7 months, 9 sessions, 28 hours, and more money than I like to think about, and worth every bit of it all!!! I have a fabulously talented, wonderful tattoo artist and nobody but him touches me. ;-) From the looks of these tribe photos it looks like you all have the same.

I have blogs in my profile that fully explain the meanings of both my pieces - the memorial one is over a year old but it's there somewhere. The Green Man respresents so much to me that I can't type it here, it's practically a novel, but there's a big blog about that one too, much more recent.

Nice to finally be here!

Jaimie

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 4 replies

Am I becoming a tattoo junkie???

2007-07-14T02:42:10Z

I am so excited I am getting inked tomorrow...(Number two) ...It's really pretty and I cant wait to see it on...

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 7 replies

crap, now I'm scared

2007-07-09T15:10:50Z

So, I just read about someone's lower belly tattoo session and I"m going for one this Friday night. How high on the ouch scale is it???
I have a HUGE one on my lower back lower hips (see butterfly/peacock in black and red here in photos) and that hurt like a betch on the outer fleshy/fat of the hips like mad. Is the lower belly worse?
Anyone? Advice? It's just going to be me and my tat artist.....no one else there to distract me....

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 5 replies

Why I love pneumatic needle tattoos (x-posted once)

2007-06-21T23:15:44Z

I thought I’d share my love for pneumatic tattooing with you ladies (and any gents, too), because I’m really happy with this method.

Pneumatic tattoo needles are powered by an air compressor, instead of electricity. I’ve been trying to learn more about their exact history, but people love claiming to be the “first artist to make their needle pneumatic,” so I’m taking it all with a grain of salt. Here is a pretty good site that explains the more mechanical side of things: http://www.neumatattoomachines.com/

My personal pneumatic tattoo experiences (pictures are in my album, if you want to see them):

1. Passionflower cover-up on my left shoulder.
2. Giant silkworm moth cover-up on my stomach.

I noticed the difference right away – my artist didn’t tell me that the needle was air driven, but I remember thinking how it didn’t hurt as much as I remembered. Pneumatic needles don’t vibrate like electric needles, so there’s a lot less pain and trauma to the skin during tattooing. I also noticed nice little puffs of cooling air on my skin whenever my artist paused, because the needle decompresses a bit. No big deal, but it was kind of cool because I’m a geek. The noise is also very subdued; it doesn’t have that dentist drill sound, and I could actually listen to the terrible rap music my artist’s assistant likes to play (everyone else in the shop has much better taste, thankfully).

After the fact, I was told to skip the A&D/Neosporin/Tattoo Goo phase. I said “Whaaat?” and my artist confirmed it: yep, you skip that step and just put your gentle, unscented lotion on. I was amazed. He explained that there’s so much less trauma to the skin, there’s much less open skin area and a lot less damage to heal.

I was amazed at how fast my tattoos healed. I was used to being gentle with myself for weeks, but my passionflower skipped the scabbing/flaking step entirely. It gently lost some dead skin and was then fine, not tender at all, and I only had a few days of the itchies. I put lotion on it frequently and all was well. I noticed minimal ink loss on both my tats – they were very vibrant, even after one sitting.

I’ll never go back to electric if I can help it! I doubt I could have made it through my stomach tattoo in one sitting with an electric needle. I love the fast healing time, I love the smooth ride. So if you’ve got a pneumatic artist, or a favorite artist who might be open to trying a new thing, check it out!

(Please note that I really don’t sell pneumatic needles or anything. I just love it.)

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 1 reply

Hulloooo

2007-06-20T21:31:51Z

Im new.. but not to Tribe.

I cant believe I missed this! Lots of good stuff - thanks for sharing!

Pics of the ink are in the profile ladies!

>O.O<

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 3 replies

Tattoo artists in the UK?

2007-06-20T15:51:03Z

Anyone know of any good artists in the UK?? I am looking to get more ink (not urgently, it's a slow burn this time!) and I wanna go to someone recommended to me by others. I'm thinking of going down the flowers/wildlife angle if this helps any..... Any help would be greatly appreciated!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 8 replies

Lower belly tattoo experience (x-posted)

2007-06-19T21:54:17Z

I just got my lower belly tattoo (Giant Silkworm Moth, photo in this Tribe's album), and since several people had asked me to share my experience, here it is:

#1. During: OW. I have other tattoos on my shoulder and lower back, and this one takes the cake for pain. It was a cover-up, and the initial tattoo was really only right around the lower half of my navel. The pain came in lower down and out to the sides, where I'm very ticklish. My tattoo artist was great, and he dealt with the little 'tummy flinches' very well, without any kind of distortion to my tattoo. I had a friend sit with me and talk to me as much as possible so I didn't just sit there thinking about how it hurt, and that helped amazingly. When he ran out of things to say, I got a bit surly. Total time: Just under three hours, including breaks. I'm going to be perfectly honest: the pain from this made me reconsider my plans to get tattoos over my hips on my oblique area. I love the look, but after this I think I might wait a year or five before putting myself through that particular pain again. I'll stick to less sensitive areas, for now.

#2. After: The main thing I noticed right away was my inability to do a belly roll. My lower abs were too strung out and my stomach skin was too swollen to even move them. It looked pretty funny, me trying to roll my belly and only getting the top half in on the matter. Two days later I can do a roll if I really concentrate, so I assume it will be all well and good when my tattoo fully heals. Lots of lotion, and I'm wearing my jeans like a 16 year old guy (read: around my butt).

Thoughts: For any tattoo you might get, opt for a pneumatic needle if you can. I can't recommend this method enough. I've had four tattoo sessions with an electric needle and three now with a pneumatic, and the second is by far and away the best. I really notice a difference in pain during and after (less with the pneumatic), bleeding (less with the pneumatic), and healing time (much faster with the pneumatic, plus you skip the 'scabby' phase). The pneumatic needle causes a lot less trauma to your skin, both in terms of vibration (which is far less intense) and needle speed (which is much faster). So check it out!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 2 replies

interesting article on women and tattoos

2007-06-19T03:41:01Z

Sorry this is a long article, but I thought it was interesting:-)

Factors that influence attitudes toward women with tattoos
Daina Hawkes

The ancient art of tattooing has recently enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in North America. Prevalence rates for tattoos are difficult to assess but have been estimated at 10%-20% of men and 7% of women with tattoos in the United States (Copes & Forsyth, 1998). Estimates are not yet available in Canada, however, there is no reason to suspect that Canadian rates would be markedly different. (3)

Historically, although men with tattoos have experienced negative judgments and reactions (Gray, 1994; Rubin, 1988), they have arguably received greater social acceptance than have women with tattoos (Braunberger, 2000; Scutt & Gotch, 1974). For instance, in his social history of tattoos, Steward (1990), an established tattoo artist, described women with tattoos as "lank-haired scags, with ruined landscapes of faces and sagging hose and run-over heels" (p. 127). In an effort to control the tattooing of women, he established a policy of refusing to tattoo any woman who was not over 21 years of age, married, able to show proof of marriage, and accompanied by her husband. In light of the historical nonacceptance of women with tattoos and the growing trend of tattooing for women, it is important to study the possible influence of tattooing on people's perceptions of women with tattoos. The current study began the task of identifying the factors that affect Canadian young adults' attitudes toward women with tattoos.

Cultural and sociological histories of tattooing of both men and women do exist (e.g., DeMello, 2000; Rubin, 1988; Sanders, 1989; Wroblewski, 1992), but empirical studies are scarce (Atkinson, 2002). To our knowledge, no empirical research specifically on attitudes toward women with tattoos has been published in any discipline. Ongoing societal attitudes can be inferred, however, from examining both the historical reactions to women with tattoos and gender issues in general.

The stigma and acceptance of tattooing for North American women has waxed and waned (4) and has always been integrally related to issues of class. In the late nineteenth century, women were tattooed in order to pursue careers as sideshow circus attractions (Braunberger, 2000; Gray, 1994). Their costumes were scant, and they were, therefore, considered rebellious for their time. Despite their tattoos, these women were not regarded as revolutionaries, but instead as social outcasts to be marveled at as well as ridiculed (Mifflin, 1997). At the time, positive associations with tattoos were limited to upper class women; these women were recognized as brave and noble as well as beautiful (Armstrong, 1991; Mifflin, 1997). Tattooing experienced a revival during the 1920s and the suffragist movement; it became in vogue among the upper classes to have a tattoo. But not all women enjoyed such freedom, and society did not necessarily endorse this trend. For example, in the late 1920s, the conviction of a rapist was overturned because a small butterfly tattoo was found on the victim (Mifflin, 1997). Both the judge and jury agreed that the tattoo had sexual implications, and, as a result, it was held that the woman was in part responsible for misleading the man who raped her.

Stigma increased for women again with the outbreak of war; society women with tattoos were publicly insulted in the newspapers (Mifflin, 1997). Between the times of the carnival ladies and the early 1970s, women were largely excluded from the tattoo scene (DeMello, 2000). But then during the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, tattooing enjoyed a resurrection among radical women who were rethinking their gender role (including rock stars such as Janis Joplin). There was also an increase, during the 1970s, in the number of female tattoo artists. Although female tattoo artists had many male clients, as women who had tattoos and who therefore did not conform to their gender role, they were often stigmatized by men (Mifflin, 1997).

Tattooing has now begun to cross the gender, class, and race barriers, as many young women (Brown, Perlmutter, & McDermott, 2000; Houghton, Durkin, Parry, Turbett, & Odgers, 1996) and women across a number of professions (Armstrong, 1991) have obtained tattoos. It has been estimated that women currently acquire half of all tattoos, a rate that has quadrupuled since the 1970s (Armstrong, 1991).

In one of the few studies of women and tattoos, Armstrong (1991) looked at career-oriented women who possessed tattoos, their responses to questions concerning their experience and decisions regarding the tattooing procedure, and the reactions of the people around them. She found that many people with whom the women came into contact made derogatory and stereotypical remarks, such as calling them "biker mama" (p. 219). Armstrong concluded that women received ambivalent responses from many of the people in their lives, and the most negative attitudes toward the women's tattoos came from their fathers, or the fathers of their friends and associates. These men responded to the women's tattoos with silence or disparaging remarks, and they often verbalized their worries about how society in general would perceive the tattoo and the woman who wore it.

Why would the general stigma of tattoos for women remain even as numerous women went out of their way to acquire tattoos? Tattoos and tattooing have been considered primarily a man's activity and would, therefore, likely be considered a gender role violation for women. Rosenfield (1982) found that both men and women are evaluated negatively when they transgress gendered boundaries. Moreover, in a study of gender norm violation by Kunkel and Nielsen (1998), appearance norm deviance generated the most negativity. The refusal to control the body and its display in ways that are socially acceptable seems to be perceived as a threat to the social order (Ralph, 1996).

Basic social psychological phenomena compound this tendency to judge on the basis of appearance. Kruglanski and Webster (1991) examined how a person's need for closure (a motivation to draw a conclusion quickly and terminate cognitive processing related to the issue) affected reactions to nonconformity. They found that nonconformists were evaluated more negatively when there was a high need to reach closure. Doherty (1998) concluded that under most conditions of need to reach closure, both men and women evaluated female targets more negatively when they deviated from the group, but showed no such preference for conformity in male targets. Doherty (1998) suggested that this lack of preference for conformity in male targets may be due to the gender-role expectations and stereotype of men as independent thinkers. It can be argued that, when women become tattooed, they may be evaluated more negatively than men who become tattooed for two reasons: the refusal to obey appearance norms and the gender nonconformity that it displays.

In a recently published study, there is some evidence for this suggestion. In Atkinson's (2002) convenience sample of tattooed Canadian women, he found support for the struggle to negotiate gender boundaries in women's narratives about their decisions to obtain tattoos. Atkinson wrote that "the women I interviewed voiced an awareness of the outsider social status women continue to hold in Canada and how women are expected to modify their bodies for the pleasure of men (i.e., men prefer soft, supple, thin, sexy, and unblemished feminine bodies) ... and their forays into tattooing were mediated (in some basic way) by this cultural understanding" (p. 232). This may explain why, when women do become tattooed, there is a tendency to assume that they will acquire more delicate and feminine tattoos and that their tattoos will be placed in an unseen area (Sanders, 1988). Atkinson's results also suggest that many women use tattoos to "maintain a culturally established feminine status" (p. 227) and that a large tattoo is completely inconsistent "with established constructions of femininity."

This new research suggests that although some tattooed women are attempting to strengthen perceptions of their femininity, others are purposely flouting these gender conventions (Atkinson, 2002). During the past century the fluctuation in the tattoo status of women has appeared to correspond with each wave of the feminist movement (Mifflin, 1997; see Braunberger, 2000, for a somewhat dissenting perspective). Perhaps tattoos reinforce a feeling of power during a time of empowerment for some women, and, as such, women's motives for acquiring tattoos in these periods can be better understood (DeMello, 2000). The nature of masculine control over women's bodies has repeatedly been examined and revealed through 20 years of feminist study (Singer, Butler, & MacGrogan, 1993). A woman who decides to get a tattoo, especially a larger tattoo or a tattoo in a very visible place, may be making a statement about her body and who is in control of it. However, Kunkel and Nielsen (1998) suggested that this reclaiming of control may be a more difficult task than it might appear as women "... are more easily labelled deviant because they make few of the rules and have fewer status resources with which to resist labelling" (p. 341).

Backlash against the women's movement since the 1980s (Faludi, 1991) may also help to explain people's negative attitudes toward women with tattoos. Although women are affected by this backlash, men's support for the women's movement is weaker to begin with (Fassinger, 1994). Consequently, men's negative reactions to tattoos on women may stem from their resistance toward women's rights. We therefore expected that support for feminism and the women's movement would be related to attitudes toward women's tattoos, particularly for male participants. We predicted that the size and visibility of a woman's tattoo would have an influence on attitudes toward her with attitudes becoming more negative as these gender conventions are violated. We also wondered whether the attitudes of tattooed women and men may reflect these conflicting realities with tattooed women perhaps being more positive about any woman's tattoo project regardless of size, and tattooed men being more ambivalent, particularly when women's tattoos violate the size and visibility conventions of femininity.

Previous investigators have failed to study what attitudes were present toward women with tattoos; instead they focused on the more descriptive tasks of finding out what type of people acquired tattoos or what their personal motivations were. The present study was designed to fill a gap in the literature through an examination of the factors that affect whether women with tattoos would be the recipients of negative responses from Canadian undergraduate participants. We created a brief description of a woman in which we varied the size of her tattoo (smaller vs. larger than a $1 coin (5)) and its visibility (always hidden vs. visible). The control description contained no information about tattoo status. In light of the previous discussion on conformity, femininity, bodily control, and the women's movement, we hypothesized that men, particularly those without tattoos, would hold the most negative attitudes toward women with tattoos. We also hypothesized that larger, more visible tattoos would attract the most negative evaluations. We expected that people (both men and women) with more conservative gender attitudes would be more negative in their evaluations of women with tattoos.

METHOD

Participants

The sample consisted of 268 participants who were full or part-time undergraduate students at a medium-sized university in central Canada. One hundred and twenty-two men and 146 women participated. They were randomly selected, with gender balance criteria, from the Psychology Department Participant Pool. Participants did not identify their race/ethnicity in the current study, however random selection from the participant pool in that particular year would have resulted in a sample that was primarily White ([approximately equal to]85%). Forty-four percent of the students were in their first year of study; the rest were fairly evenly distributed through the other three years (2nd, 22%; 3rd, 18%; 4th, 15%). The majority of the students were in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The participants were compensated with one bonus point toward their final grade in a psychology class. All participants were treated in accordance with CPA and APA ethical codes.

Measures

Manipulation of Tattoo Status, Visibility, and Size

A basic scenario was written to act as the base description and the control stimulus. In it a young woman is described.

Jennifer is a 20-year-old woman of average height and build. She is
a student at a university, where she achieves average marks. She has
a steady boyfriend, and she also works part-time as a waitress in a
restaurant.

The independent variables "size of tattoo" (smaller or larger than a "loonie"--the $1 Canadian coin) and "visibility of tattoo" (visible or hidden) were manipulated through the addition of the sentence: "She has a tattoo (smaller/larger) than a loonie, which is always (hidden from view/visible)." The five conditions created were therefore: A--small/visible, B--small/hidden, C--large/visible, D--large/hidden, and E--no tattoo information/control. Two other descriptions of young women were included only as distractor tasks. In these descriptions, we varied other information relevant to university students to take the focus off the tattoo information in the experimental description--one a woman with a weight problem, average grades, a part-time job in a grocery store, and no current boyfriend; the other a woman of average weight, with failing grades, a part-time job in a clothing store, and a steady relationship. The perceptions of these women were not analyzed.

Attitude Measurement

Twenty-two adjective pairs from Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum's (1958) Semantic Differential were presented following each description (three times in total). Adjectives were chosen on an intuitive basis (as is normal procedure for research with the Semantic Differential) primarily from the three major domains. (6) The items were chosen from the evaluative (13 items; e.g., pleasant--unpleasant), potency (6 items; e.g., powerful--weak), activity (2 items; e.g., passive--active), and stability (1 item; i.e., cautious--rash) domains. We were interested in an overall attitude, however, we allowed the possibility that more than one dimension might emerge. Factor analysis was done to ensure that items would be included on the correct dimension for subscale construction.

The Neosexism Scale (11 items; Tougas, Brown, Beaton, & Joly, 1995) and the Feminism and the Women's Movement Scale (10 items; FWM; Fassinger, 1994) followed. Both of these scales use 5-point response scales that range from strongly disagree to strongly agree. These measures have documented high reliability and validity. On the Neosexism Scale; higher scores are related to greater sexism. The FWM scale is scored in the opposite direction; high scores show more support for feminism and the goals and activities of the women's movement.

Background Information

Participants were asked to identify their gender, year in university, major, tattoo status (including size and visibility if they had one), and their likelihood of getting a tattoo if they did not currently have one.

Procedure

Participants were randomly selected from the Psychology Department Participant Pool. They were contacted at home by telephone and asked if they would be interested in participating in a study on the roles of women in society. If the participants agreed (only three did not), they were scheduled for an appointment in groups no larger than 50. When they arrived at the appointed room, participants first read and signed a consent form, and then they received a package that included instructions, the descriptions, the two questionnaires (Neosexism Scale and the FWM Scale), and a bubble sheet for questionnaire responses. The participants completed the Neosexism and FWM scales on the bubble sheet. After the participants handed the package back to the researcher, they were asked to complete the short background questionnaire that asked about their tattoo status. This procedure was followed to minimize social desirability and the likelihood that participants would identify tattooing as the focus of the study prior to completing the attitude measures. The participants then received a short debriefing statement that fully explained the study, its rationale, and the hypotheses.

RESULTS

Scales, Scores, and Reliabilities

The attitude measure consisted of 22 items from the Semantic Differential. Principal components analysis and a Scree test suggested that a three-factor structure was ideal (47.41% of variance accounted for). After varimax rotation the three factors fell out as a 12-item evaluative scale (two potency items ended up on this factor). a 7-item potency/activity scale, and a 3-item factor (one each of potency, activity, and evaluative), which accounted for 25, 15, and 7% of the variance, respectively. Reliability analysis suggested that only the first two factors made adequate subscales (Cronbach's alphas of .85, .71, and .46, respectively). Raw scores were summed across items within Factors 1 and 2 to create two scores that represented the participants' attitudes toward the woman in the description (1--general evaluation including perceptions of femininity, and 2-perception of toughness/power). These two factors were not correlated, r = .11, p = .08. On the evaluative subscale, higher scores indicate more negative attitudes, including perceptions of increased masculinity (e.g., bad, cruel, masculine, unpleasant, ugly). In the potency subscale, higher scores indicate greater perceptions of strength, power, and activity (e.g., powerful, rash, hard, intense, strong). It should be clear that scores on the second subscale are more equivocable in meaning because high scores could be seen as negative if one held traditional views of women but as positive if one held egalitarian values (see Table I for full list of adjective pairs).

Evaluative attitude scores ranged from 21 to 61 (M = 42.06, SD = 6.19; a score of 48 is a neutral attitude; scores less than 48 are positive overall), thus the mean response is somewhat positive. Potency attitude scores ranged from 20 to 45 (M = 32.47, SD = 4.33), where 28 is a neutral score. Therefore, the mean response is slightly toward the potent/powerful end of the continuum.

Participants' Own Tattoo Status

Of the 268 participants. 43 (16%) had tattoos; 10 of the tattooed participants were men and 33 were women. For the purposes of the analysis, we had wanted to compare students who had tattoos in each condition with their nontattooed peers. To increase the n within this subgroup without watering down the expected contrasts, we included students who said they were likely or very likely to get a tattoo with those participants who already had tattoos. Although these students are not likely to have the same experiences and attitudes as tattooed individuals, it was our view that they could be expected to be very different from those students who would not consider getting a tattoo. We believed that in a preliminary investigation such as ours, it was more important to explore these relationships with as much power as possible than to retain the pure categories. Including this subgroup of personally identified tattoo positive individuals increased the total n to 88 (33% of total). Participants also rated the size and location (hidden/visible) of their own tattoos. All of the men classified their tattoos as larger than a loonie. Roughly half of the women (16) classified their tattoos as smaller than a loonie. Of the men, six tattoos were classified as hidden, and four as visible. Of the women, 24 tattoos were hidden, and 9 were visible. Men were more likely to have large tattoos than women were, [chi square] (1, N = 43) = 7.72, p < .05, but no differences existed between the sexes in the visibility of their tattoos, [chi square] (1, N = 43) = .59, p = ns.

Main Analyses

The study had a between-subjects design with the two levels of each independent variable (size and visibility) fully crossed and a "dangling" control. This design necessitated that we use a multiple regression procedure with attitude scores (Evaluative and Potency composites of Semantic Differential) as the criterion variables and specified orthogonal contrasts to assess the effects of all main effects and interactions. The first contrast compared the four tattoo groups to the control. The second and third contrasts examined the main effects of size and visibility. The fourth contrast tested the interaction between size and visibility. We also tested for main effects of gender and tattoo status of the participants and their interactions with the experimentally manipulated variables. These results can be interpreted in the same manner as ANOVA. Results are therefore presented as F statistics (squared ts from regression procedure). Post hoc analyses were performed using t-tests or Tukey-Kramer modification (for unequal ns) of the HSD test where appropriate.

Evaluative Subscale Analysis

See Table II for full details. With the Evaluative subscale as the criterion, a main effect for tattoo emerged, F(1.248) = 4.69, p < .05. Overall, the description of the woman who did not have a tattoo was viewed more positively (M = 40.54, SD = 5.42) than were any of the women with tattoos (M = 42.47, SD = 6.33). A main effect of gender was also found; women's attitudes (M = 40.80, SD = 6.24) were more positive than men's attitudes (M = 43.57, SD = 5.81) overall toward all of the women described, F(1, 248) = 11.62, p < .001. A main effect for visibility was also significant; participants' attitudes toward the woman with a visible tattoo were less favorable (M = 44.26, SD = 5.61) than those toward the women in the hidden tattoo (M = 40.74, SD = 6.53) and the control conditions (M = 40.54, SD = 5.42; F(1,248) = 16.26, p < .001.

The interaction between the presence or absence of a tattoo in the description and participant tattoo status was also significant, F(1, 248) = 5.11, p < .05 (see Table III). In the no tattoo control, there was no difference in perceptions of the woman in the scenario between those who have or are likely to obtain a tattoo and those who do/are not. (7) However, in the four conditions in which tattoos were present, people who have or are likely to obtain a tattoo were more favorable in their perceptions than were those who did not have tattoos themselves and were not likely to get one. Within participant status, there was no difference in perceptions of women with and without tattoos for individual participants who had or were likely to get a tattoo, however individuals who did not have tattoos and were unlikely to get one were less positive in their ratings of women with tattoos than those without them.

An interaction between gender, tattoo status of participants, and tattoo size in the description was also significant, F(1, 248) = 6.36, p < .01. Men and women who do not have tattoos and were not likely to get one were more negative in their evaluation of women with any size tattoo than were women and men with tattoos and those likely to get one. Men and women with tattoos show no differences in attitudes across the size conditions. When the means within a size condition were examined, however, it was clear that the men's and women's patterns are not identical (see Figs. 1 and 2 for graphs of these patterns). For men, differences in attitudes between tattooed and nontattooed men are greatest (and significantly different only) in the "small tattoo" condition, whereas for women, differences in attitudes based on participant tattoo status are greatest (and significantly different only) for the "large tattoo" condition. Women with and without tattoos were more similar in their views toward women with small tattoo; women who have or are likely to get a tattoo were more positive in their evaluation than were women who do not have or are unlikely to get tattoos. Men showed the opposite pattern. Men with and without tattoos were more similar and most negative toward the woman with a large tattoo, but men without tattoos were more negative about a woman with a small tattoo than are men with tattoos.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Potency Subscale

See Table IV for full details. With the Potency Subscale as the criterion, a main effect for tattoo emerged, F(1, 248) = 42.18, p < .001. The woman in the description with no tattoo was seen as less powerful and more passive (M = 29.46, SD = 3.30) than the women with tattoos (M = 33.29, SD = 4.22). The main effect for visibility was also significant, but the pattern of means did not add new information as only the differences between the control group (M = 29.46) and the tattoo groups were significantly different; there were no differences between the hidden (M = 32.73) and visible conditions (M = 33.86). The interaction between tattoo in the description, participant tattoo status, and gender was the final significant effect (p < .05). Men with tattoos rated the woman in the control condition as less powerful and active (M = 28.00; SD = 3.38, p = .02) than did men without tattoos (M = 31.06, SD = 2.67). There was no difference in the perceptions of men with and without tattoos in the experimental conditions. Across conditions, men with tattoos rated the woman with a tattoo as significantly more powerful (M = 34.12; SD = 5.51, p < .01) than the woman in the control description. Men without tattoos who were unlikely to get one did not differ in their ratings of women with and without tattoos. For women, the pattern is quite different. Women, with (p < .01) and without tattoos (p < .001), perceived the woman with a tattoo to be more powerful and potent (Ms = 32.91 and 33.84; SDs = 3.65 and 3.80, respectively) than the woman without a tattoo (Ms = 29.33 and 28.73; SDs = 3.60 and 3.30, respectively). There were no differences between women within the groups (control vs. experimental) based on their personal tattoo status.

Contribution of Neosexism and Attitudes Toward Feminism

A regression analysis was performed next to test whether neosexism and attitudes toward the women's movement had an influence on attitude ratings beyond those relationships found in the previous analysis. We were particularly interested in whether sexism or lack of support for the women's movement would increase negative views of women with tattoos. The two measures we used are highly correlated, r = -.55, p < .001, and both correlated significantly with the evaluative subscale (p < .01) but not with the potency subscale (p = ns). Regression analysis was therefore performed only on the evaluative subscale scores. Inclusion of both variables in the regression analyses led to a significant [R.sup.2] change but no significant individual effects due to collinearity. The regression was therefore repeated with Neosexism and FWM in separate analyses (see Table V for the analysis using FWM).

The first block of variables entered were the previously significant contrast effects and necessary main effects: overall effect of tattoo, size, and visibility, gender, tattoo status, the overall effect of tattoo X tattoo status interaction, and gender X size X tattoo status interaction. This block was significant as expected, [R.sup.2] = .17, p < .001. In the second block, the Neosexism or attitudes toward Feminism and the Women's Movement scale scores were added with their interaction term (with contrast one: tattoo vs. no tattoo in description). The [R.sup.2] change was not significant for the addition of Neosexism, [R.sup.2[DELTA]] = .01, p = .11. Attitudes toward Feminism and the Women's Movement did contribute to prediction of attitude scores however, [R.sup.2[DELTA]] = .04, p < .01. Both the scale scores themselves (p < .01) and the interaction between support of feminism and whether or not there was a tattoo in the description (p < .05) were significant. Thus, these attitudes add a small amount of predictive value to the model beyond that accounted for by the variables already examined. It was not surprising that more supportive attitudes toward feminism and the women's movement were related to more positive attitudes toward women across the experimental conditions. More important for our analyses here, lack of support for feminism was related to more negative views of women with tattoos beyond the effects already discussed (see Fig. 3). We used a quartile split of Attitudes toward Feminism and the Women's Movement scores to demonstrate this effect. It is clear from this graph that people with the lowest level of support for feminism were those who have the most negative views of women with tattoos.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

DISCUSSION

The primary purpose of this study was to examine Canadian undergraduate students' attitudes toward women with tattoos. The importance of this topic has been accentuated in recent years because of the increasing number of women who are acquiring tattoos. This increase in tattooing was evident in our sample. Sixteen percent of this random sample of Canadian university students enrolled in psychology courses had tattoos. This is substantially higher than the prevalence rate of 10% for the U.S. population that was recently reported (Copes & Forsyth, 1998). However, the striking difference between the current study and the Copes and Forsyth (1998) sample is the gender breakdown of tattoo ownership. They reported that 20% of men and 7% of women were tattooed, whereas in our sample, 23% of women but only 12% of men were tattooed. If, as some have recently found (Houghton et al., 1996) or suggested (Armstrong, 1991; Brown et al., 2000), young women are roughly 50% of those obtaining tattoos in their peer group, this difference is probably due at least in part to a cohort difference between our young, educated sample and Copes and Forsyth's general population. It should be noted that our sample was randomly selected from students taking psychology courses and therefore no volunteer self-selection bias affects these rates. Our data suggest that tattooing is increasing rapidly among young women, which in a few decades (due to tattoo permanence) will lead to a higher prevalence rate for women with tattoos over all age groups.

We had expected that attitudes toward a woman who possesses a tattoo would be more negative than attitudes toward the same woman who does not. The evaluative subscale of the attitude measure gives us the least ambiguous view of the reactions. Overall, men's attitudes toward the women in the description were more negative than women's were, which suggests a level of sexism, even without the addition of tattoos. Further, women with tattoos were perceived less positively than women without tattoos, collapsed across all sizes and visibility variations.

Given the cultural constraints on women's appearance norms and on gender role violations more generally, we expected that the size and visibility of a woman's tattoo would affect the reactions to her. Specifically, we hypothesized that small, hidden tattoos would be more favorably received by participants than would large, visible ones. Further, we expected that a participant's own tattoo status would complicate the situation; men with tattoos were expected to have more ambivalent reactions, and women with tattoos more consistently positive attitudes.

The participant's own tattoo status was indeed an important factor in reactions to women with tattoos. Across the four conditions in which tattoos were present, participants who had tattoos or were likely to get one held more favorable attitudes than did those who did not have tattoos or were not likely to get one. In support of our hypothesis, men without tattoos and with no likelihood of getting one rated all women with tattoos more negatively than they did women without tattoos. Women who did not have tattoos also followed this pattern. Men with tattoos distinguished themselves from other men by rating the women who had tattoos as significantly more powerful and active than the women who were not tattooed, which supports the hypothesis that their response may be more ambivalent than other men's. It is interesting that both women with and without tattoos rated the women with tattoos as more powerful and less passive than they did the women without tattoos. These findings provide an important complication: women with tattoos were viewed as more powerful and less passive than women without tattoos. In a culture where passivity and weakness are socially desirable traits for women, this is consistent with a negative evaluation of women with tattoos. However, in a culture (or subculture) where women's strength is idealized, the opposite conclusion could be reached. This potential contrast in findings suggests that Atkinson (2002) and others (e.g., Braunberger, 2000) are onto an important cultural contradiction that will be critical to our future explorations of attitudes toward women with tattoos. We must begin to assess the meaning(s) that the connections between gender, power, and strength have for participants so that we can more carefully untangle and understand the attitudes that they hold.

Both men and women did have more negative attitudes toward a woman with a visible tattoo than toward the other women in the descriptions. The participants' own tattoo status did not have an effect here. This finding suggests that women who are not demure and do not hide their tattoos, but instead blatantly display a tattoo, are likely to receive less positive evaluations than their nontattooed peers. The view that this social "pressure" is received by women and informs their behavior is supported by work by Atkinson (2002), Coe, Harmon, Verner, and Tonn (1993), and Sanders (1988). Sanders (1988) claimed that "[s]ince tattoos on women are especially stigmatizing, placement on private parts of the body allows women to retain unsullied identities when in contact with casual associates or strangers" (p. 414). Atkinson (2002) provided evidence from his interviews with tattooed women that young women are well aware of this stigma of visiblilty and take it into account when they are choosing their tattoo placement.

It is interesting to note that our female participants, although they had negative views of women with visible tattoos, at the same time perceived tattooed women as more powerful than nontattooed women. This may again be an indication of the tension that exists between the perception of the assertiveness of the statement made by marking one's body and the transgression of the stereotypical feminine role that ensues when a tattoo is visible.

We had expected that the size of the tattoo would also be a component of this phenomenon of judgment. Our understanding of this dynamic was expanded by the finding that size was a factor of evaluation only for men and women who did not have tattoos themselves and were not likely to get one. Men without tattoos evaluated women with small tattoos more negatively than did men who either had their own tattoos or were likely to get one. Women without tattoos evaluated women with large tattoos more negatively than women who either had their own tattoos or were likely to get one. It would seem that men who do not have tattoos expect women to follow the normative gender role expectations about appearance, therefore, even a small tattoo is indicative of a violation of these expectations. Sanders (1988) claimed that "women tend to regard the tattoo ... as a permanent body decoration primarily intended for personal pleasure and the enjoyment of those with whom they are intimate" (p. 414). Given the findings in the current study and anecdotal reports of the responses of male partners (Atkinson, 2002; Braunberger, 2000), heterosexual women may experience unexpected negative reactions from their partners in response to even small, "feminine," hidden tattoos. Negative reactions from women who do not have tattoos appear to be more focused on the large, "unfeminine" tattoo.

Female participants who themselves had tattoos, or were likely to acquire one, were the only group of participants who did not react negatively to the women with large tattoos. This supports Sanders' (1988) view that tattooed people may see the tattoo as a symbolic affiliation with other tattooed individuals, but it does not account for the fact that the men with tattoos had views of women with large tattoos that were as negative as those of other men. If may be that sexist attitudes toward women overwhelm or trump the affiliative attitude. Anecdotal evidence for this double standard is found in the literature. Sanders (1988) interviewed a woman whose boyfriend did not want his parents to see her tattoo, and so he forbade her to go swimming, even though he had a tattoo himself. This is a very interesting aspect of attitudes that should be explored in future research.

Finally, we hypothesized that both men and women with more conservative gender attitudes would be more negative toward women with tattoos, but that men's attitudes toward women with tattoos may be even more strongly affected by their attitudes toward feminism. Only the first part of this hypothesis was confirmed. Those participants who exhibited less support for feminism and the women's movement evaluated all women more negatively, beyond the effects already accounted for by gender differences. More important for our purposes here, the effect was also specific to participants who reported less suport for the goals and actions of the women's movement; they provided less positive evaluations of women with tattoos than did those participants with more profeminist views. This effect is small (9) (an additional 4% of the variance), but it is particularly noteworthy because the effects of gender were already accounted for in the analysis. The finding, therefore, supports the idea that the tattooed woman may be seen by some as flaunting her freedom from gender norms or as threatening women's traditional place in society.

Historically, tattooing, not unlike many other societal practices, has been a male-dominated activity. And, similar to the pace of inclusion and acceptance of women tattoo artists, the acceptance of women with tattoos will take time. The gendered rules and regulations whose objectives are to create and maintain a sense of societal order and rigid classification do so by guiding men's and women's behaviors. For many, the transgression of these gender boundaries results in feelings of confusion and disorganization. For others, breaking the gender norms allows for feelings and perceptions of liberation and strength. Size and visibility do make a difference in the attitudes participants held toward women with tattoos. At this point in time, it appears that women still take some social risks when they decide to acquire either a large or a visible tattoo. We now know that acceptance of women with tattoos depends at least in part on interactive relationships between the gender of the person making the judgment, tattoo ownership, size and visibility of the tattoo, as well as general attitudes toward women.

The limitations of the current study include aspects of the sample (i.e., undergraduate students), the methodology (i.e., experimental, which does not allow examination of complex issues), and the stimuli (i.e., short, text based). A replication of the study using pictures or videos would probably elicit stronger attitudes toward women with tattoos and allow finer examination of the influence of size and visibility as well as other factors such as the type of tattoo imagery (e.g., comparisons of typically feminine and nonstereotypical tattoos) or specific location of the tattoo. Further, combinations of qualitative and quantitative research designs and modes of analysis that can identify clusters or differences in attitude patterns may be particularly useful to explore the complexity and context of people's responses to women with tattoos. It would also be interesting to investigate attitudes toward older, racialized, and/or working class women who are tattooed, as negative attitudes may be even stronger toward marginalized women.

Attitudes toward women with tattoos will become increasingly more important as more and more young women acquire tattoos in the future. The question is whether these attitudes will interfere with women's achievement in the workplace or in their personal relationships. Our findings may be even more pronounced in settings where appearance is more closely monitored, such as the workplace. Future researchers should begin to investigate the potential ramifications of these findings in real world settings.

Table 1. Attitude Measure: Semantic Differential Items and Factors
Identified

Factor 1: Evaluative
Good-bad (a)
Beautiful-ugly
Clean-dirty
Kind-cruel (a)
Rich-poor (a)
Honest-dishonest (a)
Pleasant-unpleasant (a)
Successful-unsuccessful
Reputable-disreputable
Safe-dangerous
Gentle-violent (a)
Feminine-masculine (a)
Factor 2: Potency/activity
Weak-powerful (a)
Passive-active (a)
Cautious-rash (a)
Soft-hard
Weak-strong
Mild-intense
Delicate-rugged (a)
Factor 3: Not used due to low reliability
Blatant-muted (a)
Profound-superficial
Deep-shallow

(a) Adjectives were reversed on original survey and recoded for
subscale.

Table II. Analysis of Effects of Independent Variable Manipulations
(Size and Visibility of Tattoo) and Quasi-Independent Variables (Gender
and Participant Tattoo Status) on General Evaluative Domain Attitudes
Toward Women With or Without Tattoos

Source df F

Description--tattoo vs.
no tattoo (C1) 1 4.692*
Visibility (C2) 1 16.265**
Size (C3) 1 1.113
Visibility X Size (C4) 1 0.560
Gender (G) 1 11.621**
Participant tattoo status (T) 1 1.164
C1 X G 1 0.055
C2 X G 1 0.019
C3 X G 1 1.115
C4 X G 1 1.350
C1 X T 1 5.112*
C2 X T 1 0.170
C3 X T 1 0.008
C4 X T 1 0.194
T X G 1 0.046
C1 X T X G 1 0.057
C2 X T X G 1 0.125
C3 X T X G 1 5.679*
C4 X T X G 1 3.298
Error 248 ([approximately equal to]33.546)

Source p

Description--tattoo vs.
no tattoo (C1) .031
Visibility (C2) .001
Size (C3) .292
Visibility X Size (C4) .455
Gender (G) .001
Participant tattoo status (T) .282
C1 X G .815
C2 X G .891
C3 X G .292
C4 X G .246
C1 X T .025
C2 X T .680
C3 X T .930
C4 X T .660
T X G .831
C1 X T X G .812
C2 X T X G .724
C3 X T X G .018
C4 X T X G .071
Error

Note. Value enclosed in parentheses represents mean square error
obtained from comparable GLM procedure.
*p < .05, ** p < .01.

Table III. Tattoo Status by Tattoo in Description Interaction for
Attitudes (as Measured by the Evaluative Subscale)

M (SD)
Control (no tattoo). Experimental (tattoo).
Participant status n = 57 n = 211

No tattoo and tattoo
unlikely 39.78[.sup.a] (5.74) 43.36[.sup.b] (5.75)
Tattoo or tattoo likely 42.35[.sup.a] (4.23) 40.72[.sup.ac] (7.06)

Note. Means with different superscripts, differ significantly.
Difference nonsignificant within control condition (p = .10), across
conditions (p = .36); difference significant within tattoo conditions
(p < .01), across conditions (p < .001).

Table IV. Analysis of Effects of Independent Variable Manipulations
(Size and Visibility of Tattoo) and Quasi-Independent Variables (Gender
and Participant Tattoo Status) on Potency/Activity Domain Attitudes
Toward Women With or Without Tattoos

Source df F

Description--tattoo vs.
no tattoo (C1) 1 42.185**
Visibility (C2) 1 4.796*
Size (C3) 1 2.085
Visibility X Size (C4) 1 0.028
Gender (G) 1 0.021
Participant tattoo status (T) 1 0.001
C1 X G 1 1.206
C2 X G 1 0.308
C3 X G 1 0.038
C4 X G 1 1.474
C1 X T 1 1.024
C2 X T 1 0.042
C3 X T 1 0.135
C4 X T 1 0.001
T X G 1 0.760
C1 X T X G 1 4.897*
C2 X T X G 1 0.350
C3 X T X G 1 0.645
C4 X T X G 1 0.052
Error 248 ([approximately equal to]16.286)

Source p

Description--tattoo vs.
no tattoo (C1) .001
Visibility (C2) .029
Size (C3) .150
Visibility X Size (C4) .866
Gender (G) .886
Participant tattoo status (T) .984
C1 X G .273
C2 X G .580
C3 X G .846
C4 X G .226
C1 X T .313
C2 X T .839
C3 X T .713
C4 X T .972
T X G .384
C1 X T X G .028
C2 X T X G .555
C3 X T X G .423
C4 X T X G .820
Error

Note. Value enclosed in parentheses represents mean square error
obtained from comparable GLM procedure.
* p < .05. ** p < .01.

Table V. Contribution of Attitudes Toward Feminism and the Women's
Movement Beyond Experimental and Quasi-experimental Effects

Variable SE B [beta] p

Step 1
Description--tattoo vs. no tattoo (C1) .003 -.121 .035
Visibility (C2) .004 -.246 .000
Size (C3) .004 -.060 .303
Visibility X Size (C4) .000 .018 .757
Gender (G) .003 -.199 .001
Participant Tattoo Status (T) .003 -.068 .242
C1 X T .000 .133 .021
C3 X T X G .000 .127 .029
Step 2
C1 .022 -.903 .022
C2 .004 -.230 .000
C3 .004 -.085 .138
C4 .000 -.002 .969
Gender .003 -.149 .013
Participant tattoo status .003 -.070 .221
C1 X T .000 .137 .016
C3 X T X G .000 .146 .011
Attitudes toward feminism (FWM) .074 -.154 .011
FWM X C1 .001 .781 .048

Note. [R.sup.2] = .17 for Step 1; [DELTA][R.sup.2] = .035 for Step 2
(p < .01).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article is based on the first author's undergraduate thesis research under the supervision of the second author. Our sincere thanks to Ian Newby-Clark for his advice and assistance with the data analytic strategies.

(3) Atkinson (2002) and Atkinson and Young (2001) appear to be the only published studies done in a Canadian context. These were qualitative explorations of small numbers of women with tattoos and so are not useful for determining prevalence. There is no reason to suspect, however, that the rates in Canada and the United States would be greatly divergent. Within North America, distinctions between Canada and the United States are profound on some issues (e.g., gun control, abortion) and much more similar on others (e.g., body image). Moreover, this study was conducted in Windsor. Ontario, a border community, where U.S. influences are perhaps even greater and, therefore, potential differences in a practice such as tattooing are likely to be minimized.

(4) We acknowledge that we are not doing justice to the historical work that has been done on this topic. Rather we attempted to summarize some of the highlights of women's history of tattooing that may give us insights into current attitudes.

(5) Our $1 coin is affectionately nicknamed the "loonie" due to the picture of a loon (a local bird) on the front side. This is how most people refer to the coin.

(6) Occasionally items have factor loadings on different domains depending on the context. For these items, we include them only within one domain for clarity.

(7) The low sample size within the control group (n = 57, only 17 with tattoos) may have masked a group difference in this comparison.

(8) We grouped participants into quartiles to make the graphical presentation clearer.

(9) Findings that are statistically significant are not always socially significant. Although the attitudinal differences we found were often only a few points apart on the attitude continuum and the proportion of variance accounted for was modest. we believe that these differences are likely to have social significance. Like Rosenthal (1986) we believe that small effects found in the laboratory are often extremely important in real world interactions. Even a small difference in perceptions of a female job candidate or potential renter could make a substantial difference in the fairness of decisions. Further, our stimulus was a fairly weak one, and so we would expect substantially larger effects with a more powerful stimulus (e.g., color photographs or actual interaction with tattooed confederates).

REFERENCES

Armstrong, M. L. (1991). Career-oriented women with tattoos. IM-AGE: Journal of Nursing Scholarship. 23(4), 215-220.

Atkinson, M. (2002). Pretty in ink: Conformity, resistance, and negotiation in women's tattooing. Sex Roles. 47, 219-235.

Atkinson, M., & Young, K. (2001). Flesh journeys: Neo primitives and the contemporary rediscovery of radical body modification. Deviant Behavior, 22, 117-146.

Braunberger, C. (2000). Revolting bodies: The monster beauty of tattooed women. NWSA Journal, 12(2), 1-23.

Brown, K. M., Perlmutter, P., & McDermott. R. J. (2000). Youth and tattoos: What school health personnel should know. Journal of School Health. 70, 355-360.

Coe, K., Harmon. M. P., Verner, B., & Tonn, A. (1993). Tattoos and male alliances. Human Nature, 4, 199-204.

Copes, J. H., & Forsyth, C. J. (1998). The tattoo: A social psychological explanation. International Review of Modern Sociology. 23, 83-89.

DeMello, M. (2000). Bodies of inscription: A cultural history of the modern tattoo community. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Doherty, K. T. (1998). A mind of her own: Effects of need for closure and gender on reactions to nonconformity. Sex Roles, 38, 801-819.

Faludi, S. (1991). Backlash: The undeclared war against American women. New York: Anchor.

Fassinger, R. (1994). Development and testing of the Attitudes toward Feminism and the Women's Movement (FWM) Scale. Psychology of Women Quarterly. 18, 389-402.

Gray, J. (1994). I love Mom: An irreverent history of the tattoo. Toronto, Ontario: Key Porter Books.

Houghton, S. J., Durkin. K., Parry, E., Turbett, Y., & Odgers, P. (1996). Amateur tattooing practices and beliefs among high school adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 19, 420-425.

Kruglanski, A. W., & Webster. D. M. (1991). Group members' reactions to opinion deviates and conformists at varying degrees of proximity to decision deadline and of environmental noise. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 212-225.

Kunkel, C., & Nielsen, J. M. (1998). Gender, residual deviance, and social control. Deviant Behavior, 19, 339-360.

Mifflin, M. (1997). Bodies of subversion: A secret history of women and tattoo. New York: Juno Books.

Osgood, E., Suci, G. J., & Tannenbaum. P. H. (1958). The measurement of meaning. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Ralph, J. (1996). Women and tattoos: Image and reality. Unpublished MA thesis, Western Washington University.

Rosenfield. S. (1982). Sex roles and societal reactions to mental illness: The labelling of deviant' deviance. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 23, 18-24.

Rosenthal, R. (1986). Media violence, anti-social behavior, and the social consequences of small effects. Journal of Social Issues, 42(3), 141-154.

Rubin, A. (Ed.). (1988). Marks of civilization: Artistic transformations of the human body. Los Angeles: University of California. Museum of Cultural History.

Sanders, C. R. (1988). Marks of mischief: Becoming and being tattooed. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 16, 395-432.

Sanders, C. R. (1989). Customizing the body: The art and culture of tattooing. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Scutt, R. W. B., & Gotch, C. (1974). Art, sex, and symbol: The mystery of tattooing. New York: Barnes.

Singer, L., Butler, J., & MacGrogan, M. (Eds.). (1993). Erotic welfare: Sexual theory and politics in the age of epidemic. New York: Routledge.

Steward, S. (1990). Bad boys and tough tattoos: A social history of the tattoo with gangs, sailors, and street-corner punks (1950-1965). New York: Haworth Press.

Tougas, F., Brown, R., Beaton. A. M., & Joly. S. (1995). Neosexism: Plus ca change, plus c'est pareil. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 21, 842-849.

Wroblewski, C. (1992). Tattooed women. London: Virgin.

Daina Hawkes, (1) Charlene Y. Senn, (1,2) and Chantal Thorn (1)

(1) University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

(2) To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Psychology, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue. Windsor, Ontario, Canada N9B 3P4: e-mail: csenn@uwindsor.ca.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Plenum Publishing Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 4 replies

I'm gonna get more ink today!

2007-04-19T19:14:46Z

wohooo!!! Time to finish the flowers on my new portrait today. I'm so excited to see how it turns out! :-)

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 3 replies

FRI*DAY! .......of next week. Darn it.

2007-04-17T12:21:13Z

Is when I will finally get my gigantic peice of work complete on my backside! Whoo hoo!

Just thought I'd share my joy. :) I plan on dancing the next night too! Double yay!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 7 replies

My latest tat

2007-04-06T13:32:44Z

A Celtic Tribal Cauldron
<img src="http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l105/ChandraWood/Just%20Me/Tat2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket">

I get sooo many wonderful comments bout it - even from some what say they don't like tats
Now THAT is KEWL!!!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 1 reply

Okay, I'm really going for my tattoo today!

2007-04-04T21:37:27Z

I had to cancel out last Friday (short on cash), but I'm rescheduled for this afternoon at 3pm! I dropped off a few more ideas for my tat artist, but I have no idea where it will be or what the final design will look like. I know it will include my grandmother and poppies, but that's all I know - not even where we'll place it.

It's kinda like waiting for Christmas!

BTW, I wrote a tribute to my grandma in my blog today. I have a feeling it's going to evolve into a series of tributes to the important people in my life - they deserve it!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 4 replies

Just what is a keloid? Here's the 411. (x-posted)

2007-03-20T15:51:05Z

I just wanted to put up an informational post about keloids, since it comes up fairly often and it's a pretty nerve-wracking thing to think you might be forming one. Keloids themselves are fairly rare, and there are several things that are often mistaken for keloids, so here's the down-low:

- Keloids: A true keloid is an overgrowth of scar tissue (caused by buildup of collagen within the scar tissue) that forms a bump or ball. They are very firm and often colored differently than the surrounding area. They can be painful, but not always, and they continue to grow beyond the original wound, forming large (and un-cute) lumps. Keloids (to my knowledge) do not respond to salt water compresses or other healing tactics, since they are in fact healed skin - just healed in an abnormal way. A keloid is considered a benign tumor since they continue to grow beyond the wound in an abnormal production of skin cells. Here is a picture of a true keloid: http://www.entusa.com/Ear_Photos/ear-keloid-2.jpg

- Hypertrophic scarring: This is, in my experience, the #1 culprit for keloid-mistaken-identity. Hypertrophic scars are also abnormal scars, like keloids, but they do NOT expand beyond the boundary of the original wound, whereas keloids do. They are often reddish, but not normally tender in the long term. Hypertrophic scars can be faded with Vitamin E oil (provided you don't have a reaction to it) and other topicals like cocoa butter. Hypertrophic scars around piercings can appear to be reddish, somewhat firm bumps. Here is a picture of a hypertrophic scar on a navel piercing: http://www.painfulpleasures.com/xcart/wholesaler_skin1/images/problems/hypertrophic_scar_tissue.jpg

- Abscesses: Another reddish bump culprit, this is an irritated/infected area around the piercing that fills with pus. These do hurt most of the time, as they are inflamed from your body's immune response. This can be a reaction to infection in the piercing, or it can be a reaction to the piercing jewelry itself. Always be sure your jewelry is inert! Cheap jewelry can cause you a lot of grief, and even cost you your piercing. In extreme cases, infections can spread, and you really don't want that. Abscesses can also form later in the piercing's life due to OVERcleaning - that is, cleaning with the wrong product (such as hydrogen peroxide, which actually destroys new skin cells) or cleaning too often/when the piercing doesn't need cleaning. As a general rule, you should not be cleaning an older piercing every day. It is healed skin and it can manage on its own, barring excessive dirt/yucky stuff. For example, my nose piercing is over 7 years old, and aside from washing my face and taking out the stud/ring and cleaning with with hydrogen peroxide now and then (I let it dry before reinserting), my piercing takes care of itself. Plus, I keep my nose clean. Wink wink. I couldn't find a decent picture of an abscess that was on a piercing site. Pus is the big indicator of an abscess. Infections can, in some cases, require the use of antibiotics.

Remember the pierce-ee mantra: If something is funky, I will talk to my piercer. They are trained, and they know what to do. (Repeat as needed). If you for a moment suspect your piercer isn't that bright, go talk to someone else!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 1 reply

Added to my collection...photo posted!

2007-03-19T23:03:55Z

I've wanted to add some luck charms to my collection of ink...this one brings three elements together on the top of my right foot!
I just had this inked on Wed...so it's still healing...I love it!
It is a hamsa with an evil eye and the Om. So I'm covered...no bad luck can cross my path! LOL!
I've had 5 tattoos so far...this was the only one that really HURT!
Gia

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 2 replies

Introduction- new to list

2007-02-12T07:21:41Z

Hello all :-) I'm relatively new to the BD world (started last July), but I'm in love! I'm taking ATS and balancing right now. I've been a tattoo artist for over 16yrs and I must say that I really enjoy seeing so much beautiful work on people who love their bodies. It's been a great journey so far! I've seen some really pretty peices here in the pic album :-)
Thanks for letting me join your group of afficianados!
-Chimene

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 5 replies

Another new and tattooed dancer :)

2007-02-09T22:58:00Z

Hi,

I'm new on this tribe.
I have only one tattoo, but still thinking about new one.

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 8 replies

Good tattooist in San Fran?

2007-02-08T19:30:36Z

I just been measured for another tattoo (I'll post pics of my others when I get pics done - wierd, I've never had em photographed)!!!
Anyway, there is a 2 month waiting list which gives me plenty of time to design it.
However, I'm goin to San Fran in Oct, to do some workshops etc - haven't booked anythin yet, and thought, I'd get one done there just to show off about having a 'foreign' tattoo!!!
Any gooduns out there?!
x

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 3 replies

Hijacking forum for a moment...

2007-02-07T19:14:01Z

"Undercutting" and "How much to charge"
are two topics often brought up on many different forums on Tribe.net
Here is a great article about it on the Gilded Serpent website www.gildedserpent.com/art32/n...ates.htm

Does anyone feel like $200 is to low for a standard cost - or to high??
I think is important enough to get the word out about this - and so am posting this message on most of the tribes I belong to...

My personal opinion is that if you are willing to work for less, then it DEFINATLY hurts the industry as a whole - because sometimes it is about price... and if a qualifed/professional dancer has to lower rates just to get work, then new & less experienced dancers take even still less - then eventually nobody can afford to work at their art.

Don't Do It!!!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 1 reply

I'm getting another tattoo!

2006-11-17T05:36:35Z

I just booked my next tattoo for Dec 6th! I can't wait! I just got it drawn and its going to look amazing. Its going to be on my upper back. I'm getting a white tree with moon and stars in the back drop and a bundle of flowers on the bottom. I also have a celtic symbol in the middle of the tree that means Balance of health between bodymind. Its going to look great and I'll post a pic up as soon as I can!
-Kellie

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 5 replies

I'm new and tattooed

2006-11-14T15:01:00Z

Hi;

I'm new to this tribe but not to belly dancing nor the needle. I have a full back piece, one over my left breast, and a pair of Clemson Tiger Paws on my inner thighs. I think I'm done for now. Gypsey

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 1 reply

New tattoo

2006-10-26T20:16:06Z

I am doing some research for my first tattoo. May I say there is a tattoo convention here in Richmond, VA in November if anyone is interested. I am looking for advice on choosing an artist, pain factor, etc.( I know enough to research the sterility, autoclave issue) but would like any other words of wisdom that you would offer. Thanks for your help!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 0 replies

Hey everyone

2006-10-20T22:39:53Z

Hey all...
I'm Sadira from Washington State. Currently I have 4 tats, with plans to get several more. I just recently got a dove with an olive branch on my stomach right by my hip bone..and it's healing nicely. One reason I love my tattoos on my back and legs and tummy is that it makes me feel less self-conscience when I dance...more proud to show off my body (when usually i am worried about my weight)...anyway-I look forward to discussing with ya'll and seeing some awesome tats!

Sadira

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 1 reply

Dare I mention the C word?!

2006-10-14T11:43:22Z

No not - cues, or choreography but Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry - I know it's only October and pumpkins haven't been carved yet but I thought I'd do it anyway!
I'm selling tribal style Christmas cards for charity. This year - the Variety Club which helps children from disadvantaged areas or those with special needs. Full details can be found in my blog.
Drop me a line if you're interested.
Happy Halloween!!!!
x
ps - most of the lovely ladies have tattoos!!!!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 0 replies

FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY!

2006-10-09T17:58:43Z

Said like they do monster truck rallies that is, over a loud speaker-

I'M GETTING TATTOOED ON FRIDAY! A DAY EARLY! AT THREE PM!

I am just THAT excited! Hopefully I"ll have some 'in action' shots just for fun.

YAY!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 3 replies

fire tribes

2006-10-05T17:23:48Z

I'm wondering, has anyone come across any tribes here for the fire bellydancers? (Poi, etc.) Specifically one that has lots of people...I'm mostly interested in seeing what people have for sale.

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 1 reply

big letdown

2006-09-26T23:44:31Z

Oh poop. My poking has been bumped back a week. I am sad. Very very very very very very very saaaaaaaaaaaad.

Got all psyched up for this Saturday and now I'm trying to let it go and get psyched for the next Saturday instead.

crap. :(

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 2 replies

Weird seeing my backside as the main pic!

2006-09-20T21:18:45Z

Since I don't look at it much, being behind me and all. But I''m honored!
I'll be updating my 'behind' come November 1st. My tattoo lady is coming to the house to finish it off on the 30th and to start the move of the design north.
I'm going to again plug her here and ask that you check her out at
www.staceymartin.com
If you're in New York state, she does travel to 'guest spot' at shops and she totally rocks not only artistically, but personality wise as well.

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 3 replies

Hi I'm new!

2006-09-11T19:20:28Z

Hey everyone,
My name is Kellie and I have been belly dancing since Feburary of this year. I currently have two tattoos and am planning on getting my third and maybe final tattoo next year. My first tattoo is an infinity symbol on the back of my neck, which I absolutely love! My second tattoo is on my left foot on the inside of my heel. Its a cresent moon with 8 stars that I designed, and I also absolutely love it! They both have very deep meaning to me which I will share on another post when I have my pics up! I'm still having problems planning on my next tattoo. I want to put it on my back between my shoulder blades. I want it to be so many things, but at the same time I'm not sure what I want it to be. I'm trying to find something along the lines that has meaning towards healing, balance, life, touch and well-being. NO, I'm not a tree hugger, I am a massage therapist and thats what I do for a living. Assist in the healing process is a huge passion of mine, so if anyone has any ideas, PLEASE share them with me. I have until July '07! Thanx!

posted in *Tattooed Belly Dancers* - 4 replies

*Tattooed Belly Dancers*'s topics - tribe.net

Dancing with a new tattoo????

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Space Cadet, here!

The $5 pants!

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when is it too much?

New tattoo

My first tattoo

Looking for help with custom and finding artist around Harrisburg/Philly

haven't popped the tattoo cherry...yet...

Black Rose designs, suggestions

Tattoo Artists in Dublin, Ireland?

New member intro/wants tat!

Back Tattoo's

has anyone been tattoo'd in San Diego

Tattoo Convention!

Cover-Ups? X-post

Hmmm what to do - I have the itch!

Tattoo expos?

New to the list and very tattooed!!!

Am I becoming a tattoo junkie???

crap, now I'm scared

Why I love pneumatic needle tattoos (x-posted once)

Hulloooo

Tattoo artists in the UK?

Lower belly tattoo experience (x-posted)

interesting article on women and tattoos

I'm gonna get more ink today!

F*R*I*D*A*Y! .......of next week. Darn it.

My latest tat

Okay, I'm really going for my tattoo today!

Just what is a keloid? Here's the 411. (x-posted)

Added to my collection...photo posted!

Introduction- new to list

Another new and tattooed dancer :)

Good tattooist in San Fran?

Hijacking forum for a moment...

I'm getting another tattoo!

I'm new and tattooed

New tattoo

Hey everyone

Dare I mention the C word?!

FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY!

fire tribes

big letdown

Weird seeing my backside as the main pic!

Hi I'm new!

Tattooed Belly Dancers's topics - tribe.net

FRI*DAY! .......of next week. Darn it.