I’m sure many of you have come across the anti-tattoo rant, Why Put a Bumper Sticker on a Ferrari? by Lisa Khoury that has gone viral since it’s publication. And it’s gone viral rightfully so—it’s full-on sexist, classist, misogynist and ripe with body-shaming tactics—so it doesn’t come as a surprise that it has spread like wildfire through online feminist and tattooed communities. As a tattooed feminist socialist, I can’t not offer my 2 cents.
How is she being classist?
An elegant woman does not vandalize the temple she has been blessed with as her body. She appreciates it. She flaunts it. She’s not happy with it? She goes to the gym. She dresses it up in lavish, fun, trendy clothes, enjoying trips to the mall with her girlfriends. She accentuates her legs with high heels. She gets her nails done. She enjoys the finer things in life, all with the body she was blessed with…
…Invest your time, money, and effort into a gym membership, or yoga classes, or new clothes, or experimenting with different hairstyles if you’re craving something new with your body, not a tattoo.
Lavish clothes? The finer things in life? It couldn’t be anymore blatantly clear. Trendy clothes, gym memberships and yoga classes are fucking EXPENSIVE AS SHIT. There’s not very many women who can afford this kind of maintenance. So you drop a couple hundred on a tattoo—that’s it. But a diet of trips to the mall, getting hair and nails done and spin classes—you need a large steady cash flow to keep that going. So her message is simple: If you can’t afford to be classy, you are less of a person.
Khoury is obviously FAT-PHOBIC. You can tell by the number of times she mentions the gym. Also, there’s this comment:
So what’s more attractive than a girl with a nice body?
Hello fat-shaming. Body policing. Body-shaming. Her tactics? Make you feel bad for looking a certain way (in her case tattoos and fat) then offers you a way out: go to the gym, buy nice clothes. BUT! if you are already tattooed, you are ruined for life, damaged goods—much like the abstinence movement’s view on losing your virginity before marriage. And again, if you can’t afford the fix it (the gym and lavish clothes), that’s it, you lose.
Then there’s the sexism, sexism with a big, fat capitol “S”.
Seriously, though. Your body literally has the ability to turn heads. Guys drool over us. We hold some serious power in our hands, because – as corny as this sounds – we hold the world’s beauty.
Yes Khoury, because all of our power is in our looks. This little blurb says a lot: a woman’s worth is measured by her level of attractiveness and “class”, and men are drooling, sex-crazed animals who are easily puppeteered by a pretty face or nice body. This is the type of mindset that fuels RAPE CULTURE.
But something girls seem to forget nowadays, or maybe have not been taught, is that women hold the world’s class and elegance in their hands, as well
She is obviously all about traditional gender roles. Women are meant to be classy and pretty and traditionally feminine. If you are not traditionally feminine? Well, you’re an undesirable with no power. No drooling male apes are going to be double-taking when you walk by. And what about men with tattoos? I smell a double standard oh yes I do and it STINKS.
…you won’t find yourself in a rut when your future grandkids ask you what’s up with the angel wings on your upper back as you’re in the middle of giving them a life lesson on the importance of values and morals.
Women with tattoos are also cut from a low-grade moral fabric. Wow, because I have tattoos I must be a bad person. I probably cheat on my taxes. I probably steal from my workplace. I probably do cocaine. I must have bodies in my basement.
For fucksakes.
I also find her argument weak because she contradicts herself:
…She flaunts it…accentuates her legs with high heels…
…I’m not here to say a girl should walk around flaunting her body like it’s her job – that’s just degrading. Instead of getting a tattoo, a more productive use of your time would be improving and appreciating the body you have been given, not permanently engraving it.
So she says a girl shows class by parading her body around then turns around and says it’s degrading? As if there’s an actual link between exhibitionism and self-respect. I’m not buying it. I find it interesting how she suggests that a more productive use of time would be improving your body. Because women’s bodies are never acceptable as they are. Because a woman isn’t happy unless she’s striving for unattainable, mythological perfection. Because women don’t have anything more important to do or should be anything else but eye candy.
But at the end of the day, are you really a happier person? Has this tattoo, for instance, caused you to learn something new about yourself? Has it challenged you? Has it led you to self-growth? Nothing comes out of getting a tattoo. You get a tattoo, and that’s it. You do something productive, though, and you see results. That’s a genuine, satisfying change in life. Not ink.
—Umm how about saving a life? Whenever I am in the midst of a mixed bipolar episode and feel like harming myself, if I look in the mirror and see the orchids that are proudly displayed on my chest or the Elliott Smith lyrics, “Do you miss me, Miss Misery, like you say you do?” on my back, I am able to push those thoughts out of my mind and remind myself that my chronic illness is something that I can manage—that I am strong and have so much living to do despite of it. So fuck you Lisa Khoury. I hope getting your nails done every week helps you to reach enlightenment. Tell Buddha I say hi.
I also want to stress that Khoury’s article is not just an “opinion”. She wrote it to be hurtful and critical of other women. She wrote it because she wanted to shame women who don’t fit into her narrowly constructed idea of femininity. It was a purposeful plan to make women feel bad for not conforming to the beauty myth that our patriarchal society has tactfully created to keep women in their traditional gender roles and to prevent us from challenging the status quo that has oppressed women for centuries.
This whole thing has reminded me of the year I was a frosh leader. The Student Union had hired so-called sex therapist/love coach Daniel Packard to speak. Packard told us that men need to “watch out” for girls with “tattoos, piercings, and brightly coloured hair”. That these women “may be good for a wild fuck, but not the kind of girl you want to settle down with”. Men want a “sweet girl”, the “girl next door”. Because non-tattooed women are inherently sweet? And tattooed women are inherently bitches? He equated bisexual women with the highs and lows of Bipolar Disorder which is both offensive to bisexual women and people living with Bipolar Disorder. So basically this guy insulted me thrice. And if that wasn’t enough to tell me he was a misogynist asshole, he also strongly stated “there’s no such thing as making love, there is only fucking”. So right there he insults the male sex by saying they are just emotionless fucking machines, and insinuates that women are just holes to fuck. He is a dangerous man and I’m extremely embarrassed that my university’s Student Union hired him.
In closing I am a proud tattooed, pierced, funky hair-colour sporting, non-heterosexual, feminist woman. I am sweet, I have strong morals and enjoy making love. If that makes me a rebel—rock on!
