Tattoos Are Not for Touching
Tattoos Are Not for Touching
Public Space, Stigma, and Social Sanctions
Heavily tattooed women are often touched by strangers in public spaces, some of whom try to pull back clothing in order to see a tattoo more completely, often without asking. They approach the tattooed person and ask invasive personal questions about what a certain tattoo means. All of the participants have had this experience and they found the behavior unacceptable. This chapter is couched in the framework of symbolic interactionist theories, such as Erving Goffman’s in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. In this book, Goffman covers the unspoken social rules of appropriate public behavior (i.e., studied indifference)—precisely the rules that are often broken when the public encounters the heavily tattooed woman. How and why does the public come to interact with tattooed women as they do? What would be a more appropriate way of interacting with and discussing tattoo work in public spaces? How can we develop a “tattoo etiquette” of appropriate behavior that will reduce the stigmatization of the tattoo collector? This chapter examines the interactions about tattooing between the participants and the general public. Participants also provide a framework for developing a tattoo etiquette that promotes respectful interactions and mutual understanding.
Keywords: public space, reactions, tattoos
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