Jezebel Blogger: Don't Tell Me What Tattoos I Can and Cannot Get, Dad. I'm an Adult Now, Dad. And I've Got Ideas, Dad. Good Ideas! You'll See When I Run Off to Rome to Become a Gritty Fashion Photog, Dad!

Story via Instapundit.

That "Dad" bit was from a commenter -- Dack Thrombosis, he says -- but would you trust a man named Dack Thrombosis?!

Anyway, so, this Jezebel blogger is, get this, unreasonably angry owing to a sense of infuriated entitlement, in this particular circumstance, over the fact that a tattoo artist refused to give her a neck tattoo.

Why? Tattooist ethics, and no, I'm not making that up. It turns out tattoo artists have a code: they will not give highly visible "game changer" tattoos to persons who are not already well-marked with ink. They actually look out for their customers, and have much more experience with tattoos than their customers, and know what the customer does not: A neck tattoo is a tribal marker of potency that the occasional tattoo-wearer (the cute little barbed wire around the ankle, how darling!) doesn't understand.

That it can keep you from getting jobs. Or something even more valuable: marriage proposals. (I went there, I really did! You been #Mansplained!)

Like sex-reassignment surgeons who demand you "live as a woman" for a year before they surgically maim you, they want to make sure you know what it really is to be Marked By Tattoos before getting one on your neck.

Apparently this is very common -- and this particular unreasonably-angry Jezebel diatribist had been warned by multiple people and several tattoo artists that most artists would simply refuse to give a relatively-unmarked person a neck tattoo.

So what does this Jezebel screedist do? Why, of course, she starts crying about Male Privilege and Female Bodies and Dad, I have my own apartment now, I make my own choices, Dad!

Okay, here’s where I admit that this response didn’t entirely surprise me. This was the third time I’d been told that: once at a parlor where I just immediately walked out--granted, I'd had a few wines, so I do'’t feel like putting them entirely on blast for that one--and once by my cousin Josh, but it was more of a hypothetical refusal since we were just sitting in my yard and not in his tattoo parlor.

"On blast" seems to be her way of saying, "on a Social Justice Warrior shame-walk."

But the folks at New York Adorned did some next level shit, which is why I'm telling you about it. It is my job.

That's sad, but do continue.

"Next-level shit."

You know who you remind me of? There was once another girl who had some disagreement about whether or not she'd be tattooed. A little girl named Anne Frank. In many ways, your Captivity Narrative is even more potent than hers. Now that I read the next-level shit you were subjected to, Anne Frank seems like a big fucking crybaby bitch.

After a brief wait, this Kyle Mooney on "Inside So-Cal" looking (and sounding)-ass dude named Josh walks up. I show him the Aquarius tattoo [that I want on my neck]. Even though this will be my friend Sasha’s very first tattoo and it will be visible on his wrist, Josh doesn’t bat an eye and we move on to talking about the tattoo '’d like in honor of my only child.

Josh: "You’re gonna have a hard time convincing Dan (at this point I have no idea who ‘Dan’ is, especially not by first name only) to do that. We just don’t do neck tattoos on people who aren’t already completely covered in tattoos."

Me: "Huh, really? But I do have tattoos and all of them are visible and I'm old."

Josh: "Would you consider moving it here"” Points behind his ear.

Me: "Um, no, that’s where my 22-year-old nanny hid her tattoo. No, I want it to be visible."

So last month, the behind-the-ear tattoo. Even nannies are getting them.

Josh: "You’ll have to talk to Dan."

40 minutes later, Dan walks up:

Dan: "Okay, so you’re both getting this one on your arms, yes?

Me and Sasha: [In unison] "Yes, please! About this size...” blah, blah.

Dan: "And then you want your daughter’s name... on your neck?" Shakes head left to right.

Me: "What."

Dan: "Not gonna happen."

Me: "Wait, what? Why?'

Dan: "It'll look tacky. It’s just tacky."

Me: "Wait, you’re telling me what will look tacky on me? Don’t I get to decide that?"

Dan: "A neck tattoo on someone without a lot of tattoos is like lighting a birthday candle on an unbaked cake."

Stunning analogy, right? I wonder: Does Dan know what an analogy even is?

Actually, it's the perfect analogy: Bake me a cake, bigot. You're a lower-class hand-worker. I make the rules, because I am paying you, and therefore you surrender all rights to self-expression to me, your Noble Lady ruler.

And then suddenly I'm fighting back tears because, as Dan has already correctly assessed, I’m just a feeble-minded, hysterical girl.

Not just Dan. We all assessed it.

And then I ask the next thing that pops into my head.

Me: "Would you say this to a guy?"

Dan luh-hiterally paused, looked askance, and said with a slight nod, unconvincingly, "Yeah."

Then he asked if we were ready to get started on the other tattoos, and I was so infuriated I cannot remember exactly what I said but it was something to the effect of, "Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not going to give you money after that, let alone have you touch me or put art on my body!" And then we walked out.

Sasha, to his credit, remained calm and let me handle it myself, although I'm sure if I’d just broken down sobbing he would've verbally skewered the dude. I did break down once we got outside.

I hope you remembered to drink a lot of water, because you probably get deydrated, after crying about everything every five minutes.

So, whatever. I mean I guess Dan is an artist and artists are a) not exactly known for not being dicks, and b) they can do whatever art they want just like I can ask for whatever tattoo I want. But man, Dan, you must work on those analogies.

So she "calmed down" and then got her cheesebag tattoo from someone else. But wait-- there's more.

I bet for a second you thought that was the end of this piece, but let’s have some fun, shall we? Here, directly from Dan the Man’s Instagram account, are a bunch of perfectly un-tacky tattoos he’s given people. Mostly people with dicks. Descriptions are all Dan's

So there you go. Woman Oppressed By Artist Who Refers to Make Art Per Her Demands.

What's amazing to me is that she was informed beforehand that tattoists had a general rule against neck-tattoos for the relatively unmarked and yet, even forewarned that this was a generally-applicable, sex-neutral rule, she still gets her Outrage Rocks off on this guy.

Dan has actually applied to this Social Justice Attention Warrior (see what I did?), and it's worth a read.

Some time ago I read a description of a book. Not the book itself, mind you. The book was Games People Play, and it was a psychological-cum-economic sort of assay of what the author calls "transactional analysis" of ritualized behavior in humans, patterns of behavior we default to. The "games" parts are about manipulating others to get what we want, or, when we can't get what we want, putting on on a ritualized Display of Anger or Hurt (so that people will give us what we want).

I remember one game was called "Uproar," and it was the game played between fathers and midteen daughters. The father lays down a forbiddance (usually about boys, dress, staying out late/overnight, etc.), and the daughter reacts by stomping off to her room, slamming her door shut, and shouting something terrible.

The point of Uproar is to express something by ritualized display that can't easily be expressed in words, or which would be too embarrassing to express in words.

This woman, like so many other feminists, seem to be frozen in this particular phase of development and can't get over how righteously empowered they felt in defying their father, and yet, at the same time, how protectively cared for by that dominant male figure, that even in much later years, they are still playing the Uproar game -- or trying to, leastaways -- by casting each and every man who strays across their bubble-gum pink transoms in the role of Overprotective (But Snuggly-Armed) Dad Who Must Be Rebelled Against To Let Him Know I Am Now a Woman-Grown Just Like Mommy.

Games People Play is explicit that most of these ritualized games are learned in youth, and therefore, to play out these Comedia della Arte improvised scenarios, it is usually necessary that one person play the role of Adult and another of Child.

Structural Analysis and Integration

Through his private practice and group sessions, Berne came to realize that individuals exhibited dynamic and changing frames of feelings accompanied by related sets of behavioral patterns. They seemed to be induced by a variety of social stimuli. He called these unique systems "Ego States".

There were primarily three that everyone possessed. Depending on the person’s role and objective in a transaction, they exhibited what Berne came to call the form of Parent (P), Adult (A) or Child (C). Each ego state is a part of a legitimate whole and healthy person's life when aligned in the proper perspective and function. It’s when they act out of 'order', ‘whack’ or 'bounds' that problems arise.

The Ego States

PARENT:
Resembles behaviors and judgmental attitudes often associated with parental and authoritative roles in society.

Carries many of the heuristic rules and dogmas inherited from their parents and generations before them.

Serves to preserve tradition, rear children and economize on otherwise trivial decisions -- "Because I said so!"

ADULT:

Autonomously directed towards objective appraisal and reason.

Weighs all options and is willing to compromise when necessary.

Focused on survival, facing the facts and computes probabilities. – "It's likely to be ..."

CHILD:

Exhibits active scripts learned at a very early stage of life from Parents and other dominant figures.

Shows creativity, intuition and spontaneity.

Fulfills the frolicsome childlike nature epitomized by society. -- "Let's go out and play"

...

Games

A "Game", as Dr. Berne explained it, is an ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing to a well-defined, predictable outcome. They are often repetitious, superficially plausible, with a concealed motivation or some other "snare",
"gimmick" or "payoff".

...

Every "Game" is basically a dishonest form of communication.

...

Significance of Games

On a larger scale games are an integral and dynamic component of a person's unconscious life-plan or script. It is learned behavior from parents, handed down by kin and culture, all within a grand historical matrix of structured time. We in turn teach our children and so the archetypal game plays on

One of the games mentioned is "NIGYSOB," or Now I've Got You, You Son Of a Bitch (escalating minor disagreements or errors into major interpersonal conflicts).

Someone whose goal is to find conflict, and then take perverse delight in it.

I mention all this because it jibes with my basic sense of all this: This isn't politics, it's psychodrama (and intentionally-sought psychodrama, at that) masquerading as politics and social criticism.

This is deeply personal stuff, having very little to do with "society" or structures within it.

This is all just about psychologically comforting, egotistically pleasurable games, drama-seeking people drafting the unknowing (and unwilling) actors into their never-ending coming-of-age vignettes.

posted by Ace at 02:58 PM

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