Shower thought: tattoos and piercings as gender expression

[sasha_feather]

Today's Shower Thoughts are about how tattoos and piercings might be a form of gender expression.

Although such things are very common in my community, I've resisted tattoos, piercings, even hair dye. I feel about them much the same way I do about makeup: looks good on other people, but don't want it anywhere near my skin.

As a friend pointed out else-net, we don't really know what gender *is*. It could be anything.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Hmmm, intriguing viewpoint!

Right now I'm familiar with four genders -- agender, nonbinary, woman, man -- and there could be a score more.

[sasha_feather]

You may enjoy the "gender of the day" twitter account! It's cute.

https://twitter.com/genderoftheday

[jesse_the_k]

Indeed. For example, today's is

Today's gender is annoyed and annoyed.

[jesse_the_k]

Also, the idea of wearing makeup just squicks me out.

[sasha_feather]

Hi five me too!

[firecat]

Nonbinary here. I hated makeup and it made me dysphoric ... until I realized it could make me look less feminine.

[sasha_feather]

Interesting!!

Nifty

[jesse_the_k]

Ah! Didn't realize this was a possibility. Humans are awesome tool users

[some_stars]

the feeling i had looking at my new tattoo when i first got it was definitely...well, i don't know if it was gender euphoria bc i'm not sure if i've ever experienced that (the other possible time i have is when i started wearing lipstick), but they made my body feel right. for all i know that's gender?

[sasha_feather]

That's wonderful! I'm glad we have more language around these feelings, and I hope we get more and more. It seems like you are describing a feeling of satisfaction, of being at home in your skin.

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

I adore talking about the intersection of body modification and queer gender. Historically, there's been lots of overlap, for example the "gay" earring, punk aesthetics, drag, various types of body mods pioneered by queer people, etc. Many kinds of body mods are socially gendered, for example lobe ear piercings, sleeve tattoos, face makeup, hairstyles, etc, which means that they can be subverted, inverted, and undermined much the same way as other gender roles are by queer people and subcultures.

When you get into extreme body mods, there are all kinds of implications about different things. Medical transition itself is considered an extreme body modification in some body mod communities, since hormonal transition comes with irreversible physical changes and various surgeries are obviously very big expressions of bodily autonomy outside of social norms, and trans people still have to fight insurance companies to have them not deemed "cosmetic." There are also non-trans-identifying people who do extreme body modifications on gendered body parts, and their narratives are both strikingly similar to and yet widely different from narratives of trans identity and dysphoria. As a general rule, body modification can inherently be a great way to externalize internal sensations, for example a traumatized person getting tattoos over sites of trauma is very much rooted in the same goals as a trans person who uses makeup and surgical procedures to alleviate internal dysphoria or magnify internal euphoria.

I would gladly talk about these things at length--I have on tumblr with some frequency. Your post is absolutely spot-on, in case my enthusiasm hasn't made that clear!

[sasha_feather]

Wow! This is so interesting. I like the umbrella term here "body modification," that's very useful.

[owlectomy]

Yes to gender expression and yes to bodily autonomy! For me, getting my nose pierced was because my bodily autonomy had been undermined in ways I wanted to fight back against, and because I wanted to rule myself out of consideration for jobs in very conservative areas, and because I wanted to mess with my gender expression in a relatively small and conservative way and had to do it on the cheap, and because my thesis advisor for whatever reason refused to read my explicitly queer characters as queer and I was feeling, tbqh, "queer as in fuck you."

And that's a lot to ask from a teeny little piercing, but hey, no regrets.