"Tramp Stamp"

There are very few places a woman can get a large tattoo on her body. Not many of us have big bulging calves or biceps to put a piece on. A chest tattoo is hard to hide, encroaches on the boobies, and will start to wrinkle and sag. A tummy tattoo will stretch and deform after pregnancy. A woman's back - a woman's back is a perfect, broad canvas on which to place a piece of art. And by far the most practical. But - in what I find to be a glaring testament that misogyny is alive and well - any artwork, portrait, drawing or scribble found on a woman's back is called a tramp stamp.

I myself have a tattoo placed on my back. It is not a butterfly flitting out of my ass crack. It is not a name in hearts, it is not a dolphin circling my tailbone, or some tribal-shaped V pointing towards my bum. Instead, it is a rather large backpiece, about 7 inches high and 5 inches wide. It took over seven hours to trace, outline, colour and shade. In one sitting. And yet, it too, is generally referred to as my tramp stamp. I know men who have backed out or called it quits after a quarter of that amount of work. And many women with much more intense and beautiful work done than mine. Why can a guy get some half-ass, crooked, cliche, tribal/barbwire arm-band tattooed onto him and its not called a Douchebag-Band? But when a woman does the same thing, somehow the label 'tramp' comes into play?

Just another little example of how in our culture a woman's expression of self is immediately insulted, trivialized, and discounted. And we all just go along with it. Are we even consciously aware of it?