With skin, I’m not talking about skin color but its plainness.
Yes, it’s my interpretation that men prefer watching plain skin on women. I’m just trying to make sense of men finding tattoos on women attractive but only if they’re small and in hidden places. If something is attractive, wouldn’t it be desirable to have it highly visible?
Of course, there are groups which love tattoos. Tattoos are part of the Goth scene.
With skin, I’m not talking about skin color but its plainness.
That’s still not designer work. The genetic lottery doesn’t declare “this is what you’re supposed to look like”. It just spits out a genome and resulting appearance with all the consideration and passion of a die rolling off the table. The comparison with a thinking, feeling architect designing a building with deliberation and aesthetic intentions just doesn’t work.
Like I said, we could talk about whether graffiti is vandalism, but the same thing just doesn’t apply to human bodies any more than it applies to an homeowner painting their own walls.
Yes, it’s my interpretation that men prefer watching plain skin on women.
And I’m telling you that it’s just not true, at least not so broadly as you make it out to be.
I’m just trying to make sense of men finding tattoos on women attractive but only if they’re small and in hidden places.
I’ll strike that “but only” from that sentence because it’s not true, as I said before.
I know plenty of people with highly visible tattoos and plenty of guys (and gals) that find that attractive. Most of the tattooed women I know have or had relationships at some point, which implies that their tattoos aren’t a turnoff.
The allure that makes hidden tattoos attractive is the same thing that makes any other secret attractive, that makes conspiracy theories attractive, that makes occult practices attractive and that makes all the “doctors hate this trick” adverts work: To know something most people don’t makes you feel special. To have someone share their secret with you is a gesture of trust. And particularly to discover hidden things about the body of another is intimate on some level.
There is also a lingering issue where some people take offense to tattoos, which makes some employers less likely to hire people with visible tattoos in customer-facing jobs.
There is a worry that you might trust an investment advisor less if it’s a woman with visible ink, or refuse to buy coffee from a barista with something written on her arm. So long as that stigma remains, there is a reason to hide tattoos that has nothing to do with attraction:
Cunts who think they have the right to judge what others do with their own bodies.
The Brandeis study indicated that most men find body hair on women unattractive. This suggests that men innately find body hair on women unattractive. There is no genetic lottery, the dice are loaded.
Your hypothesis that the attractiveness of tattoos on women is that they are hidden is plausible but is counter intuitive since something beautiful would seemingly want to be shown such as earrings on women.
You contradict your own hypothesis that tattoos are attractive on women if they’re hidden. Consequently, you should have no problem with employers telling employees to cover their tattoos.
The Brandeis study indicated that most men find body hair on women unattractive. This suggests that men innately find body hair on women unattractive.
I don’t know that study or how representative it is, but even if it were, there are two glaring errors here:
The suggested link between stated opinion and some innate tendency overlooks the possibility that this opinion might be a cultural product, rather than some natural state. If we’re permanently exposed to media feeding us a particular beauty standard, that is going to shape our perception.
How people feel about body hair doesn’t have any immediate bearing on how they feel about tattoos. For instance, I could advocate for women shaving their legs so I can better see their leg tattoos. Not that I have any right to tell women (or anyone else) what to do with their body, of course.
In any event, that study also isn’t representative of the cultural environment I move in. I don’t know what culture you’re from to feel so strongly about this, but it certainly isn’t universal.
Your hypothesis that the attractiveness of tattoos on women is that they are hidden
My claim is that, specifically for hidden tattoos (regardless of the wearer’s sex), part of the appeal may be that they’re hidden. This isn’t the only reason tattoos might be attractive, just an appeal a specific subset may have (and not all within that subset either – some tattoos genuinely are ugly, but that doesn’t mean all are).
is counter intuitive since something beautiful would seemingly want to be shown such as earrings on women.
Pussies are beautiful too, but that doesn’t mean everyone wants to show them to the world. Some beautiful things are only shown to select people, and that’s fine.
But also, many beautiful tattoos are shown in public, and I love that, and I know many people who love that, and any claim that men categorically find them unappealing in women is just not representative.
You contradict your own hypothesis that tattoos are attractive on women if they’re hidden.
I made no claim that they are only attractive when hidden, or only when public, because attractiveness is generally nuanced and complex and can’t be broken down to absolutes like that.
Consequently, you should have no problem with employers telling employees to cover their tattoos.
How would that contradiction (or either position alone) imply any logical connection to what employers tell their employees or how I would feel about that?
I have a problem with the general expectation that customer service has to be conventionally attractive, but it’s particularly bad for women. Tattoos are just one notch on that tally of things that really shouldn’t matter in a professional context. If my tax advisor is ugly as sin, but gives good advice, they’re a good tax advisor.
The whole topic of tattoos, particularly when it’s straight men talking about women’s tattoos, often veers into men policing women’s bodies. Women don’t exist for your or my viewing pleasure. If you think they’re ugly, that’s your opinion. Even if it was a common opinion, it would still be an opinion.
Announcing “I don’t like this thing some people do” is a dick move in the first place. Let people enjoy things. Let them do with their bodies what they want.
But to make it specifically about women and keep doubling down? Fuck the fuck off. No half-baked attempt at providing scientific backing for sexism is gonna make it less sexist.
I’ve been trying to be charitable thus far, but let me be clear here: Tattoos, no matter the sex, gender, ethnicity, religion or favourite sports team of their wearer, are an expression of individuality. Whether or not they’re beautiful or attractive by any standard shouldn’t matter.
I happen to love them, but that’s incidental to my basic human respect for other people’s dignity.
Yes, whether men’s preference for no body hair on women is innate or cultural would require further scientific studies.
Yes, there is no direct relationship between men’s feeling towards tattoos and body hair on women, but it could indicate that men prefer looking at plain skin on women.
You explained that most men finding tattoos on women attractive if there’re small and hidden is because some things are attractive if hidden. Then there should be nothing wrong with employers requiring women to hide tattoos since they’re attractive only if hidden. Employers are stricter towards up front personnel regarding dress code because they give people an impression of the company. Employers would probably say nothing about tattoos for employees working in nonvisible positions such as stock clerk. Actually, up front men would be required to cover tattoos. You would not tolerate all tattoos. Graham Platner, the Democratic candidate for Senator from Maine was criticized for having a tattoo of Totenkopf, a Nazi symbol. He had it covered up.
I looked up the article you alluded to earlier. As an aside, articles are generally referred to by author and year, not just the institution. Given that it’s the only relevant paper I found from Brandeis University, I’m going to assume you mean Azevedo, L. (Fall 2021). Male Stigmatisation of Female Body Hair.
It refers to a previous study by Prokop that had a sample made up of 96 students from a single Slovakian university, which is most certainly not a balanced and representative sample. It also refers to an entertainment video made by a fashion magazine with three participants, which is about as unscientific a source as you could come up with.
Azevedo then proceeds to acknowledge that, besides these two sources, there is “not enough evidence […] on men’s opinions regarding female body hair.”
I will note here that Prokop at least specified the source of his 96 participants, while I fail to see any indication how Azevedo’s 21(!) participants were selected. That is a smaller sample size, less transparent and if I’m reading this right, the survey consisted of three pairs of pictures.
This “study” is, put mildly, worthless filler, and has the gall to call that “confirmation”. It might indicate a potential direction of research by suggesting a the tendency to perceive shaved women as younger, but that is all it is. Any results you might see in it wouldn’t require “further scientific study”, but rather “actually scientific study”, because this sure isn’t.
The article does cite plenty of other sources, which is the more valuable thing about it. These sources are, among other things, used to cement the impression that men seem to find younger women sexy. Specifically, “a hairless body is a direct representation of a pre-puberty body”.
As for the question of natural or cultural, the article actually answers that by stating that women try to fit in with patriarchal expectations and by citing these other sources to illustrate that hair removal only really became “an important part of femininity between 1915–1945”, started in part by Gillette trying to sell a razor and accelerated by pornography sexualising youth.
It concludes that, as a result of easy access to said pornography, men “form the wrong expectation of how the female body should look”.
Frankly, I had my doubts about your claim before. Now I’m very much convinced you didn’t even read the source you cite, just made up a conclusion and grasped for anything to support it.
it could indicate
This is a wonderful way to isolate yourself from any accusation of having implied a claim. Your mention of scientific studies could indicate that you’re actually interested in the point. It could also mean you’re just trying to double down on the assertion that women are objectively more attractive without tattoos by reaching for the closest thing you get to a confirmation that plain skin could be more attractive.
You know the worst part of all this? Even if you were right, even if there was some measure proving that they’re objectively more attractive and all the people who actually like tattoos are just freaks of nature, it still wouldn’t give you, or me, or anyone else any right to tell women what to do with their own fucking bodies.
Then there should be nothing wrong with employers requiring women to hide tattoos since they’re attractive only if hidden.
Look, I get that you’re not big on reading, but I’ve already disambiguated that “only” is misplaced here, because there are multiple ways tattoos can be attractive.
And even if it was the only way, an employer has no right to demand attractiveness from his employees, regardless of their gender or presentation. Women don’t owe sexiness to anyone, period.
Employers are stricter towards up front personnel regarding dress code because they give people an impression of the company.
And that impression is…? Whether their employees are willing to submit to arbitrary, antiquated and pointless social standards about attractiveness?
That was my point: Customers having a stick up their arse is the only justification to demand conformity to that arse-stickery. Whether your clerk or cashier is ugly or attractive or the hottest person to ever walk the earth has no bearing on their competence. Bodily hygiene, sure, that has health and olfactory implications. But personal appearance shouldn’t be anyone’s business.
You would not tolerate all tattoos. Graham Platner, the Democratic candidate for Senator from Maine was criticized for having a tattoo of Totenkopf, a Nazi symbol. He had it covered up.
I wouldn’t tolerate Nazi symbols in graffiti either, or any other medium. That has nothing to do with tattoos or visibility, but with my general sense of ethics being fundamentally incompatible with their ideology. Covering it up doesn’t make the problem go away either if the ideology persists.
With skin, I’m not talking about skin color but its plainness.
Yes, it’s my interpretation that men prefer watching plain skin on women. I’m just trying to make sense of men finding tattoos on women attractive but only if they’re small and in hidden places. If something is attractive, wouldn’t it be desirable to have it highly visible?
Of course, there are groups which love tattoos. Tattoos are part of the Goth scene.
That’s still not designer work. The genetic lottery doesn’t declare “this is what you’re supposed to look like”. It just spits out a genome and resulting appearance with all the consideration and passion of a die rolling off the table. The comparison with a thinking, feeling architect designing a building with deliberation and aesthetic intentions just doesn’t work.
Like I said, we could talk about whether graffiti is vandalism, but the same thing just doesn’t apply to human bodies any more than it applies to an homeowner painting their own walls.
And I’m telling you that it’s just not true, at least not so broadly as you make it out to be.
I’ll strike that “but only” from that sentence because it’s not true, as I said before. I know plenty of people with highly visible tattoos and plenty of guys (and gals) that find that attractive. Most of the tattooed women I know have or had relationships at some point, which implies that their tattoos aren’t a turnoff.
The allure that makes hidden tattoos attractive is the same thing that makes any other secret attractive, that makes conspiracy theories attractive, that makes occult practices attractive and that makes all the “doctors hate this trick” adverts work: To know something most people don’t makes you feel special. To have someone share their secret with you is a gesture of trust. And particularly to discover hidden things about the body of another is intimate on some level.
There is also a lingering issue where some people take offense to tattoos, which makes some employers less likely to hire people with visible tattoos in customer-facing jobs. There is a worry that you might trust an investment advisor less if it’s a woman with visible ink, or refuse to buy coffee from a barista with something written on her arm. So long as that stigma remains, there is a reason to hide tattoos that has nothing to do with attraction:
Cunts who think they have the right to judge what others do with their own bodies.
Don’t be a cunt.
The Brandeis study indicated that most men find body hair on women unattractive. This suggests that men innately find body hair on women unattractive. There is no genetic lottery, the dice are loaded.
Your hypothesis that the attractiveness of tattoos on women is that they are hidden is plausible but is counter intuitive since something beautiful would seemingly want to be shown such as earrings on women.
You contradict your own hypothesis that tattoos are attractive on women if they’re hidden. Consequently, you should have no problem with employers telling employees to cover their tattoos.
I don’t know that study or how representative it is, but even if it were, there are two glaring errors here:
In any event, that study also isn’t representative of the cultural environment I move in. I don’t know what culture you’re from to feel so strongly about this, but it certainly isn’t universal.
My claim is that, specifically for hidden tattoos (regardless of the wearer’s sex), part of the appeal may be that they’re hidden. This isn’t the only reason tattoos might be attractive, just an appeal a specific subset may have (and not all within that subset either – some tattoos genuinely are ugly, but that doesn’t mean all are).
Pussies are beautiful too, but that doesn’t mean everyone wants to show them to the world. Some beautiful things are only shown to select people, and that’s fine.
But also, many beautiful tattoos are shown in public, and I love that, and I know many people who love that, and any claim that men categorically find them unappealing in women is just not representative.
I made no claim that they are only attractive when hidden, or only when public, because attractiveness is generally nuanced and complex and can’t be broken down to absolutes like that.
The whole topic of tattoos, particularly when it’s straight men talking about women’s tattoos, often veers into men policing women’s bodies. Women don’t exist for your or my viewing pleasure. If you think they’re ugly, that’s your opinion. Even if it was a common opinion, it would still be an opinion.
Announcing “I don’t like this thing some people do” is a dick move in the first place. Let people enjoy things. Let them do with their bodies what they want.
But to make it specifically about women and keep doubling down? Fuck the fuck off. No half-baked attempt at providing scientific backing for sexism is gonna make it less sexist.
I’ve been trying to be charitable thus far, but let me be clear here: Tattoos, no matter the sex, gender, ethnicity, religion or favourite sports team of their wearer, are an expression of individuality. Whether or not they’re beautiful or attractive by any standard shouldn’t matter.
I happen to love them, but that’s incidental to my basic human respect for other people’s dignity.
Yes, whether men’s preference for no body hair on women is innate or cultural would require further scientific studies.
Yes, there is no direct relationship between men’s feeling towards tattoos and body hair on women, but it could indicate that men prefer looking at plain skin on women.
You explained that most men finding tattoos on women attractive if there’re small and hidden is because some things are attractive if hidden. Then there should be nothing wrong with employers requiring women to hide tattoos since they’re attractive only if hidden. Employers are stricter towards up front personnel regarding dress code because they give people an impression of the company. Employers would probably say nothing about tattoos for employees working in nonvisible positions such as stock clerk. Actually, up front men would be required to cover tattoos. You would not tolerate all tattoos. Graham Platner, the Democratic candidate for Senator from Maine was criticized for having a tattoo of Totenkopf, a Nazi symbol. He had it covered up.
I looked up the article you alluded to earlier. As an aside, articles are generally referred to by author and year, not just the institution. Given that it’s the only relevant paper I found from Brandeis University, I’m going to assume you mean Azevedo, L. (Fall 2021). Male Stigmatisation of Female Body Hair.
It refers to a previous study by Prokop that had a sample made up of 96 students from a single Slovakian university, which is most certainly not a balanced and representative sample. It also refers to an entertainment video made by a fashion magazine with three participants, which is about as unscientific a source as you could come up with.
Azevedo then proceeds to acknowledge that, besides these two sources, there is “not enough evidence […] on men’s opinions regarding female body hair.”
I will note here that Prokop at least specified the source of his 96 participants, while I fail to see any indication how Azevedo’s 21(!) participants were selected. That is a smaller sample size, less transparent and if I’m reading this right, the survey consisted of three pairs of pictures.
This “study” is, put mildly, worthless filler, and has the gall to call that “confirmation”. It might indicate a potential direction of research by suggesting a the tendency to perceive shaved women as younger, but that is all it is. Any results you might see in it wouldn’t require “further scientific study”, but rather “actually scientific study”, because this sure isn’t.
The article does cite plenty of other sources, which is the more valuable thing about it. These sources are, among other things, used to cement the impression that men seem to find younger women sexy. Specifically, “a hairless body is a direct representation of a pre-puberty body”.
As for the question of natural or cultural, the article actually answers that by stating that women try to fit in with patriarchal expectations and by citing these other sources to illustrate that hair removal only really became “an important part of femininity between 1915–1945”, started in part by Gillette trying to sell a razor and accelerated by pornography sexualising youth.
It concludes that, as a result of easy access to said pornography, men “form the wrong expectation of how the female body should look”.
Frankly, I had my doubts about your claim before. Now I’m very much convinced you didn’t even read the source you cite, just made up a conclusion and grasped for anything to support it.
This is a wonderful way to isolate yourself from any accusation of having implied a claim. Your mention of scientific studies could indicate that you’re actually interested in the point. It could also mean you’re just trying to double down on the assertion that women are objectively more attractive without tattoos by reaching for the closest thing you get to a confirmation that plain skin could be more attractive.
You know the worst part of all this? Even if you were right, even if there was some measure proving that they’re objectively more attractive and all the people who actually like tattoos are just freaks of nature, it still wouldn’t give you, or me, or anyone else any right to tell women what to do with their own fucking bodies.
Look, I get that you’re not big on reading, but I’ve already disambiguated that “only” is misplaced here, because there are multiple ways tattoos can be attractive.
And even if it was the only way, an employer has no right to demand attractiveness from his employees, regardless of their gender or presentation. Women don’t owe sexiness to anyone, period.
And that impression is…? Whether their employees are willing to submit to arbitrary, antiquated and pointless social standards about attractiveness?
That was my point: Customers having a stick up their arse is the only justification to demand conformity to that arse-stickery. Whether your clerk or cashier is ugly or attractive or the hottest person to ever walk the earth has no bearing on their competence. Bodily hygiene, sure, that has health and olfactory implications. But personal appearance shouldn’t be anyone’s business.
I wouldn’t tolerate Nazi symbols in graffiti either, or any other medium. That has nothing to do with tattoos or visibility, but with my general sense of ethics being fundamentally incompatible with their ideology. Covering it up doesn’t make the problem go away either if the ideology persists.