TW: Sexual assault and accounts of racism
Not for the primary time, the tattoo industry is being forced to reflect on behaviours which have gone unchecked for a lot too long. While some artists have come together to design cover-ups for transgender Harry Potter fans or raise money for top surgery, 2020 has similarly seen accusations of sexual assault, racism, and misogyny levelled at artists within the industry.
Back in 2018, the tattoo industry faced a #MeToo movement following dozens of accusations of sexual misconduct made against Detroit-based tattoo artist Alex Boyko. Jezebel make clear the shortage of regulation within the tattoo industry and the sexual assault and misogynistic behaviour that artists had been left to get away with.
This 12 months, with the country plunged into lockdown and the vital discourse across the Black Lives Matter Movement taking centre stage, an increasing number of people have taken to Instagram to recount tales of sexual misconduct, assault and misogyny, in addition to accusations of racism throughout the industry, tagging #TattooMeToo and reigniting this alarming trend first recognised in 2018. To analyze further, we sought out tattoo lovers and artists to search out out where the long run of regulation and accountability for the industry is headed.
When Lauren* approached an old friend for a tattoo session in Liverpool, she never expected that the intricate inking would sit on her skin like a scar for the remainder of her life. Having arrived to get some reworking done on an old thigh tattoo, Lauren stripped into an oversized baggy t-shirt and let Ryan* set to work freehand on her inner leg. After nipping to the lavatory, she got here back to search out her tattooist scrolling through her phone. When challenged, he told her he was trying to find her nudes.
Lauren reminded her tattooist that she was in a completely satisfied relationship, despite his continued badgering for pictures. His behaviour went from inappropriate to unacceptable quickly because the session progressed. “He got some Sharpies out and commenced to work on my leg, but while he was drawing he was using a twig bottle to scrub up areas he didn’t like and at one point he moved my t-shirt and sprayed water onto my vagina, making a joke about ‘getting me wet’,” Lauren recounts.
Despite telling him to stop, Ryan laughed it off. When she inquired as to the worth of the tattoo, he loudly announced that it will be free if she gave him a blowjob. “As I jumped down off the table, he made a comment along the lines of ‘your ass is amazing’,” she says. “I quickly pulled down my t-shirt and turned around to search out him sitting there, watching me, and masturbating.”
For Lauren, the trauma she endured lasted long after the actual experience – with the marks left by Ryan acting as a everlasting reminder. “I feel offended that they’re on my skin. They’re not visible, but I do know they’re there,” she says. In an effort to maintain her quiet, Lauren’s tattoo artist offered to pay for her scar to be covered. Knowing this wasn’t something she could keep quiet about, she approached the tattoo parlour where her abuser worked. She was told that, because of him being technically self-employed, all they may do could be to revoke his key-holding privileges. “He was in his administrative center and I used to be a paying customer,” Lauren says. “The dynamic there shouldn’t ever be one that features sexual gratification on either part.” After pressing further, she was accused of “extorting him” and told that the shop wouldn’t get entangled in any personal issues between the 2 parties. On the time of writing, Ryan continues to be working as a tattoo artist in Liverpool, based on his Instagram account.
“As I jumped down off the table, he made a comment along the lines of ‘your ass is amazing’. I quickly pulled down my t-shirt and turned around to search out him sitting there, watching me, and masturbating” – Lauren*
A seemingly limitless number of individuals have taken to Instagram to recount similar stories to Lauren’s. Offering free work in exchange for sexual acts, inappropriate comments about clients’ bodies and non-consensual touching are only a couple of of the abuses of power which have been reported. In response to this, various support groups have sprung up, including the Tattooists Sexual Assault Survivor Support (TSASS) account and the Tattoo Me Too Recovery Artists page.
Wigan-based tattoo artist Gemma May co-founded Tattoo Me Too Recovery Artists after noticing her abuser’s name appearing time and time again by people throughout the tattoo community. After seeing that the identical culprits had a whole lot of accusations against them, May and her peers aimed to place victims of known industry abusers in contact with talented tattoo artists who would rework or cover up their tarnished tattoos without cost.
“When you could have a tattoo done, you’re obviously going through trauma and your body goes to react to that and remember it,” she explains. “For those who’re assaulted or abused while getting a tattoo, then this embeds in your mind and the mark in your body literally becomes a scar.” Together along with her friend Dolly, a Brighton-based tattoo artist and co-owner of The Dollhouse, the pair have linked up a whole lot of survivors with tattoo artists, in addition to developing a relationship with charities Rape Crisis and Safeline so as to pass on survivors’ details and encourage the proper legal actions to be taken.
For May, the unaccountability of tattoo artists, the shortage of regulation and the industry’s historic fame as a ‘boys’ club’ is what allows this abuse to proceed unchecked. “It goes back to how the industry began, it was an outlaw’s job,” she explains. “But we’re here to say it’s not that any more, it’s an artform and the community is diverse; there are different races and genders involved.”
May and the Tattoo Me Too team at the moment are focusing their attention on bringing about change. Their latest project is Milieu, a non-profit organisation and union which goals to coach members of the industry. The union would require members to get DBS checks, first aid qualifications and PEP jabs, and provides educational resources covering topics resembling when to ask a client to take off items of clothing, how you can discover a client’s pronouns, and what’s OK and never OK to say by way of someone’s race or gender. Their aim is to create a certification system, allowing tattoo artists or shops to realize bronze, silver or platinum accreditation as union members, depending on the quantity of resources they’ve accomplished.
This ‘boys’ club’ environment doesn’t stop at the connection between clients and artists, but additionally manifests itself in misogynistic attitudes towards young, female tattoo artists and apprentices in these overwhelmingly male spaces.
As an adolescent, Jen* launched into her dream profession to grow to be a tattoo artist, taking up an apprenticeship along with her local tattoo shop. Over the course of a 12 months, she was bullied always, degraded and humiliated, and paid only £20 per week, before being fired just after she turned 18. “They broke down my spirit so I might just stop asking for the training and stop wanting to progress,” she explains. “I discovered myself dressing more masculine, wearing less make-up, smoking weed and drinking more to slot in with the fellows. I even shaved my head, just so I wasn’t regarded as the little girl who worked there.”
Similarly, while Instagram throbs with accusations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate comments, one other wave of realisation surrounding racism within the tattoo industry has grow to be apparent. As Black Lives Matter protesters take to the streets to arise against the murder of George Floyd, many use social media to direct money and a focus towards Black-owned businesses and bolster talented Black artists – tattoo artists included. In early June, Brooklyn-based tattoo artist Doreen Garner headed to Instagram to encourage people to support Black artists and call out racist tattoo artists and shops.
Within the UK, the Shades Tattoo Initiative pops up on Instagram as a web based secure space and community for Black and POC tattoo artists, while the owner of Leicester’s Francis Street Tattoo, Heleena Mistry, uses her platform to post a ‘PSA for White Tattoo Artists’, highlighting racist attitudes and behaviours that individuals of color face when searching for out tattoos.
23-year-old Mistry was moved to share her followers’ stories based on her own experience as a south Asian woman. “This sounds awful but each time I pick a tattoo artist, I at all times worry that they’re going to be racist,” she says. “Every time I see that somebody doesn’t have a number of Black or brown skin on their feed, I worry that they don’t like tattooing brown people.” Responses to her Instagram callout included accounts of tattooists refusing to upload a photograph of the work once finished, artists immediately exclaiming that color wouldn’t show up on client’s skin tones, and even tattooists’ who were too rough and didn’t take their clients’ pain seriously – not surprising once we know that BAME women are less likely to have their pain taken seriously within the medical world.
Poonam Mandalia, 28, is a London-based artist who describes her experience of racism as “transient but really disappointing”. Just a few years ago, she and her mother got here up with the concept of getting matching tattoos. “We were picturing multi-coloured elephants, which sounds appalling on reflection but we’d seen some beautiful pictures,” she jokes.
On reaching out to a tattoo parlour, Mandalia began describing the tattoos and was immediately shut down and informed that the color “wouldn’t show up” on her skin. Refusing to be delay, she went on to book a tattoo with the shop anyway, but when she turned up for her appointment she was forced to attend three hours to be seen. Feeling downtrodden, she left the shop with no tattoo and made a conscious decision to hunt down more inclusive artists in the long run.
“This sounds awful but each time I pick a tattoo artist, I at all times worry that they’re going to be racist. Every time I see that somebody doesn’t have a number of Black or brown skin on their feed, I worry that they don’t like tattooing brown people” – Heleena Mistry
30-year-old Maya* faced similar behaviours when getting her first tattoo in Leeds. She received a barrage of racist comments when visiting three different tattoo shops, including suggestions that her tattoo design was ‘too ethnic’ and that the color wouldn’t show up on her skin. When she finally found someone, she was quick to regret her alternative. She tells me “he was a pleasant guy at first, but he made some weird comments. He said he didn’t get many Asian girls within the shop, said that he hoped my dad wouldn’t ‘come after him’ for touching me and said it was hot that I used to be ‘rebelling’.”
This 12 months, as accusations of racism and sexual assault proliferated online, one other discussion took place regarding the prolific use of right-wing imagery in tattoo culture. Residents of Leeds were dismayed in June when their favourite vegan doughnut spot, Temple, became shrouded in accusations of racism and right-wing ideology, leading to the favored cafe being temporarily closed. After a former worker released a statement recounting her experiences of racism by the hands of a co-worker, online sleuths delved into the Instagram account of co-owner and former tattoo artist, Simon Erl. Amongst other questionable style elements, his tattoo of the infamous Wolfsangel logo led to the coffee shop to be vandalised with the slogan ‘Simon Erl is Nazi Scum’.
In an announcement responding to the allegations, Erl wrote that “Sun wheels, flyfots, whirling logs (swastikas) are exceptionally common in additional traditional tattoo parlours, an ancient symbol meaning many things in so many cultures.” He attributed his use of this imagery to his interest in motorcycle culture, which he likens to tattooing as a historically “clandestine culture”.
Dr Matt Lodder, a lecturer on the University of Essex and leading tattoo historian, says right-wing imagery has been appropriated by various subcultures including the UK’s skinhead scene of the Nineteen Seventies and 80s, and the One Percenter bike gangs the US. The usage of this imagery just isn’t necessarily indicative of political opinions – it often serves as a ‘fuck you’ to the establishment, calculated to cause maximum offence. “That doesn’t excuse it in any way, shape of form,” Lodder explains, “nevertheless it does mean that the story of tattoos as saying something really deep about your personal beliefs is pretty flawed. It’s at all times a risk to assume that X tattoo means Y belief – it’s never that easy.”
He goes on to clarify that nuance and understanding are key aspects within the reclamation of those symbols. Speaking specifically in regards to the image of the swastika, he considers it vital to “disambiguate the Third Reich Nazi symbol from the broader symbology”, directing me to the Canadian artist ManWoman who tattooed himself from head-to-toe with swastikas in an effort to reclaim the image. To sum up, says Lodder, “For those who’re cultivating a picture which, within the totality of it, adds as much as something that might be read at first glance (or more deeply) as racist, then if you wish to try to deny it then that’s your fault. Play silly games, win silly prizes – when you wanna fuck about with these things that that’s on you.”
When the abhorrent behaviour of Alex Boyko was called out in 2018, it’s unlikely the tattoo industry expected to see an additional wave of accusations just two years later. But misogyny, racism, and sexual assault will proceed to flourish so long as there may be a scarcity of accountability and regulation throughout the industry.
The people holding tattoo artists accountable for his or her actions are their victims and the individuals who listen. Mistry, who got her break within the industry at 19, remembers learning that a well known abusive artist was still working amongst her peers and pondering, “Yeah, OK – that is how everyone is within the industry.” She now uses her platform to make sure that these behaviours aren’t any longer considered the norm. “For those who see that tattooists aren’t doing something right then it is advisable to be the one who puts a stop to it,” she says. “It’s worthwhile to be the one who tells everyone that this just isn’t OK, since it’s now not ‘just the best way it’s’ on this industry.”
As for regulation, the issue becomes more complex. Activists like May and the team at Milieu are working towards a union that may independently regulate artists and studios, but will that be enough to make change with no wider, government-mandated board of regulation? Because it stands, a tattoo artist must acquire a tattoo license before being good to go. Strict check-ups are conducted to make sure shops are sticking to health and safety regulations, but evidently these do nothing to combat the problems listed above. Considering the support Lauren’s abuser received from his employers, some shop owners are unlikely to voluntarily join to this union.
While certain individuals are doing their utmost to bring about change, they will’t do it alone. Search out more inclusive artists, and pay keen attention to those that use their platform for good. Follow accounts resembling Shades Tattoo Initiative or Change Tattooing, and make use of the resources they provide to ignite this variation. With a large acknowledgement of those issues and full support from the industry, we will hope to stem the tide of #MeToo accusations for good.
