Plastic Surgery Shaming in the Tattoo Community

Because What Women Do With Their Bodies is None of Your Damn Business

When it comes to the world of body modification, it’s actually a lot bigger than you might think. From the piercing, tattooing, and plastic surgery that has become commonplace in Western society, to the foot binding of China and the neck elongation of the Kayan people—body modification comes in an extremely wide variety of forms depending on the culture it’s a part of. Within the Western world, body modification has evolved to become very common, with practices on the rise in recent years because of growing representation in the modern media.

Plastic surgery is a form of body modification that has become especially popular over the last several decades and in 2015 there were 1.7 million cosmetic surgical procedures performed in the United States alone. And although there are many possible causes for an increase in the popularity of plastic surgery, one of the biggest factors hands down has been the media. Whether it be celebrities like Kylie Jenner or Kim Kardashian, the reach of programs such as Botched, or a growing pressure to look #instagramgoals—the media has a powerful impact on the Western consumer demographic.

Tattooing has shown to have followed a similar trend, with more millennials getting tattooed than any other past generation because of the changing portrayal of tattoo culture. Both tattooing and cosmetic surgery are rapidly becoming the new normal, with many deciding to go under the needle as well as the knife. However, while both of these industries are a part of the same body modification family, that doesn’t mean that they always fit together harmoniously. In fact, there is a surprising amount of surgery shaming within the tattoo community, which is most often targeted at women.

Photo via Instagram