Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Supports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
Speaker 1: and I'm Kristen, and today we're giving you an episode
Speaker 1: that combines two important topics, one a listener request to
Speaker 1: talk more about tattoos, and to an episode honoring the
Speaker 1: fact that it is Breast cancer Awareness Month. And so
Speaker 1: in that vein, Kristin and I are going to give
Speaker 1: you a rundown of mystectomy tattoos and how women have
Speaker 1: totally reclaimed the tattoo and their bodies in an effort
Speaker 1: to sort of redefine themselves after going through such a
Speaker 1: traumatic experience. Yeah, and if you want to know more
Speaker 1: details just about the history of tattoos, we did do
Speaker 1: a staff I've Never Told You podcast so only focused
Speaker 1: on tattoos a while back, which you can find in
Speaker 1: our podcast archive over at stuff Mom Never Told You
Speaker 1: dot com. But we will give you a quick historical
Speaker 1: primer on women in tattoos. And not surprisingly, as you
Speaker 1: probably assumed, humans have been to touring themselves for a
Speaker 1: very very very very long time. That's right. As most
Speaker 1: things do on the podcast, Christian, this goes back to
Speaker 1: the ancient Middle East Um in March, scientists actually found
Speaker 1: a tattoo on the mummified remains of a woman who
Speaker 1: lived in a Christian community in Sudant hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: And she was just one example of a person from
Speaker 1: that era tattooing a religious symbol on themselves or you know,
Speaker 1: somebody else probably did a tour honestly um to both
Speaker 1: signify their faith and also to invoke the particular saint
Speaker 1: who symbol they tattooed on them selves. And in case
Speaker 1: people are wondering, that thirteen hundred year old tattoo was
Speaker 1: an ancient Greek symbol for the archangel Michael on her
Speaker 1: inner thigh. Oh well, and reading about that ancient tattoo
Speaker 1: and the fact that so many tattoos have been found
Speaker 1: on mummies from that era, what I thought was so
Speaker 1: interesting was that there is a gender divide even back then.
Speaker 1: But it's not the gender divide you think there weren't
Speaker 1: a bunch of tatted up pharaohs. Necessarily, a lot of
Speaker 1: the tattoos and the evidence of tattoos that has been
Speaker 1: found have been found on women. So for instance, at
Speaker 1: this site on the River Nile in Egypt, there were
Speaker 1: all of these tattooed mummies of women who also had
Speaker 1: those thigh tattoos, but their thigh tattoos symbolize the god Best,
Speaker 1: who was associated with music and dance, so archaeologists thought
Speaker 1: that perhaps they might have been and dancers or musicians.
Speaker 1: And there is also some implicit eroticism symbolized by Best,
Speaker 1: which jumped out to me too, because even though I
Speaker 1: feel like this line of thinking is fading, his tattoos
Speaker 1: become more and more conventional for women being tattooed. For
Speaker 1: a long time it did seem to hold sort of
Speaker 1: um or at least people would make sexy assumptions about
Speaker 1: women with tattoos. Yeah, it's interesting as you move through history,
Speaker 1: um the the ups and downs, the peaks and valleys
Speaker 1: of our perceptions of women with tattoos um because, for instance,
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, it was totally an upper class
Speaker 1: fad to be an elite lady who has a small
Speaker 1: tattoo in someplace that could easily be hidden. But by
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century, tattoos were totally stigmatized, especially among
Speaker 1: women who were considered loose if you could see their tattoos.
Speaker 1: But also the early twentieth century there were a number
Speaker 1: of women who were not only covered in tattoos, but
Speaker 1: we're also tattoo artists. And one of my favorite figures
Speaker 1: from that time is a woman named Maud Wagner, and
Speaker 1: you can google image her name to see a portrait
Speaker 1: of her showing off all of her like full body tattoos,
Speaker 1: not on her face, but neck down tattoos that she has.
Speaker 1: And this was in the early nineteen hundreds, and she
Speaker 1: actually traded a date with the sky Gus Wagner, who
Speaker 1: became her husband, who was a tattoo artist. She traded
Speaker 1: a date with him for a tattoo. Yeah. I just
Speaker 1: love that kind of stuff. I mean it became a
Speaker 1: love match exactly. Well, he surreptitiously just tattooed his name
Speaker 1: on her arms. He was like, well, no, you're gonna
Speaker 1: marry me. Okay, I made that part up. But certainly
Speaker 1: the sight of a woman like Maud Wagner with full
Speaker 1: sleeves and a chest covered in tattoos would have stood
Speaker 1: out in public even at this time. She would not
Speaker 1: have been considered an everyday kind of woman, right And
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties, basically, if you had that many tattoos,
Speaker 1: you were probably employed by a freak show or a
Speaker 1: circus where you, as a tattooed lady, could make a
Speaker 1: lot more money than men could with all their tattoos,
Speaker 1: because it would be a combo of sexy lady peep
Speaker 1: show coupled with WHOA, she's a freak, she's covered in tattoos.
Speaker 1: And this is also a good time to remind people,
Speaker 1: Caroline that we did entire podcast as well on women
Speaker 1: and freak shows. That's right, listen to um. But also
Speaker 1: around this same time, there is still clearly that sexual
Speaker 1: stigma attached to women with tattoos, even just one tattoo.
Speaker 1: For instance, in the late nineteen twenties, a prosecutor in
Speaker 1: a rape case requested that the whole case be dropped
Speaker 1: when he found out that the woman who had been
Speaker 1: raped had a tattoo, because and the judge ended up
Speaker 1: releasing the men they had rested in connection with the
Speaker 1: rape because they said, oh, well, she had a butterfly
Speaker 1: on her legs, so naturally they just kind of mistook
Speaker 1: her for a prostitute or someone who wouldn't mind being
Speaker 1: non consensually violated, right, basically saying that they were invited
Speaker 1: by the visible tattoo um. Moving into World War Two,
Speaker 1: tattoos fall even more out of favor because of the
Speaker 1: horrible connotation and connection with the Holocaust and concentration camps.
Speaker 1: But when you move past World War Two and the
Speaker 1: post war period and into the nineties seventies, the popularity
Speaker 1: of tattoos definitely starts to rebound because women are shedding
Speaker 1: that whole connotation that tattoos equal being promiscuous. Although during
Speaker 1: this time it's definitely still linked to being part of
Speaker 1: the counterculture. Yeah, and now it's becoming more and more normal.
Speaker 1: There was one tattoos scholar that we were reading who
Speaker 1: was talking about how tattoos have become completely middle class. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you're not a freak show if you have, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: full sleeves or if you're a woman with lots and
Speaker 1: lots of tattoos. Nor is it something that if you
Speaker 1: are a wealthy person you have some kind of secret
Speaker 1: tottoo as well, although maybe you do, but it's not
Speaker 1: a big deal. It wouldn't be like a huge surprise.
Speaker 1: It's more accessory than anything. At this point. I feel
Speaker 1: like if you go on Pinterest and look at tattoos,
Speaker 1: there's like a bajillion different pinboards about just like those
Speaker 1: really skinny, Like I feel like a lot of people
Speaker 1: are getting like bows and arrows or like arrows tattooed
Speaker 1: on themselves, like very skinny, very artistic, sketch like tattoos,
Speaker 1: which is cool. I'm not like judging. I'm just saying that,
Speaker 1: Like the fact that they're on Pinterest, I think says
Speaker 1: a lot well. And also the fact that they're on Pinterest.
Speaker 1: And as we've talked about in our episode on Pinterest,
Speaker 1: I'm basically just promoting all of our podcasts in this
Speaker 1: podcast and meeting a little podcast meta year. Um. Since
Speaker 1: Pinterest is overwhelmingly women, it's appropriate that there's sony to
Speaker 1: two pin boards because more women now in the US
Speaker 1: have tattoos than men, and that was started for the
Speaker 1: first time in twelve with twenty three percent of women
Speaker 1: having tattoos versus nineteen percent of men. And that's compared
Speaker 1: to in two thousand three when only fifteen percent of
Speaker 1: women had tattoos compared to sixteen percent of men. So
Speaker 1: all of us are getting more ink, but more women
Speaker 1: are getting more ink than men, and we're also getting
Speaker 1: more removed. Sixty of tattoo removal requests are from women,
Speaker 1: according to a survey from the Archives of Dermatology, and
Speaker 1: most of these women are getting inked around age twenty.
Speaker 1: So you're you're in college of feeling good, you're liberated,
Speaker 1: You're gonna get some tattoos. So now I have to
Speaker 1: ask you the question A lot of podcast listeners want
Speaker 1: to know, Caroline, do you have any tattoos? I sure don't.
Speaker 1: I'm out against him. I've thought a lot about getting one.
Speaker 1: I just don't know what I would get. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I know you do, yes, And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of listeners know that I do as well, because
Speaker 1: I've posted the picture of the anchor that I have
Speaker 1: tattooed on my left wrist on our Instagram if you
Speaker 1: want to follow us there and check it out. And
Speaker 1: I also have a boat tattoo as well. And I
Speaker 1: really want lately, Caroline, in the past few months and
Speaker 1: this podcast has only fueled my fire even more, I
Speaker 1: want some new ink. Yeah, what do you think It's
Speaker 1: still the nautical thing or like something different? I'm thinking
Speaker 1: full back piece portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Love it,
Speaker 1: you know, And and I'll just get her collar tattooed
Speaker 1: around my neck A tattoos you beau? Ye, oh man,
Speaker 1: that'd be amazing. Don't worry, listeners, I'm not actually going
Speaker 1: to get that portrait. Although I did look around the
Speaker 1: internet to see if anyone had gotten a notorious RBG tattoo.
Speaker 1: Haven't found one yet. I'm surprised. So so we'll we'll
Speaker 1: just need our listeners who inevitably do have Ruth Bader
Speaker 1: Ginsburg tattoos to send us pictures. Yeah, if you know
Speaker 1: anyone who does, please let me know. But the whole
Speaker 1: purpose behind tattoos, while it is becoming like such a common, normal,
Speaker 1: middle class aesthetic choice, there is a reason behind doing
Speaker 1: it that surpasses just aesthetics. It's past just the cool factor. Um.
Speaker 1: Michael Atkinson, who has done a lot of tattoo research
Speaker 1: and is the author of Tattooed The Sociogenesis of a
Speaker 1: Body Art, talks about the reasons behind tattoos in general.
Speaker 1: He says that basically this body art and the tattooing
Speaker 1: experience give young people feelings of greater control and authority
Speaker 1: over their own lives. And I thought that was important
Speaker 1: to pull out and point out because it will tie
Speaker 1: in as we get through this episode tie in so
Speaker 1: closely to why women who have experienced breast cancer and mostectomys.
Speaker 1: That's the reasons that they give for a lot of
Speaker 1: the tattoos that they get. And Million King and Katherine
Speaker 1: Jones in their chapter why do People get Tattoos? In
Speaker 1: the book Understanding Deviance, Connecting Classical and contemporary Perspectives looked
Speaker 1: at women in particular and also found this theme of control.
Speaker 1: They wrote, tattooing offers many women control over their own bodies.
Speaker 1: Some have used the tattoo to challenge the limited roles
Speaker 1: of wife and mother and to explore other ways to
Speaker 1: define themselves. And this next part that they talk about
Speaker 1: will tie in so much too with mystectomy tattoos. King
Speaker 1: and Jones describe how the process of women getting tattoos
Speaker 1: also for some helps them feel like they're reclaiming lost
Speaker 1: or violated parts of themselves, and it's an especially important process,
Speaker 1: they write for women healing from abuse or trauma. And
Speaker 1: Margot Mifflin actually wrote the book on Women and Tattoos,
Speaker 1: which if you are a woman who has and I
Speaker 1: was asking us to talk about tattoos, I highly recommend
Speaker 1: you check out her book, which was just republished actually
Speaker 1: in two thousand thirteen, called Bodies of Subversion, A Secret
Speaker 1: History of Women and the Tattoo, and she writes that
Speaker 1: before she got started working on this book about tattoos
Speaker 1: and side notes, she doesn't have any tattoos, which is
Speaker 1: really interesting. She says, I saw that tattooing was an
Speaker 1: amazing barometer of women's dreams and fears and passions at
Speaker 1: that time, a period when body issues were at a
Speaker 1: peak of controversy, at the end of the culture Wars,
Speaker 1: and it made me wonder what women's tattoos revealed about themselves,
Speaker 1: going back to the nineteenth century when European and American
Speaker 1: women started getting inked. So clearly people have made the
Speaker 1: connection between sort of what's going on in your life
Speaker 1: and your mental and emotional space and what's going on
Speaker 1: on your body when you get inked. Absolutely, and I
Speaker 1: can just speak from personal experience that both of my
Speaker 1: tattoos did feel empowering when I was doing it. They
Speaker 1: also felt very painful, but they also felt empowering because
Speaker 1: I can totally empathize with that sense of claiming your
Speaker 1: body in a new kind of way. And we're going
Speaker 1: to talk more about that when it comes to post
Speaker 1: mastectomy tattoos. We come right back from a quick break
Speaker 1: and now back to the show. So one way that
Speaker 1: some women are finding those deeper meanings in tattoos and
Speaker 1: that process of reclaiming their body and finding personal empowerment
Speaker 1: through tattoos is where women who are getting tattoos post mostectomy.
Speaker 1: And we're not just talking about in this case a
Speaker 1: tattoo somewhere on your body commemorating beating cancer, which is
Speaker 1: also very common, but actually getting tattoos as alternatives to
Speaker 1: getting reconstructive surgery or breast implants. Yeah. This was discussed
Speaker 1: in Miss magazine in nine by writer Andre connors Um,
Speaker 1: who talks about breast cancer itself being an invisible epidemic.
Speaker 1: She says everyone looks quote unquote normal because they're wearing prostisus.
Speaker 1: So the message does not get across to the world
Speaker 1: that we were being killed off by breast cancer. And
Speaker 1: the reason we quote her is because connors herself has
Speaker 1: a rose tattoo over her mastectomy scar. And so this
Speaker 1: is definitely another option for women and another way to
Speaker 1: reclaim your body after the trauma of cancer and surgery, radiation, chemotherapy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's also interesting to see that she was saying
Speaker 1: that in Fast forward to now not too long afterwards,
Speaker 1: where there's so much awareness surrounding breast cancer, but a
Speaker 1: lot of times the assumption is that if you have
Speaker 1: a mastectomy, the primary choice for women is implants. And
Speaker 1: there was actually a paper about this in the journal
Speaker 1: Social Semiotics by Shelly Cobb and Susan Star in February,
Speaker 1: and it talked about how the fact that implants are
Speaker 1: often the sort of frame is like the only choice.
Speaker 1: It's like are you going to get new breasts or
Speaker 1: not get new breasts? That it plays into what they
Speaker 1: call a makeover culture, of this dominant idea that if
Speaker 1: you are a woman without breasts, then you aren't fully
Speaker 1: a woman, right, and and that something as important and
Speaker 1: earth shattering as going through cancer and losing your breast,
Speaker 1: that it's somehow instead of being framed as the important
Speaker 1: thing that it is, the important mile marker in your
Speaker 1: life that it is, it's framed as like, hey, you
Speaker 1: can get a new chest. Yeah, you can. You can
Speaker 1: finally be a d cup that you've always wanted to be,
Speaker 1: right exactly, But you know, I mean that's not obviously
Speaker 1: to put down anyone who has gone through reconstructive surgery
Speaker 1: or has opted for implants, because I mean, as should
Speaker 1: be obvious from our podcast before our body image, we
Speaker 1: know body image is a huge deal, especially after going
Speaker 1: through trauma. And there was a study in or a
Speaker 1: paper in the British Journal of Health Psychology in two
Speaker 1: that talks about the mastectomy itself provoking a painful experience
Speaker 1: of what they call body deconstruction. Basically something that's been
Speaker 1: a part of you, that might have been a part
Speaker 1: of your life as a mother, as a wife, as
Speaker 1: someone who's both a caregiver and a sexual being suddenly
Speaker 1: being taken from you and what that means for your
Speaker 1: own body image and having to go through all of
Speaker 1: those physical, emotional, social symbolic hurdles afterward. Yeah, And the
Speaker 1: women that they've talked to who had undergone mostectomy is
Speaker 1: either a single mastectomy or a double stectomy, used a
Speaker 1: lot of similar language to describe what they often called
Speaker 1: a feeling of being mutilated, of being kind of estranged
Speaker 1: from their own body, and um also having to deal
Speaker 1: with how it affected their relationships with their partners and
Speaker 1: their relationships with their children and driving home the point
Speaker 1: that it's obviously not so simple as well, you can
Speaker 1: just you can just get these new ones, but it's
Speaker 1: not quite you know, it's not the same, right that
Speaker 1: basically talking about the identity crisis that can occur after
Speaker 1: going through such trauma. Um. But in terms of getting
Speaker 1: a mastectomy tattoo tying all of this together, um. One
Speaker 1: fascinating figure in this whole discussion is inga Duncan Thornell,
Speaker 1: who underwent a preventive double mistectomy in after her stepmother
Speaker 1: died of breast cancer and her mother received her own
Speaker 1: breast cancer diagnosed. This Yeah, Thornell talks about how she'd
Speaker 1: already been through so much physical pain, didn't want to
Speaker 1: deal with another surgery, didn't like the idea of implants
Speaker 1: on a personal level, and so she got this tattoo
Speaker 1: that took what two or three years to complete, And
Speaker 1: it's literally a chest piece. It looks like almost um,
Speaker 1: a plate of armor, like a crop top in a
Speaker 1: way that comes down to her ribs and covers her
Speaker 1: entire chest, and it's interwoven with flowers and all sorts
Speaker 1: of colors and it's beautiful and you've probably seen it
Speaker 1: because it for instance, has been featured in an MSNBC documentary,
Speaker 1: It's featured in Mifflin's book Bodies of Subversion, A Secret
Speaker 1: History of Women in the Tattoo that we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: and it's also been widely shared on Facebook, although initially
Speaker 1: Facebook tried to take it down a couple of times, Yeah,
Speaker 1: basically saying that the picture or of Thornell's tattooed chest
Speaker 1: violated their nudity policy, which is sort of confusing considering
Speaker 1: that by having her breasts and nipples removed and then
Speaker 1: having a beautiful colored tattoo placed over her chest, she
Speaker 1: would literally be displaying less than a shirtless man would
Speaker 1: be displaying in the picture. But it did get put
Speaker 1: back up, especially after a campaign by Ontario tattoo shop
Speaker 1: Custom Tattoo Design, who kept reposting it and asking their
Speaker 1: followers to repost the tattoo picture as well. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we've even it's been a while as of this recording,
Speaker 1: and we'll probably repost it again once this episode comes out. Oh,
Speaker 1: I know, we posted it a while back and it
Speaker 1: got a you know, a ton of people liking it
Speaker 1: and sharing it and um, as of one article that
Speaker 1: we read for this podcast that had been liked over
Speaker 1: for a hundred thousand times. And I think just because
Speaker 1: it is such a symbol of being a cancer survivor
Speaker 1: and that reclamation of this woman's body. Yeah. And what
Speaker 1: is even better to hear is Thornell's own reaction to
Speaker 1: this whole thing. She was talking to today dot com
Speaker 1: and said, I think it's a neat option. You step
Speaker 1: out of the shower and you look like yourself, you
Speaker 1: don't look scarred. I understand why women would reconstruct, and
Speaker 1: totally respect their decision to do that to be more normal,
Speaker 1: but the thought of having more surgery, more discomfort didn't
Speaker 1: appeal to me at all. And so I love that
Speaker 1: idea of I feel more like myself. I have chosen
Speaker 1: to do this. I have used you know, not that
Speaker 1: she's saying this, but I have used all of this
Speaker 1: cultural idea of reclaiming my body through tattoos to reclaim
Speaker 1: this space. Yeah. And she's inspired a lot of other
Speaker 1: women to consider that option as well. And now there
Speaker 1: are also plenty of women who after amastectomy choose to
Speaker 1: get implants, get reconstructive surgery, but might still get tattoos
Speaker 1: in place of nipples because and this was something that
Speaker 1: I had not really considered it all before reading about
Speaker 1: this in depth. When it comes to getting these breasts,
Speaker 1: unlike just getting if you or I were to walk
Speaker 1: into a plastic surgeon's office and get a breast implant,
Speaker 1: we would keep our nipples. But obviously when it comes
Speaker 1: to mastectomies you lose your breast, you also lose your nipples.
Speaker 1: So for women who don't want a fake nipple, which
Speaker 1: is always erect and doesn't have sensation, some women opt
Speaker 1: for tattoos over there that the area where a nipple
Speaker 1: would go right. And I loved reading about the options
Speaker 1: that women go for who opt for this particular type
Speaker 1: of tattoo. And I didn't realize that a lot of
Speaker 1: women tend to opt for flowers like a lotus blossom,
Speaker 1: which has a lot of symbolism in terms of rebirth
Speaker 1: three growth being renewed, also things like morning glories, butterflies,
Speaker 1: and birds. And I also enjoyed reading about the growing
Speaker 1: popularity of this movement to the point where there's now
Speaker 1: an annual event in New York that connects survivors with
Speaker 1: tattoo artists, and the group is called Pink, which is
Speaker 1: p dot i n K for Personal Inc. And it
Speaker 1: was founded by this guy, Noel Frantis, who's an ad
Speaker 1: agency executive whose sister in law opted for a tattoo
Speaker 1: after her breast reconstruction. And in this whole pink Day
Speaker 1: event ended up connecting ten survivors and artists. And while
Speaker 1: the women who fly to New York cover their own
Speaker 1: travel expenses, the artist fees are covered by a crowdfunding campaign.
Speaker 1: And so that's like, that's where we are. We've gone
Speaker 1: from tattoos being a sign that you're a promiscuous, loose,
Speaker 1: dangerous woman, two women using tattoos to reclaim it, reclaim
Speaker 1: their bodies and their space for themselves, to now women
Speaker 1: who opt for reconstructive surgery they can have a beautiful
Speaker 1: flower tattoo to reclaim their bodies after surgery. Well, and
Speaker 1: one other kind of tattoo that probably happens even more
Speaker 1: often for women who have had mastectomies who opt for
Speaker 1: implants afterwards is getting tattoos of actual nipples. And this
Speaker 1: isn't new at all, but more people are doing them,
Speaker 1: according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons UM, and
Speaker 1: they talk about how you know the nipple Aeriola complex.
Speaker 1: Tattoos as they call him them, have been a part
Speaker 1: of breast reconstruction for a long time, especially for some women,
Speaker 1: for instance, who have just undergone radiation therapy or just
Speaker 1: don't want another surgical procedure to reconstruct the nipple because
Speaker 1: by the time to get down to the nipple, to
Speaker 1: this final step in the process, they've already been in
Speaker 1: so many doctor's offices, they've already undergone so many invasive surgeries,
Speaker 1: and so the you know, this is the one last
Speaker 1: thing with getting the nipples tattooed. But not all nipple
Speaker 1: tattoos are created equally. And this might sound to some
Speaker 1: listeners like a cookie thing that we're talking about nipples
Speaker 1: tattoos of nipples. Why why does that matter? What matters
Speaker 1: a lot when women are looking at their chests in
Speaker 1: the mirror, right, And and this is something that we
Speaker 1: referenced earlier in the in the podcast about you know,
Speaker 1: your whole personal identity and your sexuality can be tied
Speaker 1: up in your breasts because of not only the meaning
Speaker 1: that you impart to them yourself, but the meeting that
Speaker 1: society places on them or your partner or spouse, and
Speaker 1: so to look at yourself post surgery, post trauma, and
Speaker 1: basically just see a blank space there. It is. It
Speaker 1: is jarring, and so plastic surgeons have traditionally performed uh
Speaker 1: nipple tattoos in office. And the terrible thing about these
Speaker 1: tattoos though, that are performed in office by plastic surgeons,
Speaker 1: adding insult to injury, is that they're not even done
Speaker 1: using a like a traditional professional tattoo technique. They're the
Speaker 1: quality is not as good, the actual imagery is not
Speaker 1: as good. If you have dark skin, you might end
Speaker 1: up with a light pink or peach nipple. Basically, like
Speaker 1: things just don't match. And so after you've been through
Speaker 1: this traumatic experience, this long health ordeal, you end up
Speaker 1: with a nipple that doesn't even make sense on your body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's why there's this tattoo artist in Fredericksburg, Maryland,
Speaker 1: Vinny Myers, who has become known as the Michelangelo of
Speaker 1: mastectomy tattoos because using his expertise as a tattoo artist,
Speaker 1: unlike you know, just being a surgeon or a nurse
Speaker 1: in a surgeon's office doing this sort of tattoo work,
Speaker 1: he actually takes the time matching it too. Different skin tones,
Speaker 1: making sure the positioning is correct, making sure the size
Speaker 1: is proportional to the breast. And because of that, he
Speaker 1: is in high demand. I think he has a six
Speaker 1: or eight month waiting list at his tiny shop in Fredericksburg. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Michelle Coddle wrote about this for The Washington And and
Speaker 1: for the New York Times because she herself ended up
Speaker 1: going to Meyer. She had breast cancer and how to
Speaker 1: mastectomy and she opted for reconstructive surgery and wanted nipples
Speaker 1: that looked like real nipples. Imagine that. Um. And she
Speaker 1: talks about the whole process of how skilled he is
Speaker 1: and the fact that he takes the time to match
Speaker 1: colors to your skin tone, and um, he he really
Speaker 1: gets into it very passionately, talking to Coddle about the
Speaker 1: women that he sees that he he almost has to
Speaker 1: play psychologist or counselor to them, and how heartbreaking it
Speaker 1: is for him to see women of different skin tones, ages, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 1: who have these awful tattoo jobs done by plastic surgeons.
Speaker 1: And he's sort of gotten on a campaign to convince
Speaker 1: doctors like, I'm not trying to take your business. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that maybe you should either do a better
Speaker 1: job or send your patients to a professional tattoo artist
Speaker 1: to help them re establish their identity post surgery, right,
Speaker 1: because it's so much a part of all of the
Speaker 1: stuff that we were talking about from that British Journal
Speaker 1: Psychology paper about that feeling, you know, those psychological psychological
Speaker 1: impact of mastectomies in terms of your body going through
Speaker 1: this complete transformation and then the very last step in
Speaker 1: it is just a botched tattoo Like how like that
Speaker 1: can only add even more psychological toll to it, right,
Speaker 1: And so women from all over the world, more than
Speaker 1: five thousand women have ended up traveling to C. Myers
Speaker 1: in his little storefront, to the point where he was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, should I move into a new space
Speaker 1: and make it more clinical and clean and white and
Speaker 1: sparkling looking, And all the women were like, no, I
Speaker 1: have been in enough doctor's offices. I want to feel
Speaker 1: like a person. I want to feel like a regular
Speaker 1: human being and come into a freaking tattoo shop and
Speaker 1: get some new nipples. And now to get yourself one
Speaker 1: new nipple would cost you about six hundred dollars from Myers,
Speaker 1: whereas getting to nipple tattoos will run you about eight
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. And the great thing is that some insurance
Speaker 1: companies do actually reimburse patients for this procedures, but a
Speaker 1: lot still refused to pay because tattoo artists like Vinie
Speaker 1: Myers are not licensed healthcare providers, and so he is working,
Speaker 1: I think, with some surgeons to sort of fill in
Speaker 1: that gap, because obviously one man cannot do the job
Speaker 1: of all of the postmastectomy needs in the United States
Speaker 1: and even around the world because he has international clients
Speaker 1: as well at this point. But it's so important, I
Speaker 1: mean thinking about I can't remember Caroline if it was
Speaker 1: Coddle or someone she interviewed for these articles that she
Speaker 1: wrote talking about how the first time they saw their
Speaker 1: breasts post tattoo, they started crying because they felt like
Speaker 1: they had reclaimed their body right. And I think that
Speaker 1: was the same woman who talked about how her husband
Speaker 1: hadn't even looked at her since she had had a mastectomy. Um.
Speaker 1: And I just think Myers is such an interesting figure
Speaker 1: and advocate because you know, he did get a start
Speaker 1: as like a quote unquote normal tattoo artist back in
Speaker 1: the day, and now he says things like I really
Speaker 1: ought to write a book because so many times I
Speaker 1: hear women complaining about their doctors or the way they
Speaker 1: weren't informed about what was available to them until it
Speaker 1: was too late and they'd already had their surgery. Basically,
Speaker 1: this tattoo artist from Maryland is now an advocate for
Speaker 1: breast cancer survivors who feel bullied by their doctors or
Speaker 1: their surgeons or whoever into getting something, whether it is
Speaker 1: reconstructive surgery with implants, or whether it is a nipple
Speaker 1: tattoo in done in office. And so I just think
Speaker 1: it's great that there is someone like Myers who is
Speaker 1: so vocal about giving women options after surgery. And when
Speaker 1: his daughter graduates from art school, she is going to
Speaker 1: learn nipple tattooing as well, to join him in this
Speaker 1: very niche service that he sort of stumbled into. And
Speaker 1: I think the really cool takeaway from learning about these
Speaker 1: mistectomy tattoos is that whether you get the implants and
Speaker 1: want to get the nipple tattoo whatever it is like,
Speaker 1: or if you just want to just get the post
Speaker 1: mistectomy tattoo no implants involved, it at least just offers
Speaker 1: a new and broader choice for women in terms of
Speaker 1: how they want to deal and manage and love their
Speaker 1: bodies post cancer. Absolutely, and I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: some super powerful stuff. It's so interesting to read about
Speaker 1: something like tattoos, which generally, I think still larger society
Speaker 1: brushes off as like whatever tattoos, who cares? But it
Speaker 1: is such a powerful way to connect emotionally with something
Speaker 1: or someone and reclaim a party yourself. Well, and it's
Speaker 1: so common to for I mean for tattoos to be
Speaker 1: commemorative of cancer in one way or another, whether it's
Speaker 1: someone who's beaten another form of cancer, not breast cancer,
Speaker 1: or in memorium, or in recognition of someone who has
Speaker 1: died from cancer or who was also survived cancer. So
Speaker 1: it's really cool to see that kind of relationship between
Speaker 1: the two. And I mean, I'm biased, I'm a fan
Speaker 1: of tattoos, so and these are the cool kinds of
Speaker 1: tattoos in my mind to get these are not the
Speaker 1: kinds that you'll probably be, you know, heading to get
Speaker 1: removed because you were twenty years old and I thought
Speaker 1: it might have been a good idea to get that
Speaker 1: dolphin on your back. So now we want to hear
Speaker 1: from listeners are there any listeners out there who have
Speaker 1: gotten mystectomy tattoos, we would love to hear from you,
Speaker 1: and if you're comfortable sharing a photo, we'd love to
Speaker 1: see them as well. And for people who are just
Speaker 1: interested in seeing what these look like, you can head
Speaker 1: over to Pinterest. There are a ton of breast cancer
Speaker 1: related tattoos, including these kinds of messect me tattoos we've
Speaker 1: been talking about in this podcast. Um and send us
Speaker 1: your thoughts. Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: is where you can reach us. You can also tweet
Speaker 1: us at mom Stuff podcast and messages on Facebook and
Speaker 1: we have a couple of messages to share with you
Speaker 1: when we come right back from a quick break and
Speaker 1: now back to the show. Okay, well, I have a
Speaker 1: letter here from Angela about our daddy Issues episode. She says,
Speaker 1: I think it's so funny that the popular assumption is
Speaker 1: that feminists must have daddy issues, because the biggest reason
Speaker 1: I'm a feminist is my dad. My mom was very
Speaker 1: feminine and ladylike, and my sister followed in her footsteps,
Speaker 1: while I was more of a tomboy who imitated my dad.
Speaker 1: He really reinforced the idea to my sister and me
Speaker 1: that we should be independent, self sufficient, and generally able
Speaker 1: to care for ourselves without the assistance of a man
Speaker 1: or anyone else. He always told me that looks well
Speaker 1: important for functioning within society, should not be the end
Speaker 1: all be all of my existence, and generously littered my
Speaker 1: toy box with comic books, educational toys, books, monsters and barbies.
Speaker 1: I love you, guys, and keep up the good work.
Speaker 1: And you keep up your good work, Angela. Thanks for
Speaker 1: the letter. Well, I've got one here from Patrick. Also
Speaker 1: about our Daddy's Girl episode, he writes, I'm a semi
Speaker 1: new listener and glad I listened since it seems like
Speaker 1: all How Stuff Works podcast our top notch the female
Speaker 1: perspective is always welcoming to me as well. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I just listened to your newest episode about Daddy's Girls
Speaker 1: and made me think about the sex talk with my daughter.
Speaker 1: She's definitely a dad as girl, but I'm scared to
Speaker 1: death about it, especially being a single dad. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because I'm one of the more open people you'll meet.
Speaker 1: But I'm worried now and she's only six. It's such
Speaker 1: an odd scenario. She'll always be my main thing in life,
Speaker 1: and she's around me much more than her mother, so
Speaker 1: how it will be approach is perplexing. Listening to this
Speaker 1: particular show, though, gave me more confidence about it, regardless
Speaker 1: of it being an awkward situation. I may have missed
Speaker 1: a point somewhere in this email, but you've given me
Speaker 1: inspiration towards the inevitable. I also won't worry about what
Speaker 1: color lipsticks she wants to wear. So thanks Patrick and
Speaker 1: good luck. You can totally do it. You can have
Speaker 1: the sex talk and it'll be It'll be awkward, but
Speaker 1: she'll thank you for it in the long run. And
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