Vice magazine has an article on people who use tattoo’s as part of BDSM scenes. I was aware of people in heavy D/s dynamics using tattoos for ownership/bonding, but I’d never really thought about the act of giving them being part of a scene. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Needle play is a scene thing. So is writing on bodies. So is permanent marking like branding or scarification. It’s therefore hardly surprising people would want to combine all three.
Maybe it’s the boring middle-aged tattoo free guy in me, but it seems a pretty scary thing to do. Not in the marking itself, but in the potential after effects. Scenes are very transitory, and relationships can come and go. Those you have when your young and exploring new sexual dynamics are particularly vulnerable. I think it’d be one thing to regret tattoo’s you picked yourself, and quite another to regret a “My little cum slut” tattoo you got from a domme you dated a decade ago.
These body writing shots are from a Japanese femdom video.
I think having a tattoo drawn is a bit like having plastic surgery. Do it once. Do it right. Having a tattoo as part of a scene sounds very ‘hot’ but it also implies a very great degree of trust between the Domme and the sub – and of course, any design must be chosen such that it looks exciting and special in the long term. I heard a story about a Domme who was taken to an art exhibition by one of her subs. Later that day (so there must have been some careful planning ) she took him to experience another form of art and had him tattooed with a Scarlet Lady butterfly. The Domme in question was Mistress Scarlet!
I agree. I wouldn’t mind a tattoo as part of a significant event, and where it was carefully chosen to be meaningful. I think there’s a difference between marking the importance of a relationship at a moment in time (which will always be true) and doing one in a scene may be very transitory. That butterfly tattoo seems like a wonderful idea. I’d have been happy to do a similar thing with Lydia to mark the relationship, even knowing we’d both be moving on.
What disturbed me in the article was things like the desire to be a canvas for a domme. That seems the kind of thing that could be a big problem if the relationship with the domme ever went sour.
-paltego