Now that I have explored this topic, more and more information about the Victorian era and its secrets seem to be popping up. I explored one reason for Victorian aristocratic women getting tattoos in my paper and that was to "slum it."
Apparently, they got a thrill out of doing something usually reserved for the lower classes. Their male counterparts would go down dark alleys into flogging brothels where prostitues would whip them for sexual pleasure. Upper class women of course were not allowed in these parts. It got me thinking that if these women had sexually "deviant" husbands, they would have trouble competing sexually with these prostitutes. The wives would desire to be pleasing to their husbands and maybe that is why they hopped on the tattoo trend so quickly. It certainly would spice things up in the bedroom to have your wife tattooed completely.
It also crossed my mind that maybe the act of tattooing was a sexual one in more ways than one.
1) Pleasure/Pain Dichotomy
- When one get a tattoo, the pain is often turned into pleasure and actually can feel good. Also, after one gets a tattoo, one feels "high" from the experience. Similar to the feeling one gets after sex.
2) Involving a 3rd party in the sexual act
- What if these woman's husbands coerced them into getting a tattoo in front of them for their viewing pleasure. To see another man inflicting pain on their wife could be an erotic experience for some.
This boils down to the fact that tattooing actually fit in very well with the underground darkly sexual Victorian society
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