Althouse: Instead of a realistic-looking nipple...

May 10, 2015

Instead of a realistic-looking nipple...

... there's a new trend in mastectomy tattoos.

18 comments:

madAsHell said...: I was fortunate. I saw the sorry tattoos on the fathers that returned from WWII.

The tattooed woman was the freak at the circus.; 5/10/15, 9:07 PM
MD Greene said...: I've had a minor breast cancer and am likely to have another.

Got tattoos from the techs to position the radiation. My nipples are between me and the Significant Other.

F__k this shit.; 5/10/15, 9:07 PM
Unknown said...: Interesting, I'm not sure what I was expecting. I have a friend that has Vinnie Myer's work, which is impressive, and I'm sure at her age she is happier with that. But I can certainly understand that this is an alternative for a younger piercing and tattoo fanatic generation.; 5/10/15, 9:21 PM
William said...: Posts about female serial killers, a murdered child, the Kardashians, and mastectomy tattoos. What a decorative bouquet for Mother's Day!; 5/10/15, 11:22 PM
Thuglawlibrarian said...: Any woman (or man) who has breast cancer and survives can do whatever the fuck they want to with in that area, in my book.; 5/11/15, 12:12 AM
fivewheels said...: Okey dokey artichokey.; 5/11/15, 12:32 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: I have to agree with Johnny.

Also, I like the second one.; 5/11/15, 1:24 AM
Lewis Wetzel said...: One of the fascinating things about the universe is that what we think of as signs of the passage of time is confined to certain spatial scales. Atoms make up molecules that make up cells. Cells make up people.
Atoms have qualities like mass and charge. They don't have age. A hydrogen atom that is ten billion years old has no qualities that make it different from a hydrogen atom made in a laboratory ten seconds ago.
Life is a grand and mysterious thing, ain't it?; 5/11/15, 2:26 AM
Etienne said...: Normally I don't like tattoo's as I think they are part of some mental disease, but in this case I think they would make life bearable.

One of the wonder drugs I began injecting myself every week with, is Enbrel. Having psoriatic arthritis, is a disfiguring disease, and people stare at you, and ask if you've gotten into some poison ivy. I would tell them, no, it's only leprosy, and watch for the reaction.

This get's tiring though, and I've often thought about a tattoo, but don't know if that is even possible with that disease. But a surprising thing happened with Enbrel, all the psoriasis junk went away.

Course I'll probably get brain cancer with this drug, or die of liver failure, but at least they can have my hands crossed at the wake.; 5/11/15, 3:52 AM
jr565 said...: I know someone who had Breast cancer and had a mastectomy, then got the tattoos. She really enjoys them, and they are like a life saver for her n terms of how she feels about her body.
Luckily they caught the cancer still at stage zero, so though they needed to give her a mastectomy she didn't need chemo or radiation. And knock, on wood, the cancer hasn't returned in more than a decade.; 5/11/15, 4:21 AM
tim maguire said...: When I clicked the link, I was primed to not like them. But I do. The unfortunate reality is reconstructed breasts are not very natural looking and nipple tattoos can serve to call attention to the reconstruction. These tattoos go completely the other way and, by not even trying to look natural, wind up being more natural and graceful looking.; 5/11/15, 6:20 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Also, I like the second one."

Yeah, me too. I have seen the realistic-looking nipple tattoos and have blogged them, but I think this is a great alternative. The style in the second one works really well.

(I don't really understand the negativity from Crazy Jane and Johnny Sokko.); 5/11/15, 7:25 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: I don't really understand the negativity from Crazy Jane and Johnny Sokko.

I didn't read Johnny Sokko's as negative at all.; 5/11/15, 8:22 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Both of those comments seem to be reacting to somebody else who was disapproving... disapproving of a phantom. No one is disapproving. I don't get that. I feel like I was saying this is cool and they were treating me as if I had objected to it.; 5/11/15, 10:07 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Alternatively, they may have been trying to say that they actually think it's bad but repressing their own objection as illegitimate.; 5/11/15, 10:09 AM
Theranter said...: "There's a new trend in mastectomy tattoos"
Upon reading, I hoped it was in lieu of implants. (Some kind of 3D boob tattoo?)
Forgot about the assumption that mastectomy=implants. (I get that one would or should think the "nipple" tattoo would only belong on fake breasts.)

Happy with the choice to decline implants, especially after some asshole male plastic surgeon said they were necessary "to feel whole again." Really? Like I would get feeling back? If so, then we might talk, as that might be worth the risk of implants inhibiting detection of a recurrence.

Otherwise, in my view, the "feel whole again" was him projecting what he and society think a woman should look like to be "whole." And since I have a whole lotta living to do, losing feeling in that section of my body to stay alive was an easy choice, and declining multiple surgeries to stretch the skin in those two areas to make way for 2 jello blobs was a wise choice--for me. Totally up to each though, and what type of BC they had, some being much more aggressive cancers than others.

(And btw, I think Sokko's comment was awesome, not negative. Didn't intend for mine to sound so negative--wrote it fast and no time to redo, apologies. And the comment re radiation tattoos-I hate mine too, mainly due to the color.); 5/11/15, 10:44 AM
mikee said...: Anyone who has required a mastectomy can have any art they want, inked on, on their walls, taped to their refrigerators.

Some events generate an automatic "no more rules" situation in life.; 5/11/15, 12:47 PM
Moose said...: Really kind of silly. The whole package has the appeal. Do I need to explain this?; 5/11/15, 6:09 PM