Keeping with the Times

[CyranoJ]

Models and dancers, on the other hand, are different. Every tattoo lowers their value.

An old-timey kvetch about tattoos that turns out not to have been true. Specific ink simply becomes a part of their brand and their value, it turns out. True not just for niche alt-models or porn stars but increasingly for high-paid fashion models and influencers, too.

Yes, although things are still precarious for porn performers (as opposed to celebrity 'tourists' in porn-land).

Oh, quite. For sex workers generally. Crooked dealing by modeling and streaming sites, "anti-traffickers" and their overall bullshit, "Nordic model" and other anti-SW legislation, all manner of things. It's certainly no picnic (which kind of tacks into the "new prudishness" part of the convo).

 

[Bramblethorn]

Philosophically, I agree with this.

But it was a little hard for me when my daughter got a tattoo. Just saying.

If it's any consolation, you're better off being the parent whose child lets them know they have a tattoo than the parent who isn't trusted with that kind of information. Speaking from the 'child' side of that particular dynamic.

I had no problem when my oldest got a tattoo. She didn't have anything to lose by it, and it was a personal statement.

Models and dancers, on the other hand, are different. Every tattoo lowers their value. Photographers and artistic directors usually want to work with a blank canvas.

Less of an issue than it used to be. Tattoos can be covered up for dancing, and a lot of photographers are more willing to work with tattooed models these days (or airbrush the tatts like they do so many other things...)

 

[NotWise]

Less of an issue than it used to be. Tattoos can be covered up for dancing, and a lot of photographers are more willing to work with tattooed models these days (or airbrush the tatts like they do so many other things...)

My youngest daughter is still working in dance, and from her, being tattooed might not keep you from dancing, but it might keep you from being paid for it.

For porn models, tattoos are a specialty -- Suicide Girls, is an example. Most of the photos I've seen from high-end photographers (Rylsky, for instance) use models who are mostly untattooed, and mostly unpierced.

I've watched the model Elsa Jean. She started with no tattoos and was popular as "daddy's little girl." She got a rose tattooed on her right shoulder, and most of her photographs show her hair draped over her shoulder to hide it. She got another rose and leaf tattoo on her left hip, and that was harder to hide. Most of her photos are taken to at least obscure the tattoo.

The tattoo's made her not "daddy's little girl" anymore. She lost her market, got her boobs enlarged, and now she takes it up the ass. That's the evolution of a porn star, I guess.

 

[CyranoJ]

My youngest daughter is still working in dance, and from her, being tattooed might not keep you from dancing, but it might keep you from being paid for it.

Dance companies have been some of the remaining holdouts, but that too has been changing for some years.

I've watched the model Elsa Jean. She started with no tattoos and was popular as "daddy's little girl."

Hm. According to her bio and filmography, Elsa Jean was a stripper before she started in hardcore porn at the age of 18 and seems to have had the rose tattoo when she shot her first film in 2015. The sequencing sounds off, here.

She does seem to have gotten into anal later, but I doubt this correlates much with the ink. There are plenty of inked models who have lucrative makets and don't do anal, or even porn.

(EDIT: Mainstream fashion models often still try to keep it subtle, and maybe get an "edgy" reputation if they don't, but not always. Eve Salvail became a major Nineties "it girl" in fashion because of the prominent dragon tat on her scalp. The same is true of model/actress Ruby Rose with far more numerous and prominent tattoos today. Cat McNeil was a top-30 supermodel in the Oughties with over a hundred tattoos.)

 

[NotWise]

Dance companies have been some of the remaining holdouts, but that too has been changing for some years.

Maybe at the low end of companies, and maybe with tattoos that fit the dancer's lines without obscuring them. The issue is that they want the costumes to look the same on all the dancers, and they don't want unnatural features that draw attention to one dancer over another.

Hm. According to her bio and filmography, Elsa Jean was a stripper before she started in hardcore porn at the age of 18 and seems to have had the rose tattoo when she shot her first film in 2015. The sequencing sounds off, here.

I probably read the same bio. There are plenty of photos of Elsa Jean without the rose on her shoulder. Maybe they were taken before her first film. Maybe the rose was shopped out, but I suspect that it wasn't there yet.

(She does seem to have gotten into anal later, but I doubt this correlates much with the ink.

I think it does. She definitely had the "little girl" market. Tattoos and some piercings destroy the "little girl" image. That's not her market any more.

There are plenty of inked models who have lucrative makets and don't do anal, or even porn. Mainstream fashion models often still try to keep it subtle, and maybe get an "edgy" reputation if they don't, but not always. Eve Salvail became a major Nineties "it girl" in fashion because of the prominent dragon tat on her scalp.)

Ink is pretty common on porn models. A few of them are even popular. It seems to me that more often then not, the photographers try to obscure the ink. If I look somewhere like MetArt, most of the models are un-inked.

Then there's scars and birthmarks. It used to seem like all Russian and east-European models had appendectomy scars, and there was no attempt to hide them.

I can think of at least one popular American porn model who has a cesarean scar. I've seen some pictures where it was evident and some where it was shopped, but usually it was hidden by her position, by her arm, or by clothing. I can think of another model with a prominent birthmark inside her right thigh. She's usually positioned to hide the birthmark, or it's shopped out.

Any kind of flaw on a model or a dancer is a liability.

 

[CyranoJ]

Maybe at the low end of companies, and maybe with tattoos that fit the dancer's lines without obscuring them.

I've no idea which "end" of companies, although it would appear the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre mentioned directly in the article is definitely a prestigious institution nationally and worldwide (which makes sense, early pioneers of this kind of cultural shift often come from the prestige end of the scale, same was true of Marc Jacobs in the fashion world). But somehow I have a feeling that these plausible-sounding excuses will wind up rotting away in the face of cultural shifts just as they have in other areas of performance.

I can remember hearing similar rationales in all sorts of contexts over the past quarter-century where it turned out to cease mattering much once the shift took hold and audience interest in the question waned. That's exactly how the progression from Eve Salvail to Ruby Rose was possible in fashion, where the "blank canvas" myth previously reigned.

EDIT: To bring a little more nuance to it, FWICT the progression of the shift of tattoos from niche to mainstream is uneven depending on what sectors you look at. But whatever stage various industries are at, I feel like the trendlines are all pretty clear.

It took ink about thirty years to go from minimal to mainstream in porn, enough so that a significant chunk of the "household names" among pornstars at any given time have sported signature ink as part of their look since around the late Oughties. Porn is an industry that's often ahead of the curve; fashion is about... a decade or so behind but has progressed in much the same general way.

The bastions of "high culture" will be the last to go, but it would seem the same forces are at work there. Close to half of millennials actually have tattoos and many more don't care whether other people have them. It's just hard to preserve an anti-tattoo culture when more and more of the actual market stops caring about that goal.

There are plenty of photos of Elsa Jean without the rose on her shoulder. Maybe they were taken before her first film.

Well, it's very clearly visible in her first filmed scene to judge by the clips of it on the 'net. I'm not familiar with her very earliest modeling work but if she did nudes of any kind before porn it would (one would hope) have to have been in a window of a few months, she was born in '96.

(Also, anal or no anal, let's not make like Elsa Jean somehow couldn't find a market and faded from view b/c she got one more tat. She's currently a top-tier pornstar. In fact I expect she earns far more now than she did as "daddy's little girl," the prospect of higher earnings is usually why adult actresses branch out from their original niches.)

Ink is pretty common on porn models. A few of them are even popular.

More than a few of them. Content like MetArt is at this point a pretty specific sub-niche of what porn is in general, or at least it's not a defining norm. And again, it's common on much more than just porn models.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I've watched the model Elsa Jean. She started with no tattoos and was popular as "daddy's little girl." She got a rose tattooed on her right shoulder, and most of her photographs show her hair draped over her shoulder to hide it. She got another rose and leaf tattoo on her left hip, and that was harder to hide. Most of her photos are taken to at least obscure the tattoo.

The tattoo's made her not "daddy's little girl" anymore. She lost her market, got her boobs enlarged, and now she takes it up the ass. That's the evolution of a porn star, I guess.

How much of that is because of the tattoos, though? I'm not the target audience, but I would've thought "daddy's little girl" was the kind of role actresses age out of pretty quickly, inked or not. That sounds like a pretty common career progression for porn actresses.

"They should've done DVDA."
"DVDA?"
"Double-vaginal double-anal. It's the only way a woman of my age will get work in this industry."
- "Orgasmo"

 

[LAHomedog]

For the record I think tattoos on a woman are very hot. On her knees with a trampstamp, a nice one down by the vag when you go down on her. Add thigh high stockings and I'm good for the night!

I typically give my female lead in my stories at least one tattoo. And sometimes a belly button ring. (My Nude Day girl had two tattoos and a belly button ring.) I'm fascinated by body modification.

 

[CyranoJ]

I typically give my female lead in my stories at least one tattoo. And sometimes a belly button ring. (My Nude Day girl had two tattoos and a belly button ring.) I'm fascinated by body modification.

I'm fond of tats and piercings, too. Don't mind the "clean" look either, it depends on the occasion. I think about... half my stories currently on Lit have tattooed characters.

Oddly, none of the stuff I have on Amazon has inked characters in it... but then the bulk of that material is a retro porn parody series based on Playboy models from the late Sixties.

 

[Bramblethorn]

(Also, anal or no anal, let's not make like Elsa Jean somehow couldn't find a market and faded from view b/c she got one more tat. She's currently a top-tier pornstar. In fact I expect she earns far more now than she did as "daddy's little girl," the prospect of higher earnings is usually why adult actresses branch out from their original niches.)

FWIW, I took a look at the top 10 actresses on PornHub's "this month's most popular" list, and googled their tattoo status. Half of them have tattoos: Lana Rhoades (#1 on the list, 3 tattoos); Riley Reid (#4, 4 tattoos, one of which is a cautionary reminder of why not to get tattooed in a language you don't speak); Mia Khalifa (#8, 13 tattoos); Liya Silver (#9, at least two); and Brandi Love (#10, at least three).

Not the most rigorous of investigations, but if that's anything to go by, tattoos aren't a huge impediment in the industry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4zRe_wvJw8

 

[RetroFan]

In your first post you raised an interesting question, to which I don't know the answer: how old are Literotica readers? I don't really know. My sense is that the authors skew on the older side, but I don't know about readers. I suspect there are a lot of older readers as well, so there's less expectation that erotica culture has to be completely current with contemporary popular culture.

I don't really know. My sense, too, is that it doesn't matter a lot because readers seem to be fairly receptive to the fantasy worlds I create, regardless of how current they are.

I often wonder about how younger readers react to my stories set in the past, and stories written by other authors with a past setting.

For example, say some 18/19 year old guys were looking for MILF-Cougar stories and came across my story 'Mandy Makes A Man of Mark', where the titular characters are 36 and 18 respectively. When they discover that the story is set in 1964, would they be like 'That's nearly 60 years ago', 'He'd be 75 now, and she'd probably be dead' and 'It's like reading about your Grandpa losing his virginity to one of your Great-Grandma's friends!' or would they enjoy it as much as a story with a similar premise set in the present day?

 

[jsmiam]

…
Many here have been writing for a long time and I wonder what you’ve noticed changing as the years pass. How do you try to keep up if you try at all?

Back to the original topic (Anti-Tatter here btw, but just one person’s opinion), I suggest a “Don’t think too much” perspective. Thinking too much leads to questioning most of the fun stuff like “Wait, this’ll give her a yeast infection, she’ll get pregnant, I’ll get VD, and we’ll be arrested by the park ranger for having sex in the car, then it’ll make the news, and we’ll both lose our jobs and our families in the aftermath.” Thinking less helps you avoid all that worry.

Also, the audience here is broad. There’s an audience, even if you’re having eighties or nineties style sex. Maybe keep an eye on whether you want or intended to get historical or not. As long as all the girls are shaved, you’ll be fine.

 

[SimonDoom]

If it's any consolation, you're better off being the parent whose child lets them know they have a tattoo than the parent who isn't trusted with that kind of information. )

Good point. That hasn't been a problem. I didn't shame her about it. I don't think she felt any shame coming from me. I hope not.

My chief qualm about tattoos is their permanency. Young people get a tattoo to match that of their partner. They break up. But the tat's still there.

I've evolved on this issue. A tattoo used to be more of a class issue. Now they're so common among housewives under 40 I hardly notice anymore.

Another big cosmetic evolution, of course, is pubic hair. I'm old enough to remember the days of full, jungly bush. I can recall when porn began shifting to the fully shaved look it seemed very weird, almost off-putting to me. Now I like it, and all the women with whom I've had personal experience in that department in recent years keep things shaved, waxed, or very closely trimmed.

What I find interesting is how strongly readers react to pubic hair, and especially to its absence, in stories. I tend to write what I like, so many of my female characters are shaved or closely trimmed. I've gotten a number of remarks from readers to the effect that "Mom should have a bush!" This leads me to infer that many incest readers are older men who've clung to their Mommy fantasies for decades, and they want the Mommy character to be the way they remember her.

 

[CyranoJ]

FWIW, I took a look at the top 10 actresses on PornHub's "this month's most popular" list, and googled their tattoo status. Half of them have tattoos

Definitely tracks.

Riley Reid (#4, 4 tattoos, one of which is a cautionary reminder of why not to get tattooed in a language you don't speak);

Rumor has it that the goofy gibberish grammar of Reid's signature back tattoo was a deliberate choice for comic effect (b/c she knew people would read it and try to analyze and correct the grammar).

If that's true, getting a gibberish tattoo simply to troll people is pretty next-level, I have to give it to her. And if not, well... as Confucius once said, life brings you when lemons make lemonade.

 

[SimonDoom]

as Confucius once said, life brings you when lemons make lemonade.

Was that Confucius, or Yoda?

 

[CyranoJ]

Was that Confucius, or Yoda?

My bad, I think it was Gandalf, actually.

 

[SimonDoom]

My bad, I think it was Gandalf, actually.

Well done. Now I have my laugh for the day and can go on.

 

[CyranoJ]

Well done. Now I have my laugh for the day and can go on.

Delighted to be of service, good sir.

 

[Payne_Hall]

Good point. That hasn't been a problem. I didn't shame her about it. I don't think she felt any shame coming from me. I hope not.

My chief qualm about tattoos is their permanency. Young people get a tattoo to match that of their partner. They break up. But the tat's still there.

To be fair, I can see this point, but also idiocy is sometimes more charming than one might expect and tattoos do have the effect of making a person own their faults. Back in the day, there was a naive version of Payne who was married and started working with horses for a while. Jewelry got to be irritating so I wore the wedding ring on a necklace and got another version tattooed.

…That divorce was wild. It kills me how funny it is though. It’s somehow the greatest ice breaker. The conversation will always be the same. “Are you married?” “Heheh. Nope.” And then they’ll get a slow grin.

Another friend has a tattoo of a band logo that he thinks started to suck. That one is a favorite.

I also honestly get most of my “keeping up with times” references from all of my nerdy habits, though. Like how much Fortnite I play or Magic the Gathering prereleases.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Good point. That hasn't been a problem. I didn't shame her about it. I don't think she felt any shame coming from me. I hope not.

My chief qualm about tattoos is their permanency. Young people get a tattoo to match that of their partner. They break up. But the tat's still there.

Some tattoos are regrettable, certainly, and some tattooists will warn against those or outright refuse to do them. But there are plenty of other things to get tattooed that are less likely to be regretted than a lover or a favourite band. I'm a fairly cautious person in many ways, but being over-cautious of making lasting decisions can be its own kind of danger.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Rumor has it that the goofy gibberish grammar of Reid's signature back tattoo was a deliberate choice for comic effect (b/c she knew people would read it and try to analyze and correct the grammar).

If that's true, getting a gibberish tattoo simply to troll people is pretty next-level, I have to give it to her. And if not, well... as Confucius once said, life brings you when lemons make lemonade.

If I ended up with a gibberish tattoo, this is certainly the explanation I'd be giving ;-)

 

[TadOverdon]

Elsa Jean had the tattoos - one on the shoulder, a larger one on her left hip - at the time of the earliest images I can find indexed for her, which are June of 2015. She was just at the beginning of her "girl next door" renown.

She did interracial by autumn of that year, for one of the "quality"sites. "IR" is a thing and a big topic in commercial porn, because the racism involved in the business side of it is supposedly frustrating for many performers.

She did anal about the same time that she got her rather modest implants, in 2020. Doubtless she's being paid a lot more per scene than she was in the "sweet young thing" phase of her career.

Nicole Aniston was an interesting one. She and Julia Ann are probably case studies for how to do that job, make good money and get out with their bodies and sanity intact.

G I've gotten a number of remarks from readers to the effect that "Mom should have a bush!" This leads me to infer that many incest readers are older men who've clung to their Mommy fantasies for decades, and they want the Mommy character to be the way they remember her.

They know nothing. All hot thirty-six-year-old Mommies with well-hung eighteen-year-old sons are smooth as Michael Clarke Duncan's head down below. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Please understand, body makeup is often used to hide tats when they are unwanted. Not saying their aren't some epic fails with this technique. Angelina Jolie comes to mind in Alexander. Yeah, made her look like she had a skin disorder!

 

[NotWise]

Elsa Jean had the tattoos - one on the shoulder, a larger one on her left hip - at the time of the earliest images I can find indexed for her, which are June of 2015. She was just at the beginning of her "girl next door" renown.

There is a gallery from Blacked of her posted to another site in Dec. 2015. She either did not have the tattoo on her hip, or they meticulously shopped it out in a lot of photos. They hide her right shoulder in every shot, so it's hard to say for sure, but I think the shoulder tattoo is there.

 

[lovecraft68]

Tattoos are also much more easily-and affordably removed these days than in the past.

I don't judge anyone for what they do to their body, its theirs, not mine. The only thing I find myself wondering what they're thinking and long term is the people who put those huge gages in their ears so that their earlobes are just dangling with huge holes in them when they take them out....not sure how that will be long term, but I default back to its them, not me.

How will this look when I'm 80? Don't know, and don't care.

Made a good conversation piece at a pool party with a lot of my wife's older Italian and very Catholic family in attendance.