In the Pacific, tattoos were created as gender specific. As
a right of passage into adulthood, women received malu and men received tatau. These helped to define gender roles in that they
represented which roles were important for each gender to fulfill. Men and
women were also tattooed in different places on their bodies. If these places were
reversed this also held significance. As mentioned by Ellis, the tattoos
displayed, especially for women, sexually desirability. The tattoos showed that
sexuality was inseparable from all other aspects of life. A tattoo did not mar
a girl’s sexual purity but rather enhanced her as a woman and adult.
The view of a woman’s tattoo in America, for example, was
diametrically opposed to this idea. The process of tattooing was a form of
penetration and therefore of violation. A woman with a tattoo, regardless of
her sexual history, was not seen as a virgin and therefore not seen as worthy
of protection and respect. Ellis cites a particularly disturbing account of a
rape case in Boston during the 1920s where allegations of rape were dropped
simply because the woman was found to have a butterfly tattooed on her ankle.
This event reveals that not only was a woman’s sexuality
considered something separate from other aspects of life and shameful, but it
also displays the way a tattoo is interpreted. The interpretation of this
butterfly exposes the severe discomfort America had with female sexuality
during the 1920s. The butterfly says almost nothing of the woman who bore it,
but it speaks profoundly on the people involved in the court case and the
society from which they came.
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