Transcript | Ep. 81: How to Break Tattoo Taboos with Margaret Cho

[Stinger]

Olivia: You get so many comments when you get certain tattoos, like my stomach one gets a lot of comments because they think it's unladylike, especially like older women in the summertime. It's like minding my business and they're like, “You're never gonna get a husband with those tattoos.” And I’m just like …

Sam: Who said I wanted one?

Olivia: Yeah. Or just like, why do people care so much? Like, we're all going to die anyway. Like, the last thing I'm worried about is like finding a husband. It's 2020.

[Theme music]

Caroline: Hey y’all and welcome to Unladylike, where we find out what happens when women break the rules and get tattoos instead of husbands. I’m Caroline

Cristen: I’m Cristen, and that was a woman named Olivia talking to Unladylike producer Sam Lee. Sam stopped by a tattoo pop-up in an athleisure store called Outdoor Voices. And Caroline, I personally love that we live in a world now that — y’know is arguably on the verge of self-destruction — but at least you can one stop shop for tattoos AND sports bras with no judgment!

Caroline: Cristen, women really can have it all, y’all.

Cristen: Yes we can … ish. But seriously, it is the tattoo-friendliest time in American history … around 1 in 5 adults in the US have at least one, and almost HALF of millennials have them, myself included … not to brag but maybe to brag just a little bit …

Caroline: Well Cristen, I don’t have any tattoos … YET. But thanks to Instagram, I’ve actually had my eye on a few lady tattoo artists, so I might be getting up the nerve ...

Cristen: DO IT! I would not object if you get my profile, my good side, on your lower back .. oh! Or on an ankle …

Caroline: Love that silhouette, but lemme get back to you on that … because we aren’t just popping by a pop up today, Cristen. We’re ALSO talking to an iconic rule-breaker and tattoo collector: Margaret Cho.

[Standup Clip]

Margaret Cho: My mother gets angry with me because I have a lot of tattoos. Don’t be alarmed. I’ll show you. I have a lot of tattoos cause I’m trying to avoid plastic surgery. I’m just gonna keep getting tattooed so nobody even notices that I have wrinkles. They’ll just be like ‘Ew, where’s that turtle going?”

Cristen: This episode, Margaret Cho is taking us on an intimate journey of what all her ink signifies and the body politics of being a heavily tattooed Korean-American woman.

Caroline: But first, we’re tagging along with producer Sam on her unladylike tattoo field trip. And that’s not all y’all. There’s so much more -- the origin of tramp stamps! Organized crime! Getting kicked out of spas!

Cristen: It’s all to find out: What do our tattoos say about us?

[Stinger]

[Sam entering Outdoor Voices]

Sam Lee: Hi! I called ahead. I’m a podcast producer and was hoping to chat with some of the ladies getting tattooed...

Cristen: Y'all, we're here with Producer Sam who recently went on our tattoo field trip … hi Sam!

Sam: Hey! So I really wanted to hear directly from women as they were getting tattoos- and it turns out the best place to do that in 2020 is at a stick and poke pop up! I’ve seen them all over — at flea markets, craft fairs, concerts ... But THIS event was at the Outdoor Voices store in New York

Caroline: For people who don’t know what we’re talking about: What IS stick and poke?

Sam: OK so stick and poke tattoos are basically the most bare-bones kind of tattooing, like stripping it down without a machine to just using a needle and some ink. So, you could trace that back to some of the oldest tattooing traditions in the South Pacific … but in the US they’ve traditionally been associated with like prison tattoos or punk rock teens tattooing each other at parties with ballpoint pens, that sort of thing.

Cristen: Well I feel like in the past few years, they’re kind of everywhere. Well, by everywhere I mean my social media

Sam: Yeah very trendy to see on like Instagram or Pinterest. If you’ve noticed little tattoos that are little dainty doodles of things like flowers, diamonds, and just little like sparkles, cacti … those kinds of things are typically stick and poke. I talked to the artist at the event, her name’s Rosa Bluestone Perr, about the appeal of stick and pokes- especially for women.

Rosa: I think that like this aesthetic is more approachable for a lot of people. And it's like. It’s less about like just like a huge piece of art on your body and more about like a small adornment that complements that body part. And I also just really like how intimate it is. There's not like a big vibrating sound so I can still talk to my clients and it just looks more like human made on skin, which I really like. It's not just like a perfectly printed dark object on skin.

Sam: Rosa has over 44,000 followers on her Instagram account — which is @bluestonebabe. She says 90% of her clients are women. And lot of those women especially like going to Rosa because she runs out of a private studio in Brooklyn instead of a typical tattoo shop

Client: I've gotten piercings in tattoo parlors just because that's like what's been available to me. And I always walk in and I know that it's sterile. But that’s about it. It does feel like overwhelming and a little, I don’t know, just off.

Sam: Yeah. I mean, to me it reminds me of like a bike shop.

Client: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like I'm not your target customer. Am I even in the right place? It makes you kind of question your own sort of buy-in to what you're about to do.

Sam: I noticed the opposite in Rosa’s interaction with clients. When they were picking out their art and choosing where to put it- I think there was a different dynamic there with it being lady to lady versus if Rosa had been a dude.

Rosa: In terms of placement, tell me if you had something in mind...

Shanika: I think right …

Rosa: Like centered?

Shanika: Yeah

Rosa: I love that. I think that’s a great spot for this. Cause it’s a very symmetrical design. OK. Cool. Check that out. Look in the mirror. Make sure you love it.

Sam: This event was extremely welcoming and supportive. I saw a really diverse crowd. And that really meant a lot to folks like Olivia, who we heard at the top of the episode. As a woman of color, getting a tattoo hasn’t always been such a friendly experience.

Olivia: I've had someone refuse to tattoo me. It's like I made an appointment and it was like one of my first times ever making a tattoo appointment. I was so nervous. And then I walked in and they refused to do a tattoo on my skin when they saw me. Most tattoo artists don't post dark skin, even if they do them or they edit the skin to look lighter.

Sam: Olivia isn’t alone. Artists refusing to tattoo dark skin is a real problem. A contestant on Ink Master (who went on to WIN) once said on the show, “I don’t want the dark canvases. They take away half your skill sets.”

Olivia: I always had like a love hate relationship with my skin. I grew up in like an almost all-white neighborhood and you know like being told directly or indirectly that like you aren't beautiful in the skin that you're in. Like every single tattoo I get, it's almost like reclaiming agency. And I - every time I get one, I just feel prettier and better about myself.

Sam: Sooooo I wanted to feel prettier and better about myself. So guess what, guys? I also got a new tattoo!

Sam: I did it!

Rosa: I love it.

Sam: It’s so cute!

Rosa: It is so cute.

Store employee: So cute.

Sam: It’s just a teeny circle made of dots, but I love it, and it will always remind me of the wonderful times I had here working on Unladylike!

Cristen: Awwww. Well I’m glad that your tattoo will be a pleasant reminder of your work. And wow listeners, just for the record, too, Caroline and I did not request Sam to get a tattoo

Caroline: That was not a —

[Crosstalk]

Cristen: But I love that Sam, thank you so much for reporting that out for us.

Sam: Oh, it was my true pleasure and pain, apparently. It didn’t hurt that much.

Cristen: Well y’all now it’s time to talk to someone who’s had more than her fair share of tattoo adventures.

Margaret: My kneecaps have the faces of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. From the $1 bill and the $5 bill, because it costs $6 to spread them. Now you know. The price of admission, cost to ride. You must be this tall and you have to have $6.

Cristen: That’s Margaret Cho, and no joke — she really has Abe and George on either knee.

Caroline: And sure, we could’ve talked to Margaret about her groundbreaking career as a standup comic, actor, artist and activist. But we decided to get to know her through her 78 tattoos instead.

Margaret: I got my first tattoo in 2003, so I was 33. It was from Don Ed Hardy, who it was one of the last tattoos he did. He did a huge snakes and peonies, Japanese style, very, very large piece. And I got it in San Francisco. I had just gotten married. I was very happy - my life. I got it. I just bought a house. I was embarking on this time of like, OK, well, I'm fully grown. So that was sort of the tattoo almost that I've been planning since I was a kid. But at the same time, it was like the right timing because I felt like I could understand, like, oh, well, I'm an adult now and I I don't need anybody's permission to do this. And so that was the beginning.

Caroline: Margaret’s not exaggerating when she says she’d been planning for that tattoo since childhood. In fact, she remembers begging her dad to let her get one when she was just 12.

Margaret: My parents owned a gay bookstore in San Francisco in the 70s and all of the employees, they all had full body tattoos and they were encouraging my father to let me get them early. And my dad was like no no no because he knew that it was like inevitable that I was going to get these tattoos. But he's not we don't start now. But it was my parents’ fault because they would take the photographs of their employees who had the full body tattoos. I mean, and this is like 1978, which to me is like, that is incredible, you know, because tattooing wasn't a thing then. Like it wasn't as big as it is now. And certainly to put that on your refrigerator is kind of you know, it's an influential thing. So I’m grateful to that.

Caroline: Why did your dad think it was inevitable, though, that you would get them?

Margaret: Because he was raising me around tattooed people that were very influential, who would pop me on the back of a motorcycle in 1978 without a helmet and fly through the city. You know, he would give me to like a little queer man who had a big motorcycle and a lot of piercings and tattoos.

Cristen: Why do you think that they were comfortable letting you ride off on the back of a motorcycle without a helmet?

Margaret: I think because they were now living in America, because when they moved to America, they realized they didn't have to behave anymore. And my dad was all. He's a musician. He loved the beat poets. He wanted to move to San Francisco and have a bookstore like City Lights and he wanted me to have that experience of growing up around people who were living their lives, who are artistic, who are unafraid to be queer, who are unafraid to be themselves. And and I think that there was part of him that understood that I was queer. And he knew that because he was not he couldn't give me any sort of pointers. So sort of put me around gay people to help me become better understanding of like who I was and in the world. And, you know, in in Korea, they grew up in such a restrictive way. In Korea, you know, as we see in the movie, Parasite is really class oriented and you almost can never rise above your station. And my family were kind of obsessed with doing that. You know, they had some poor beginnings and so they wanted to see if they could rise above with art and literature and culture and music. And, you know, in that, I think that really did happen for me as far as their sort of grand plan.

Caroline: So how are tattoos then perceived within Korean communities kind of in general?

Margaret: They do not like them. And also like I had issues going to like Korean bathhouses which are, they're like hammams in Turkey or like, you know, they're like a very big part of Korean culture. You go to the bath house with your friends, it's a spa and you just unwind. And so they're often open 24 hours and there's like a restaurant and you just like walk around naked. And everybody's like, very comfortable with that. And But I have so many tattoos that people are really upset. And I've had like altercations within these like spas with people and, you know, and the kind of discrimination that comes with tattooing is it's it's palpable.

Cristen: So palpable, in South Korea, being a tattoo artist without a medical license is actually illegal.

Caroline: Yeah - that tattoo stigma has deep historical roots across much of Asia, and in South Korea, it became further entrenched after the Korean War.

Margaret: South Korea was decimated in the wars of the 1960's and completely rebuilt by organized crime. And the way that organized crime is sort of like acknowledged their being was through these full body tattoos, which we know as sort of like Yakuza tattoos, but it's also a Korean tradition so that tattoos are often thought of as like the criminal element. But I'm like, you know, a old Korean lady, like, I'm so not a yakuza, like, I'm really not in organized crime. So that in itself should be a signifier that I'm not that. But there's those old biases still hold. So there's a lot of pushback. Like, if I go to Japan, which I do go to Japan once a year, I'm not allowed in the bathhouses there because I'm so tattooed. And that's really unfortunate. You know, there's a few bathhouses now that allow tattoos and they're more sort of like open to westerners because everybody has them now. But the traditional ones, I can't go in.

Cristen: So is the - is that kind of restriction in terms of like not allowing tattoos in the bathhouse, is that purely stigma or is there any idea about like it being less sanitary? Like what's - what's their rationale?

Margaret: I don’t know. I mean, I think that is it is like it is a stigma, social stigma. But then, of course, that's attached of like, you know, in the underworld is like a dirty place. And so that there's a kind of discrimination that goes with that. So that that sort of could be like the idea. I mean, it - it's like you - you can't get rid of those thoughts and that people have about cleanliness and a kind of like pristine skin. But at the same time, tattooing has a long tradition in Japan that it's weird. And I think that tattooing a lot, too, was well before, like you would you would tattoo criminals. So the Yakuza full body tattoo just developed out of people wanted to cover them with decorative tattoos. And so that that sort of like it's a lasting stigma. I mean, that the stuff started on like the year like 800 or something. So I think it's time to let it go. Whatever, I don't know. They’re slow about some things.

Caroline: Let's give it a couple more years.

Cristen: So Caroline if tattoos come with centuries of cross-cultural side-eye, why are we still getting ‘em anyway?

Caroline: Cho knows!

Cristen: And she'll drop that knowledge after a quick break.

Caroline: Stay tat-TUNED

[Midroll ad 1]

Cristen: We’re back with Margaret Cho and her 78 tattoos.

Margaret: I remember I was in Cannes in France in the summer and I was walking around. It was like a heat wave. So super hot. So everybody's like walking around pretty much like naked, like in bikinis on the street. And men would come up and just grab my thigh like my thigh or my upper arm or they would touch my back or they would like get real close and take photos of my stomach. And it's because I'm so tattooed. And so when a woman is heavily tattooed, it's like, why do you have this graffiti on this public wall? This is not cool. Well I'm going to comment on it and say something. And it's like that, that attitude is really deep in our psyche and it's it's not cool. And there is this prevailing notion that women's bodies are public space. That's why our bodies are always criticized for being too large, too small or whatever, that everybody feels like they can comment on it, that everybody feels that they can like reach out and touch a pregnant woman's belly, that it's like this thing of like we can somehow look at women's bodies as like public space because we treat it as such in in so many ways. So it's kind of like this thing of like you're breaking the rules by marking up yourself. Like like you're a library book. Like I, you know, dog-eared my library book pages. And so I'm going to get a talking to from the librarian, that kind of thing. It's like there’s sort of like this thing of transgression if you're a woman and you have something on your body like that.

Caroline: To understand why tattoos read as transgressive on femme bodies, we need to unpack some claptrap.

[Clap Clap]

Cristen: Unpack the claptrap is the part of the show where we dog-ear patriarchy's pulp fiction to find why things are the way they are.

Caroline: Let's start with some obvious claptrap, the tramp stamp. So, the 70s and 80s ushered in a tattoo renaissance, and they began spreading from the counterculture to the mainstream. And it was during that time that lower back tats on women got their first nickname, the “chick spot.” The slang was actually popularized by a hotshot 80s tattoo artist named Jill Jordan, and the way she explained it was that ladies loved "chick spot" tats because they were easy to conceal.

Cristen: Yeah I really hope Jill Jordan wore high-waisted Jordache jeans in the 80s. Then in the late 90s, the low-rise-jean trend dropped women's waistlines to practically our pubes, much to my mother’s chagrin, and Britney Spearses everywhere began baring their chick spots and g strings like never before. And with that, the suddenly sexualized "chick spot" got slut shamed and renamed the tramp stamp.

Caroline: Who decided that lower back tattoos are tramp stamps?

Margaret: I don't know! To me it's like a ridiculous thing. I mean, it's - that's kind of like a misogyny too, you know, of like how dare a woman do that? And so the payback for that is that you're gonna be like stamped as a tramp. Like it's like it is kind of low-key, not even low-key. But it's like misogyny. But it's also this thing of like, again, like women are not allowed to do stuff to their bodies like that, you know, because women are ours. So I don't - I don't that's cool. But I do love - I love - I love a lower back tattoo. I think it's quite beautiful, actually, on on anybody but, you know, women's bodies in particular, because that the back is so beautiful and, you know, like these sort of I think the spine where everything starts, that sort of the kundalini snake is coiling. I think it's really a lovely space. So who knows?

Cristen: Well, I also read like in the whole like tramp stamp of it all. Definitely like high-key misogyny at work. But also it feels very almost classist in a way, because it's like, you know what I mean? Like it's - it's a trashy kind of tattoo to get.

Margaret: Which it's like. So like, what's wrong with trashy-ness? Like, I love it, like I am so in my heart and mind, I am such a temple prostitute. Like, I really love to mix the high and what is considered the low to me, it's holy. Like, it's very - it's beautiful. So a trashy-ness like to me is - it's really relative to like what you sort of look at as trashy. Like to me, trashy-ness is littering. That's just trashy. But everything else is kind of like, well, you know, it's more of a judgment on like what you what you consider like your body and what you want to do with it. You know, it's like your choices.

Cristen: But C, to really understand how tattoo stigmas got under our skin in the West, we've gotta rewind back wayyy before the tramp stamp ramped up. So I found this nugget in a very unladylike 2019 dissertation titled “‘I Can Do Whatever the Hell I Want: Female Tattoo Artists, Their Experiences, and Identity Creation.”

Caroline: you know I love a good dissertation title

Cristen: I do - and the person apparently responsible for setting off Western tattoo trends was this rich dude named Sir Joseph Banks, who’s basically That Guy Who Won’t Shut Up About All the Places He’s Traveled Thanks to His Trust Fund. In the late 1700s, he tagged along with Captain James Cook through the South Pacific where they encountered Polynesian tattooing cultures. When he came back to England, he not only brought the word “tattooing” back with him, but also an tattooed Tahitian man to show off like a prop to his rich friends.

Caroline: Fast forward to the Victorian era, and it’s unclear exactly how this happened, but tattoos evolved from, as one source put it, a type of “working class jewelry,” to status symbols for fancy white ladies. For instance, unconfirmed rumor has it that Winston Churchill’s mom, Lady Jennie Spencer-Churchill, had a discreet little snake tattooed on her wrist that she’d cover up with bracelets.

Cristen: That’s right y’all, if you want some hot goss from the Victorian Era, you’ve come to the right podcast. But that discreteness was key to the chicness. Because also at the time, if you wanted to see women flaunting their tattoos, you'd head for the nearest circus sideshow ...

Caroline: By the turn of the 20th century, tattooed ladies had become an entertainment staple, attracting folks who paid to gawk at all their body art. It makes sense, then, that during the War War I era, a sideshow contortionist named Maud Wagner became the first white female tattoo artist in the United States that we know of. She learned stick n poke on a first date with a tattooed circus performer who would become her husband, Cristen.

Cristen: She would have so many Instagram followers these days. Similarly, in 1939, a circus burlesque dancer named Mildred Hull became one of the first American women to open her own shop, which earned her the very creative nickname of New York's Only Lady Tattooer. Like most tattoo outposts back then, Mildred’s Tattoo Emporium was in the back of a barbershop.

Caroline: I bet Margaret Cho would’ve totally hung out at Mildred’s Tattoo Emporium!

Cristen: She and Millie probably would’ve had plenty to talk about.

Caroline: Well, how do you feel about tattoo culture like. Is the whole boys club thing like is that stereotype accurate in your mind?

Margaret: Yes, because men create environments within these industries that are very supportive and nurturing to each other, where they bring other men in and they father each other. And they don't have that for women because there's so few of us in certain industries, we're locked out through the sort of gatekeeping that is semi, it's intentional, but it's more like an overlooking thing. It's like, well, we just didn't think the girls want to do this, you know, which is dumb and also gross. That's very real in comedy and very real in tattooing. And so I think that the women in tattooing are exceptional because they have to be in order to just get anywhere and also to survive. They have to be self-sufficient. And at the same time, just really great. So, you know, it's like you have to endure so much. But because of that, women are often better tattoo artists in the same way that women are often better at everything.

Caroline: So Cristen, the gender gap in who’s getting tattoos has actually closed in recent years. But in terms of who’s giving them, it’s been tougher to move that needle.

Cristen: Yeah, even though we do see female and nonbinary tattoo artists claiming their space all over Instagram, in new shops and the occasional athleisure store pop-up. But the most recent surveys and studies we found estimate that the percent of tattoo artists at large.

Caroline: So who are your favorite female tattoo artists?

Margaret: My two favorites would be Kat Von D and Kim Saigh, who are great tattooers, and their tattoos occupy large, large real estate on my body. Kim Saigh’s - a tattoo that she did for me is a huge peony that is right above my vagina. So it is sort of celebrates the pussy. It's kind of like a pussy mural. And it's like really like, you know, it just reminds you of where you're going. It's a good signpost. So, you know, you're going in the right direction. And it is really glorious.

Caroline: Are we noticing some stereotypes around women getting tattoos changing, especially like since you first started getting them?

Margaret: Yeah, for sure. Because women are sort of understanding the beauty and power of owning your own body. Like it's like. I can own my body and I can do this for myself. And - and that's powerful. And I think that, you know, the aesthetics of tattooing, it's like now we almost modified them to our own aesthetics. And, you know, you can do whatever you want. And that's a really great thing. And so I feel like that's a positive thing that it's like on Pinterest, because now we're seeing like it doesn't have to be the sort of like rough-and-tumble thing unless you want that. It can be actually very elegant and very subtle or it can be very loud and bombastic. And it can also be just very pretty and very girly if you want. You know, so that's that's really special.

Cristen: But with those “pretty” tattoos - I feel like in the tattoo world is there a perception of, like, you’re not a real tattoo person if you have a simple or overly feminine tattoo. Is there any kind of snobbery there?

Margaret: It's so much snobbery. I love a stick and poke. I love like a bunch of like stick and pokes. Like, it's great. And that's a whole nother aesthetic. That's quite, I think, new and really beautiful and really exciting. And I think that it's like. And yeah, I love an overtly very feminine art, like an art nouveau tattoo or something like to me that's really exciting and beautiful. And yeah, there's all of this unnecessary gatekeeping around tattoos where it's like you don't get to say like what is authorized or what's officially this is a cool tattoo. Like, that's not up to your judgment. It's really up to the person who has it, and the artist to some degree. It's like really like this weird thing of like there is no authority. There is no this is art and it's also adornment and personal taste. And that is something that cannot be governed.

Caroline: When we come back, Margaret shares how tattoos are like fine wine: They get better with age...

Cristen: And they last longer than lip fillers!

Caroline: Stick n poke around…

Cristen: Oh you!

[Midroll ad 2]

Cristen: What do your tattoos collectively say about you?

Margaret: I think that they say that I am here for it. I'm here for life in all the forms that it can take, all of the experiences that it can give me. And I'm not afraid to be permanently marked by those experiences.

Cristen: We're back with Margaret "I'm here for it" Cho. And Caroline, even though I have 76 fewer tattoos than her, what she says about them being these permanent markers of experiences rings true for me … like, I have a WWII battleship tattooed on my rib cage to commemorate an especially painful period of time in my life

Caroline: Well, Cristen, that echoes a broader theme — in her book Bodies of Subversion, tattoo scholar Margo Mifflin says that a lot of women’s tattoos represent some sort of body autonomy or self-empowerment. That might mean general life crises, but it also might mean healing from sexual assault, abusive relationships or mastectomies.

Margaret: I just love that I can claim my body as mine. You know, I have a long history of sexual abuse. And this kind of tattooing myself is a claiming of my own body. Like this body's mine and I'm not going to let it go. I'm not going to allow a societal expectations of what a woman's body should be to interfere with my own celebration of self. So there's important reasons behind it. But because the reasons are so important, I can get real dumb tattoos.

Cristen: So you'd wanted tattoos since you were a kid, why did you wait til you were 33 to get your first?

Margaret: I think because I had such little body satisfaction like in the 90s. Like nobody was happy until you had a visible rib cage. Like it was like weird because feminism was kind of at an all-time high with like, riot girls and like. Feminism was on fire, but for some reason we had to be super thin and like that was like a crazy demand. And I was so dissatisfied with my body, angry at my body. I think throughout my 20s I had so many body issues that I was just too in my head about it. And it took me until it got into my 30s to really, like ease into the fact that this is it. You know, like don't complain. Like, you got to be grateful that you have a body and that you can do all these things like the body is not there to make smaller. The body is there to, you know, get you to do everything, like to have this human experience. You’re not to make demands on size or shape or whatever because your body does so much for you. And so it was a real relationship that I had to heal before I started getting tattoos.

Cristen: I think it's so. That's so interesting to hear, because I feel like the fear mongering, at least that I received growing up about tattoos was like, oh, no, like your body is a temple. Like, don't you want to like mark that up? Like tattoos being seen as a sign of of self-hate when in fact, I think for a lot of us, it's kind of the opposite.

Margaret: Right. I mean, it's like the fact that the body is a temple and then you but you choose the way you worship. You know, like that's the thing is that when you put choice into it, it changes the game, you know, because one interpretation of the body being a temple is to sort of leave it sort of pristine and unmarked. But the other side of it is like, yeah, let's let's decorate, let's adorn, let's worship this the way it should be. Let's get to the goddess portion. And for me, it's really about that. You like I'm more of a decorative arts kind of person, so I like a flourish. I love a scroll. I love any kind of flowers on something. So, you know, like I like to decorate. So to me, it's intuitive to do. But just so there's different methods and different ideas about what the temple needs to look like.

Caroline: So in your stand up, you've described tattoos as essentially your alternative to plastic surgery. So tell us about that.

Margaret: There's something about plastic surgery that I don't know, it's sort of like this resistance to the passage of time, which I really appreciate the passage of time. So I like gravity. I know that it's doing this to me, but I know that it's also giving me more reasons to stand up straight and to fight it in any way that I can. And my fighting it is to keep a young mind, to get tattoos, to get pierced, to be around young people, which is something that also a lot of older women resist. I have friends who are in their early 20s who were like, e girls, and they're vaping and they're watching tik tok and they're showing me their dances. And I'm like, so into that. And so many older women resent young women. And I feel like that's a mistake.

Cristen: Yeah, we did - kind of building on that. We wanted to ask you whether like tattoos play any role in the relationship between your body and aging and whether that relationship has evolved in any sort of way.

Margaret: Yeah, I think so, it's like made me understand like a comfort within the body and like, oh, I've had this tattoo since the early 2000s and like, there's like a a joy there. And then like remembrance and a beautiful feeling about life lived.

Caroline: it's funny, I just so I related so much to what you said about like hitting 33 and like things in your life felt really good. You finally felt like a grown up. I just like totally identify with that. I like so I'm 36, went through a big breakup after years and years and like I got through it and I kind of felt like I'd gotten my masters in life. I don't know. Yeah. You know what I mean? But like, yeah, I kind of came out of that. One of the other things that kind of shook out coming through that period was like, oh, I'm not really so concerned as I used to be with what people think of me. And suddenly I started really, really getting into different tattoo artists like who could I go see? Yeah. But yeah, I really like because I've never been opposed to them. They've always just sort of been an abstract thought. But it's more like I feel like I came through something. Life got better. And I was like, oh shit. Yeah. Why? Why not?

Cristen: Like you've earned it almost?

Margaret: You have earned it.

Caroline: But also, like, who cares? You know? Yeah. Why not?

Margaret: And let's have fun. You know, it's like when you've been through something so painful, it's great to celebrate in some way that's just for you. Oftentimes we live our lives for other people, whether that's relationships, you know, for whatever reason. And so when you can come through that, it's time to celebrate and have that party just for yourself and to celebrate that in the way that you know how. Whether that is any kind of adornment, whether that is creating something, whether that is art, whether that is music, what it whatever that is for you. I think we know what we have to do.

Cristen: Y’all are gonna wanna check out Margaret Cho’s new podcast called The Margaret Cho. In the meantime, tell us your thoughts… do you have any tattoos? Any you regret? Email us at hello@unladylike.co, find us on social @unladylikemedia or join our private facebook group and jump into the thread for this episode.

Caroline: Visit unladylike.co to find this episode’s sources and transcript. Plus, don’t forget to pick up tickets for our East Coast TOUR this spring at unladylike.co/events.

Cristen: A huge, special thanks to all y’all who’ve signed up to support us on Patreon. If you want ad-free Extra Unladylike episodes, head over to patreon.com/unladylikemedia and subscribe.

Caroline: Sam Lee and Nora Ritchie are the producers of Unladylike. Abigail Keel is our senior producer. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing, sound design, and additional music is by Casey Holford. Executive producers are Chris Bannon, Daisy Rosario and Unladylike Media.

Cristen: This podcast was created by your hosts, Cristen Conger

Caroline: And Caroline Ervin of Unladylike Media. Special thanks to Brendan Byrnes at Stitcher in LA and to Outdoor Voices And Rosa Bluestone Perr for letting us record at their event

Cristen: Next week…

Harriet Brown: I do remember somewhere in childhood becoming aware that like other people talked about their mothers in a way that seemed very weird to me. Like this idea that who would go to your mother for comfort? Just seemed bizarre to me. Which, you know, as I say that out loud sounds very telling. And it is. But yeah, there was this idea that, like, why would you ever go to your mother for comforting? That's just not how it works.

Caroline: We’re talking to Harriet Brown, author of the Shadow Daughter: A Memoir of Estrangement about how to break up with your parents and what comes after. Make sure you’re subscribed to Unladylike so you don’t miss this episode. Find us in stitcher, spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Cristen: And remember, got a problem?

Caroline: Get unladylike.

[Music]

Caroline: What is the most unladylike thing about you?

Margaret: Oh, that I. There's always shit in my pants, like I never wipe my asshole And there's always shit! And of course, the jeans are three, four hundred dollars. And it's not like I am cheap or dirty about anything. But I also never wear underwear, so commando constantly. And I'm too busy to really wipe. I should get some solutions there. But. There's always some shit somewhere.

Cristen: There is nothing quite like taking off lingerie and seeing just like God knows what in the crotch. Just like.

Margaret: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Cristen: There we go.

Margaret: It's like an ombre of like yellow to [unclear]. And those panties were $200. It's all not cool.