DeviousGirls (original) (raw)

x-posted to any community interested in tattoos, piercing, self injury, or suicide girls

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Susan Swan; I'm a
professor of English at Marshall University in Huntington, WV. I am/was a self injurerer. This survey asks very personal questions, so please feel free to backchannel me your answers if you would rather do so; my email is: swans@marshall.edu

I am also a very heavily tattooed woman. Here's a link to my back:

http://www.vyvyn.com/melissa-back.html -- Melissa Thompson is my
artist, and she works with Vyvyn Lazonga, one of the very first
female tattoo artists along withy Gypsy Jill and Pat Fish.

Anyway, I"ve been wanting to do research on moderate to heavily tattooed and pierced women
My premise is that many heavily tattooed women were once self-injurers of some type -- that
is, they cut themselves, were addicted to drugs, gambling, spending,
or nicotine, had suicidal thoughts, or caused themselves physical pain
in other ways. My hypothesis is that these women "cure" their
self-injury tendencies by inscribing their body with beauty/pain. The
title of the book will be "From Pain to Beauty: Heavily Tattooed
Women and Inscripted Resistance" or something like that.

For a definition of self-injury followed by the survey, read on: ( Read more...Collapse )