Ouch! - A logotherapeutic discourse of butch and tattooed in China

This is a study of a small group of self-identified butch lesbians in their consumption of tattoos. The emotion-laden experience of negotiating social symbolism and self-identity (Elliott, 1997) in the context of hyperrealism (Baudrillard, 1983) has given rise to what Frankl (1984) has described as "existential vacuums." Frankl suggested that these "existential vacuums" can be filled with a higher level of meaning. An artifact of consumption, the tattoo, is used by the informants in this study as a component of bricolage in the DIY process of constructing a new self (Elliott, 1997), with the entire process of being tattooed - particularly the hyper-stimulation and pain of the procedure - further "existentializing" a new existence of "imagined masculinity." This new existence that transcends suffering and assigns new meaning to life is the principle idea of Frankl's logotherapy (Frankl, 1984; Barnes, 2000; Blair, 2004).