Cleaning Up the Dirty Work: Professionalization and the Management of Stigma in the Cosmetic Surgery and Tattoo Industries

Abstract

This article considers the similarities between the cosmetic surgery and tattoo industries, focusing on how each has transitioned from a disreputable and deviant industry to achieve varying degrees of mainstream acceptance and success. Specifically, each industry is conceptualized as engaging in “dirty work” requiring practitioners to actively reframe and legitimate their respective industry. Using Event Structure Analysis, I model and compare the development of each industry based on linear historical narratives. The resulting models illustrate the importance of events within each narrative along with their relationship to each other. Findings suggest that the creation of industry-wide professional organizations is integral to changing public perception of a given industry. Furthermore, findings show that the more hierarchical structure of the cosmetic surgery industry, as well as its integration into the medical industry, have helped it to thrive in a manner that contrasts sharply with the more disorganized structure of the tattoo industry.

Notes

¹Two elements of stigma outlined by Goffman (1963:4) include “abominations of the body” and “blemishes of individual character”; here the argument is that the body is often used as an indicator of character and if an individual has a stigmatized body, they run the risk of social stigma attaching to their character as well.

²See, for example, prior research on exotic dancers (Bradley 2007; Thompson and Harred 1992), psychics (Evans, Forsyth, and Foreman 2003), and taxi drivers (Sheahan and Smith 2003).

³The narrative for cosmetic surgery was constructed using Davis (1995, 2003); Gilman (1999); Haiken (1997, 2002); Larson (1977); Peiss (1998); and Sullivan (2001). The narrative for tattooing was constructed using Armstrong (2005); Atkinson (2003); Bradley (2000); DeMello (2000); Fisher (2002); Gilbert (2000); Govenar (2000); Grandy and Wicks (2008); Oettermann (2000); Rubin (1988); and Sanders (1989).

⁴In interpreting the event structure models, Dixon (2008:481) notes that “the diagrams situate the actions comprising a larger event in the flow of time and in relation to other actions, so that subsequent actions are lower on the diagram and a connecting vertical line indicates the higher entry is a prerequisite for the lower.”

⁵Larson (1977) highlights the intense competition between “regular” doctors and proponents of homeopathic medicine in the early nineteenth century, particularly when homeopathy began gaining legitimacy among the upper classes.

⁶In-text abbreviations in parentheses correspond to the abbreviations used in Figures 1 and 2.

⁷The authors also noted less awareness of risk from cross-contamination and a “greater reliance on technology and less attention to personal behavior” (Raymond et al. 2001:255).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Josh Adams

JOSH ADAMS is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York, Fredonia.