Tattoos: More Likely to Signal Promiscuity/Substance Abuse than "Individuality", and Now Being Linked to Cancer

Don't get mad at me, that's what the research shows. Hey, I never said blindly following other people's trends was a good idea...

by Anthony Colpo

Time to upset people and get quoted out of context. Yep, it’s time to talk about tattoos. Before I commence, I should point out I have friends with tattoos, just like I have friends and relatives who got the COVID vaxxxines. I still love my friends and relatives, but it doesn’t mean I have to like ‘body art’ or toxic drugs.

That said, you can wax lyrical about evolving attitudes, the folly of judging a book by its cover, and insist you don’t care what others think (let’s face it, you do), but it doesn’t change the following facts about tattoos:

• Tattoos will still cause you to be judged negatively by many others - including those with tattoos!

• If you get a tattoo and you’re a decent girl, a lot of men - and women - will assume you’re not.

• People with tattoos are consistently rated either no more or less attractive than people free of tattoos.

• Despite increased acceptance/indifference, there still remain sectors where visible tattoos will ruin your employment prospects quicker than pasta sauce and red wine will ruin a white shirt.

• Tattoo inks contain a number of known toxins and carcinogens, and emerging research is linking tattoos to increased risk of certain cancers.

So how did we get to the current situation, where every third person now has a tattoo?

Are negative stereotypes of tattooed people outdated, or does research suggest they actually have some basis in fact?

Tattoos: Once Frowned Upon, Now Mainstream

Tattoos were once associated with criminals, bikers and other “undesirables”, and generally viewed as a marker of low socioeconomic status. It may seem strange to those of you born after the rise of thug culture, but there was once a time when very few people wanted to look like they just completed a stint in San Quentin.

How things have changed. Nowadays, tattoos are a mainstream trend that has mushroomed during the last few decades.

A 2019 poll of 1,000 Americans by market research firm Ipsos found 30% of Americans had at least one tattoo, an increase from 21% in 2012.

Similarly, in a 2023 Pew research survey of 8,500 US adults, 32% reported at least one tattoo - up from 23% in 2010.

Females were more amenable to the tattoo trend, with 38% of women having at least one tattoo, compared with 27% of men. In the under 50 demographic, more women are inked than not. Pew found 56% of women ages 18 to 29, and 53% of women ages 30 to 49, were tattooed.

An international online survey published in 2019 examined tattoo prevalence among 11,000 respondents in five major countries: Brazil, China, France, Russia, and the US. Tattoo prevalence ranged from 11.7% in Russia to 31.5% in the US. In all countries except Russia, more women were tattooed than men.

So why are so many people now getting tattoos, once considered the hallmark of miscreants?

Self-Declared Reasons for Getting Inked

Not so long ago, one of the most commonly cited reasons for getting a tattoo was to express one’s “individuality”, a most ironic motivation given that tattoos have a long history as markers of tribal/group/gang affiliation.

After interviewing 27 tattoo artists and 65 clients, Michael Atkinson, a social scientist from McMaster University, concluded the ‘individuality/rebellion’ arguments for tattooing were untenable.

Tattooing “is a learned cultural habit … Modifying the body as a normative act is learned through and reinforced by one’s interdependencies with others”, he notes. As one tattoo enthusiast he spoke to admitted, “I never thought about getting tattooed until I started hanging around with a lot of people who had them, you know.”

The tattoo “renaissance” is being fueled, not by mavericks with a staunch independent streak, but by people emulating others. It’s a snowball effect: The more people who get tattoos, the more other people see them and want to be part of the trend.

“Tattooing’s turned into a fashion accessory, which I’m all against, because tattooing is not a fashion accessory, it’s a way of life,” says tattooist George Bone, who once held the the Guinness Book of World Records title for most tattooed man. “I used to be different, outrageous, but now I’m normal. I’ll have to think of something else!”

A study of 151 tattooed French people got closer than most to the truth regarding tattoo motivations. Every person in the study was recruited after seeking tattoo laser removal, so by that point many had probably tired of kidding themselves (and others). In this survey, the most commonly cited reason for getting tattooed was “Imitation or influence of entourage” (i.e. copying others and succumbing to peer pressure).

A recent study of 302 dermatology patients with tattoos in Turkey found many were still citing the rather fanciful individuality motivation, with the most common reasons being “to feel independent”, “to feel better about himself/herself” and “to look good”.

Women had higher scores than men regarding tattoo motivations of “to be an individual” and “to have a beauty mark”.

Reality check: If you’re getting a tattoo to “feel better” about yourself, it’s fair to say your issues run far more than skin deep.

If you think emulating every other Tom, Dick and Katy Perry is going to help you “be an individual”, your reasoning is, to put it mildly, misguided. If looking different to the majority is a marker of individuality, then the Pew results indicate tattoo-free women under 50 now have a stronger claim to ‘uniqueness’ than their inked-up sisters.

As for getting a tattoo to make yourself more attractive, people should think long and hard whether this will be achieved by markings that, from a distance, often look like scars or blemishes. In fact, those big patches of blue-green ink that are commonplace nowadays often look gangrenous from across the room.

As you’re about to learn, when people are asked to view photographs of the same subjects with and without tattoos, respondents almost always rate the tattooed image as either no more attractive or less attractive.

Hold the incredulity, I come bearing receipts.

In North America, where everyone from Justin Bieber to Justin Trudeau now has a tattoo, the individuality argument is a non-starter. Nowadays, having a tattoo is about as unique as eating McDonalds.

Of course, that didn’t stop 17% of the US respondents in the aforementioned five-countries study citing “individuality” as their motivation for getting tattooed. In fact, this reason was cited by 15% of the overall sample, beaten only by celebrating a milestone event (26%) and embellishment of the body (25%).

In the 2023 US Pew survey, the most commonly cited reason for getting inked was “to honor or remember someone or something”: 69% of tattooed adults said this was either a major or minor reason they got any of their tattoos.

Just under half (47%) said they got a tattoo to “make a statement” about what they believe, and 32% say they got at least one to improve their personal appearance.

Herd stupidity.

Welcome to Planet Shallow, where ‘making a statement’ means getting a tattoo, then dutifully lining up to get your depop shot.

Before I get inundated with people telling me they have a tattoo but never got the vaxxxine, I never said one automatically leads to the other. I have a tattooed friend who is staunchly anti-vaxxx, but he’s always had a skeptical streak. His ability to think for himself is evinced by his ability to think for himself, not by markings on his upper arm.

At any rate, tattooed or not, if you Just Say No to Drugs mandated by malevolent globalist assholes, then stand tall and proud … and a big virtual high five from yours truly!

If You Want to See Art, Go to a Gallery

I’ll never get why someone with smooth, clear skin would want to cover it up with bodily graffiti ‘art’. I cringe every time I see an attractive girl at the gym, whose efforts are clearly paying off, only for her to turn around and reveal an arm or back that looks like a billboard for the local tattoo parlour.

Ugh.

“Eve”, a 30 year old woman interviewed by Atkinson, said: “I see tattooing as crafting your body into a piece of moving art. Look at my arms . . . what is naturally attractive about a blank arm? Place a beautiful piece of art on your arm and it becomes something unique, something coloured, something fluid and moving. . . . Tattooing might be our generation’s call to be aware of artistic bodies.”

I’m going to let Eve, and tattooed readers, in on a little secret. Sit down for this, folks, it will blow your mind!

To most of us who haven’t watched too much Underbelly, those tattoos you think look “unique” and “artistic” simply look like … tattoos. That’s it. After you’ve seen more than a handful, it becomes a case of “seen one, seen them all”. We don’t stop to actually examine your tattoos, because … no offence … we really don’t care. We’re just not stopping in the supermarket aisle and thinking, “Wow, this person’s got a tattoo of a tiger … they’re so different to the person I saw yesterday who had a tattoo of a lion!” Truth be told, we’re far more interested in getting over to the meat section to see if the topside is still on sale.

---

New book by Etienne de la Boetie2 exposes that the government and Hollywood have been running a multi-generational, trillion-dollar psychological operation on the population to indoctrinate them into accepting a ruling class, confiscatory taxation, and inflationary fractional reserve currency issued by private banks.

The book details 25 unethically manipulative techniques the “government” and monopoly media have been secretly using on the population, ranging from a hidden curriculum in their mandatory schools and scouting to the secret placement of propaganda in over 1,000+ movies and 1,000+ television shows. These techniques include subliminal messages and product placement of the American flag “anchored” to moments of high-positive emotion during the “programming”.

See the Press Release with more details HERE.

Buy the book at SeeTheCage.com

Substack readers can get the book for FREE by “Going Paid” to ANY of the Art of Liberty Foundation’s four Substacks AND get access to all four of those Substacks! Simply “Go Paid” and we will reply with details.