Tattoos do not look good usually

An analysis of physical attributes and performance rankings

The note that set it all off

There’s a certain outlook on life that says that you shouldn’t attack people’s appearance, especially for things they can’t control. Even for things they can control like fashion choice, it’s usually seen as low-class to even moderately critique appearance.

But this is a bit of a bait and switch.

The entire reason there is a social taboo around direct critique is because we all know that appearance is such an important thing. So we can’t simply not talk about appearance - especially for things within our control. If you could make a decision to make yourself more attractive, would you? What about making a decision against doing something that would make you less attractive? My prior is that nearly all people would choose the choices that made them more attractive if it came at no cost, especially all single people. That’s why it’s important to talk about things like not cutting all your hair off and getting a ton of tattoos - simply not doing that will not harm your appearance, and it doesn’t cost you anything!

do tattoos make you look worse?

This, I believe, is a bit of a trick question. There are plenty of situations where tattoos convey significance beyond attraction. Much of that significance could be tribal affiliation such as in the case of the Maori, or gangs in the case of the Crips, or clubs in the case of fraternities and so on. There are also tattoos of personal significance - take Jason Momoa’s tattoos for example:

Family and friends are very important to Momoa, and his tattoos reflect that. He has a matching tattoo with his stepdaughter, Zoë Kravitz; a design for his two kids; and ink in memory of a friend who has passed — as well as the aforementioned ink inspired by his Hawaiian lineage.

This I think gets at the disingenuous nature of the discourse. I might say something like, “please do not get tattoos unless you’re really really really really sure, because there’s a 90 percent chance it will make you look worse.” And then someone else will say “But what if I am part of the Maori tribe and I’m getting a cultural tattoo of my 10 children who passed away including my mother and you know what everyone I know is dead and I want to get tattoos for all of them. I live on an island alone because everyone and everything in my life is gone and I want something to represent that.”

a maori tattoo probably representing 10000 years of ancestors or something idek

I have no problem with that specific example. Obviously if your dog dies and you want something to remember them by, I may suggest a tombstone or maybe a photo book, but if you want to directly tattoo your dog on your body then that’s at least a choice.

What we are talking about are the vast majority of tattoos that carry no significance, look bad in terms of art quality, and also obscure what is probably the most important organ in your body in terms of appearance.

non-tattooed bodies are generally preferred

In life we can make statements based on vibes or data, and we should tend to rely on data as opposed to vibes whenever possible. The following analysis is clearly biased towards what men think, but it’s a starting point nonetheless. So, what does the market say about what men tend to prefer? We can look at Pornhub Rank and “Tattoo Intensity” which is my subjective rating of quantity, size, and placement.

A 1 would mean a small ankle tattoo. A 10 would mean having at least one full sleeve or tattoos of similar size throughout the body. For example, Riley Reid gets an 8 in terms of intensity because she has one prominent spine tattoo. Lana Rhodes is a 5 because she has one smallish tattoo, but it’s directly on her buttcheek. Maximo Garcia gets a 10 because he has a full sleeve.

r = .4

What we’re seeing here is a pretty obvious trend, with models with low tattoo intensity clustered towards the bottom left, and models with higher tattoo intensity clustered towards the top right (lower rank is better). A detailed list of the ranking and tattoo intensity rating can be found here.¹

In a competitive arena such as models fighting for viewership, few or no tattoos is the clear preference among porn watchers. I will note that even this analysis overestimates tattoos for a few reasons:

1. We can assume that people with tattoos might have higher socio-sexuality and therefore are more likely to go into the industry in the first place.

2. Life is biased in favor of acquiring tattoos as opposed to not having them, since you can add but rarely subtract them. (This was the case for a few models here, I still included them as having higher tattoo intensity even when they became popular while having no tattoos)

3. The standards of porn watchers may be more inclusive than the average person.

At least in terms of attractiveness, tattoos are a loser.

some tattoo pros

Tattoos aren’t all bad of course. Here are some pros:

1. Lacking broad appeal may not be a bad idea. If you personally prefer tattoos on people, then getting some yourself may be a way of narrowing your pool intentionally.

2. You’re already ugly. If you’re already unattractive, then the negative effect of tattoos will be more marginal than it would otherwise be. An example here could be old people. Since we get less attractive as we age, I think there may be some merit in getting tattoos when very old as a way to stand out. Another good example would be scar coverups. (For the opposite reason, if you’re extremely attractive, then it’s hard for tattoos to make you much less attractive.)

3. They carry cultural meaning. Tattoos can signal group affiliation such as to gangs or tribes.

4. They carry personal meaning. Again, if someone dies, I would probably suggest a photo book or something not literally permanent, but there’s no real penalty I guess to having a small birthdate or name of someone close to you on your body.

5. Self-expression. This is actually valuable, and it’s fine to bear some real cost in order to express yourself. Personally I express myself through my opinions, fashion, and music taste - but I suppose permanent body modification is valid as well.

6. The art is really cool? This is the most common rebuttal, but in my research I’ve basically never seen a tattoo that improves someone’s appearance due to the quality of the art. The tattoos that do the most to make someone stand out positively are going to be your cultural tattoos. Regular ones almost always look worse than nothing. Fundamentally, your normal skin looks so good that covering it and expecting the result to be better than what you had is a fool’s game for the most part. But I suppose at least some people have tats that look better than their skin.

Conclusion

While my analysis was biased towards men’s perception, I am aware of at least some research that suggests that tattoos can in fact improve a man’s appearance relative to not having them for all the reasons you may suspect.²

In any case, if you are a woman and care about looking good then you shouldn’t get tattoos, because you will probably look worse.

1. Sweetie Fox, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 1

Alex Adams, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 2

lana rhodes, 5 tattoo intensity, rank 3

Candy Love, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 4

Lily Phillips, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 5

Angela White, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 6

Abella Danger, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 7

Eva Elfie, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 8

Violet Myers, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 9

Riley Reid, 8 tattoo intensity, rank 10

Mia Malkova, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 11

Johnny Sins, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 12

Lexi Luna, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 13

Gattouz, 3 tattoo intensity, rank 14

Emily Willis, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 15

Diana Rider, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 16

Natasha Nice, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 17

Brandi Love, 9 tattoo intensity, rank 18

Cory Chase, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 19

Lena Paul, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 20

Skylar Vox, 10 tattoo intensity, rank 21

Rae Lil Black, 8 tattoo intensity, rank 22

Rosie Rider, 10 tattoo intensity, rank 23

Autumn Falls, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 24

Serenity Cox, 1 tattoo intensity, rank 25

Alexis Fawx, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 26

Blake Blossom, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 27

Jordi El Nino Polla, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 28

Valentina Nappi, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 29

Maximo Garcia, 10 tattoo intensity, rank 30

Lexi Lore, 3 tattoo intensity, rank 31

Sky Bri, 4 tattoo intensity, rank 32

Martina Smeraldi, 8 tattoo intensity, rank 33

Elly Clutch, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 34

Brooke Tilli, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 35

Elle Lee, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 36

Dani Daniels, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 37

Adriana Chechik, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 38

Elsa Jean, 9 tattoo intensity, rank 39

Savannah Bond, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 40

Lauren Phillips, 5 tattoo intensity, rank 41

Mariana Martix, 10 tattoo intensity, rank 42

Anna Cherry, 10 tattoo intensity, rank 43

Sarah Arabic, 6 tattoo intensity, rank 44

Ava Addams, 6 tattoo intensity, rank 45

Sara Jay, 8 tattoo intensity, rank 46

Jak Knife, 7 tattoo intensity, rank 47

Tru Kait, 0 tattoo intensity, rank 48

Hailey Rose and Max Fills, 4 tattoo intensity, rank 49

Nicole Aniston, 10 tattoo intensity, rank 50

Note: It’s possible I’ve missed tattoos here and there. If they are small enough or hidden away enough, I may have not noticed them and marked someone as a 0 when they should be a 1. That is to my point though, which is that if you can’t notice them then it’s fine. Please don’t sue me if you double check my work and see that one of the 0s should have actually been a 1.

Also, there are plenty of models that I think are more attractive than ones without tattoos. That’s why the correlation is at .4 and not way higher. But Again I think this is confounded by models being more attractive as a baseline so a few tattoos aren’t going to make them look ugly. I’m less optimistic for the average person in this regard.

2. Coming across as being risk-taking, having a not giving a fuck attitude, increasing how aggressive you look etc., can all be things that disproportionately benefit male appearance.