Are Tattoos Manly?

There was a time when tattoos were reserved for sailors, bikers, and enlisted men in the military, and within that realm they were acceptable—and could be statements of loyalty or machismo. Outside of those realms, they were generally frowned upon—or even unthinkable.

Today they are so common as to be symbols of conformity, and machismo has nothing to do with it. In fact, Margot Mifflin, in her book Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and the Tattoo, says that in 2012, for the first time in American history, more American women than American men have tattoos. In other words, they’ve become something on a par with permanent jewelry. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration estimates that 45 million Americans now have at least one tattoo and confirms that more women than men wear ink in their skin. A big reason for this change has been the evolution of tattoo technology. Advances in applying tattoos has made them safer and far less painful.

Still, despite their popularity, tattoos on a woman can be seen as “slut stamps” and on a man they can be mistaken (or rightly seen) as a symbol of gang membership, and many people, especially those over fifty, can find them off-putting. Tattoos are generally frowned upon by Judaism (see Leviticus, 19:28) and some Christians might consider them graffiti on the temple of the Holy Spirit (your body).

The bottom line: Getting a tattoo doesn’t make you more manly. If you choose to mark your service in a branch of the military by getting a tattoo or some other achievement or lifelong defining characteristic

, that’s one thing, but getting one just because it’s the fashion today is something else. Fashions change (which is why tattoo removal services are so popular), but the rules of the gentleman do not.