Steve Sailer examines the subtext of tattoos:
“Ask me about my parents’ divorce.”
A related subtext might be: “I come from a long line of rash decisionmakers.” On women, tattoos often seem to imply: “Pay attention to me because I, obviously, make poor choices, so you might get lucky.”
A recent Australian study confirmed his suspicions:
Men and women ages 20–39 were most likely to have been tattooed, as were men with lower levels of education, tradesmen, and women with live-out partners. Tattooing was also associated with risk-taking behaviours, including smoking, greater numbers of lifetime sexual partners, cannabis use (women only) and ever having depression (men only).
A Pew Center study looked at How People Feel About Their Tattoos:
Total percentage of people with tattoos who say their tattoo makes them feel rebellious: 29%
Percentage of people with a tattoo that say it makes them feel more sexy: 31%
Percentage of people with tattoos who say their tattoo makes them feel more intelligent: 5%
I’m just glad I don’t have a permanent record of what was very, very important to me at age 18 indelibly inked on my body. Those dorm-room posters came down at the end of the school year.
“Percentage of people with tattoos who say their tattoo makes them feel more intelligent: 5 %”
Judging from visible tattoos, anyway, 5% considerably exceeds the fraction of people who get $e^{i\pi}+1=0$ tattoos. The most economical explanation of the remarkably strong observed effect is each $e^{i\pi}+1=0$ tattoo is so effective at increasing intelligence that it increases the intelligence not only of its wearer, but of a significant number of other tattooed people as well.
That last paragraph gets a heart felt “Amen”.