Are tattoos piercings and blue hair really red flags?

Ok, so it’s time to take on another controversial topic. Tattoos and piercings.

A lot of the red pill coaches have discussed tattoos and piercings, and how blue hair or purple hair makes women unattractive.

But it tends to be done from a subjective standpoint. They basically just go “I don’t like it because it’s icky and it means the girls are damaged and crazy”.

And they’ll say it’s because it’s evidence of bad impulse control and poor forward planning.

But how accurate is that statement? Let’s dig into this properly.

In this post, I’m going to discuss very briefly, the biological reasons why men, might find women who are covered in tattoos, piercings and have blue, purple, and green hair unattractive. But I’m also going to discuss to what extent these things are really red flags.

So, I think it’s only fair to lay my own cards out on the table before we begin.

With regards to tattoos and piercings, I personally have no problem with a couple of cute little tattoos on ankles and shoulder blades. And I think belly buttons rings are pretty sexy. And I don’t really have a problem with nipple piercings.

As long as things aren’t overdone and over the top and there’s restraint being displayed, then I personally think it’s fine.

I understand that my idea of restraint may be different from others, and that’s fine. We’re all allowed to have differing opinions on stuff.

But, my personal position is, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.

So now, with that out of the way, let's cover the general advice given to men by red pill coaches on this topic and the reasoning behind it.

Now, this next bit might get some people a bit shitty, but I think it’s important to understand what’s going on from a scientific aspect.

Suffice to say, I agree with a hell of a lot of what the red pill coaches out there say. I just think some of their advice lacks nuance.

For example, I heard one coach use the argument that “the girl will look stupid when they’re older and covered in tattoos”. And that may be true and I agree with him, to some extent.

But that’s just a subjective argument. The girl can just turn around and say “Well I don’t think I’ll look stupid, I’ll just own it when I’m older”. And that’s a fair call too.

What I’m saying is, when guys start using subjective arguments like this to explain why they don’t like girls with tattoos or whatever, for women it can sound like the oppressive patriarchy trying to suppress their freedom to express themselves.

And, when people feel like they’re losing their freedom, they tend to rebel. And get more tattoos.

If we want to see fewer tattoos and piercings on girls, rather than berate women for what we consider to be bad life choices, isn’t the better strategy to give them the freedom to do whatever they what while providing them with unbiased information regarding the consequences of their decisions?

Now, stick with me here. I’ll explain what I mean.

I think it’s better to use science to explain why guys don’t like tattoos and blue hair than just subjective arguements. Because science is unemotional. It’s objective and it just attempts to explain whats going on in the natural world. Science doesn’t care about opinions. It just cares about pursuing the truth.

Now, evolutionary biology and psychology aren’t perfect sciences, I’m the first to admit that, but it’s the best tool we have to explain whats going on here.

And there’s undoubtedly an evolutionary biological element to specific types of body art that repulses a lot of guys.

For example, red lipstick is generally accepted by the wider community as being acceptable, whereas black lipstick is considered repulsive to many.

That’s because red lipstick denotes ripe fruit and being on heat. It signifies health. But black lipstick, on the other hand, signals death and decay. That’s why goths and emos love black lipstick and eyeliner. They want to associate themselves with death.

Men being repulsed by blue hair or purple hair is completely natural for similar reasons. It’s not something we just made up to repress women. And I’ll explain why.

Have you ever seen those frogs or octopuses that are brightly coloured to warn attackers that they’re poisonous? It’s what’s known as an “aposematism”.

It’s a signal to potential predators that you’re not worth attacking or eating because you’ll be difficult to kill and eat, because you’re toxic, you’ll taste or smell terrible, or you’re just aggressive in nature. It’s a signal to stay away.

Tattoos and piercings can also be considered an aposematism. It sends the sugnal, “don’t fuck with me”.

Tattoos are also considered by the red pill community to be a sign of mental and emotional immaturity, poor decision making, lack of self-control and attention seeking by the wearer. Like the wearer is unable to internalise her thoughts and can’t help but wear her story on her sleeve quite literally.

But, is that belief accurate?

Now, I actually went looking to see if there was some sort of study on the correlation of tattoos and mental health, and I did find a couple of articles.

The first one is a study done in Germany in 2006. There were 2043 participants. There’s not a lot of detail but I’ll read the results as they’re published: Unemployment and lack of partnership correlate positively with body modifications. Tattooing correlates with the perception of reduced mental health and both, tattooing and body piercing correlate highly with increased "Sensation-Seeking" behaviour.

More recently, there was a survey-based study published in the International Journal of Dermatology on Jan. 24, 2019, The University of Miami investigated a potential association between tattoo and negative health-related outcomes and risky behaviors.

And they found that, while having tattoos was not significantly related to overall health status, they found that people who have inked skin were more likely to suffer from mental health issues and sleep problems.

They also found that people with tattoos were also more likely to have a higher number of sex partners in the past year. They also tend to be smokers, and more likely to have spent time in jail than non tattoed people.

So, there’s obviously some merit in what the red pilled coaches are advising, whether you want to hear it or not.

But, what if you’ve met someone, and they seem pretty cool and chilled out, but they have tattoos?

I’m talking about a scenario where you’ve met a girl you’re physically attracted to, you’ve clicked and she seems really cool. But then later you find she has a few tattoos in discrete places and a belly button ring or whatever.

In this scenario, which has happened to me a couple of times, how should you proceed?

Should you dump her immediately? If you listen to the majority of the advice from the red pill coaches, this seems to be the consensus. She’s got a tattoo? Pull the ripcord!

But I think you have to be a bit more nuanced than that.

In motorsport, there’s a flag system to communicate with the drivers as they’re racing around the circuit. You’ve got green flags which mean “go”, there’s the blue “overtaking” flag and then there’s obviously the chequered flag which is the finish line.

You’ve also got the red flag which means “extreme danger”, stop racing. Unintentionally

But you also have the yellow “caution” flags. They mean “keep going, but proceed with caution”.

If the marshalls around the track pulled out the red flag every time a car spun or some minor incident occurred, you’d never be able to race.

What I’m trying to say here is, when a girl has tattoos, it isn’t a red flag and you shouldn’t just unequivocally dump her. That’s over-reacting.

It should perhaps be considered a yellow flag though. Proceed with caution, slow down and get more information on the situation.

When you go “tattoos = crazy”, all you’re doing is using some sort of flawed inductive reasoning. You’re just making a general assumption based on a pattern that you may or may not be observing correctly.

Maybe she is crazy, maybe she’s not. You don’t have enough information to know for sure yet.

What you should be using is deductive reasoning instead. And deductive reasoning is simply using the facts you have at hand to ascertain other facts.

So, the only thing in this whole scenario that could possibly be considered an irrefutable fact that you can deduce other facts from is that “some girls that have tattoos are crazy”.

Therefore you need more information before you can discern that this girl is actually crazy.

If over time you observe that she has narcissistic personality traits as well, then yes, the picture becomes clearer. And then yeah, it might be a good idea to pull that ripcord.

But look, we’ve all got a bit of crazy in us. Nobody’s perfect. I think there’s a lot of red pilled coaches out there telling guys that even one little small tattoo on a girls shoulder or ankle means the girl is bat shit crazy.

But you cannot say that every single girl with any kind of tattoo is objectively crazy. That makes no sense. It’s unscientific. It’s just a cop out.

If you’ve been burnt in a relationship, its totally normal to feel afraid of getting into another one. I was there too. I know exactly how it feels.

Because, girls can be bat shit insane! And if you stupidly marry a crazy girl, or let one get under your skin, you can be emotionally and financially destroyed. I get that. And it’s terrifying.

It’s totally natural to want to find any excuse not to get into a relationship, because you’re scared the same thing will happen again.

Have you ever caught yourself making silly superficial excuses for not liking a girl, like you don’t like the girls nose, or her teeth are slightly crooked, or you don’t like the way she laughs or she has a tattoo? But, deep down you actually really liked the girl? This is a sign of being scared of getting into a relationship.

I’m not saying that you should just suck it up and get into a relationship if you really don’t want to. I think it’s totally heathy to take a break form women from time to time.

I just think it’s helpful to be objectively aware of what’s going on and, while their intentions are well meaning, some of the advice from these red pilled coaches might be unintentionally enabling some flawed logic.

So, my final thoughts are this. I think women should be able to dress and wear whatever they want. It’s a free world, women aren’t obligated to look attractive to men. But then they have to be aware that their choices in life carry consequences.

If you’re a woman who wants to get in a relationship with a guy, then you need to behave and appear in a way that is attractive to most men if you want a lot of choice. That’s it! That’s what it all boils down to.

If you’re signalling to the world that you don’t need no man and you’re a pile of trouble, then no amount of campaigning to try to reprogram men to like blue-haired women covered in tattoos is going to work. It’s hardwired into us biologically to recognise signs of danger.

Attraction isn’t a conscious choice. I, like most guys can’t help what we like and what we don’t like. And this (pic of Jessica lord) is always going to be more attractive to me that this (pic of semi attractive blue-haired tattoo girl).

I guess it all boils down to this. First impressions count. And people are going to make snap judgement calls based on how you look.

None of us are special, we all came into this world the same way. And if you look a certain way you’re going to be naturally signalling certain things that are hardwired into human brains as being dangerous, and nobody is going to take the time to find out “who the real you is”.

Because nobody gives a shit about you until they find a reason to. And if you’re sending them signals to stay away, well then they will. And as you grow up you realise that if you want people to take you seriously and listen to your story, then sometimes you have to blend in, even if you don’t feel like you do, so people will give you a chance to tell it.