Många jag känner ser tatueringar och okonventionella piercingar som tecken på något suspekt, som indikationer på mindervärdighetskomplex, självhävdelsebehov, psykiska problem eller kriminalitet. En ny studie, ”Tattoo and Piercing as Signals of Biological Quality”, snart publicerad i Evolution and Human Behavior, finner stöd för att sådana dekorationer kan ha en mer positiv grund:

There are several social reasons for which people use these forms of body decorations (e.g., marking social status or signaling membership within a subculture). However, it is interesting why only some people within a group that uses body decoration as a badge of membership decide upon such decorations. Since both tattoos and piercings can present health risks (e.g., due to blood-borne disease transmission risk), we postulate that people who decide to have such a body decoration might have relatively higher biological quality and that tattoos/piercings can be an honest signal of genetic quality. … Higher body symmetry of the men having tattoo or piercing indicates that this type of body decoration in the western society can be related to the honest signal of biological quality only for men.

Se där! Tatuering som en signal om biologisk kvalitet, alltså. Det skulle kunna tänkas stämma in på den fysiskt framstående australiensiske rugbyspelaren Daniel Conn (se bild).

Se även inläggen ”Tattoo boys”, ”Rugby kräver muskler” och ”Allt klär en skönhet”.