If I was a teenager today, would I want a tattoo? Possibly.

I don’t remember my high school classmates in the 1970s getting tattoos (a large, multi-ethnic school in Tulare, California). It just wasn’t a thing back then. But we still had ways to be “cool,” and I suppose tattoos, today, are evidence of “cool.”

I was not immune to peer pressure. I wanted to be cool (and fell oh so short). So maybe, if growing up today, I would pester my parents for permission to get a tattoo (and pout when they said no).

Tattoos are very common at my church. It doesn’t bother me. I have no inclination to be either judgmental or admiring. But I have zero interest in getting a tattoo. Maybe because a person can possess only so much “cool,” and I’m at capacity. Yeah, that’s my story.

I found these stats:

• 20% of Americans have a tattoo. Most of them, of course, have multiple tattoos.
• Tattoos are more prevalent in the west, where 26% sport a tattoo.
• Adults aged 30-39 are more likely to have a tattoo than age groups either older or younger.
• Only 5% of persons 65+ have a tattoo.
• Women are slightly more likely than men, for the first time since this question was first asked, to have a tattoo (now 23% versus 19%).
• 86% of persons with a tattoo say they have never regretted getting one.
• 30% say a tattoo makes them feel more sexy.

Among those without tattoos:

• 45% say that people with tattoos are less attractive, and 39% say they are less sexy.
• 25% say that people with tattoos are less intelligent (27%), healthy (25%) or spiritual (25%).
• 50% say people with tattoos are more rebellious.