Lower back tattoo

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A lower back tattoo displayed with a crop top at an outdoor concert.

Tattoo on lower back

Beginning in the late 1990s the lower back tattoo became popular, especially among young women. Lower back tattoos are often oblong in shape, following the slope of the back on either side of the woman's spine. The lower back tattoo is body decoration with the intent of emphasizing sexual attractiveness. Generally, a lower back tattoo will be designed to emphasize the shape and curvature of the female figure.

While such tattoos have become increasingly popular and accepted in recent years in many parts of the world and especially the west, they remain an object of derision in some quarters. Detractors consider lower back tattoos as suggestive of promiscuity and an indication of Raunch Culture^[1]. In the United States, they have been pejoratively referred to as "tramp stamps." In Australia, they have been given the slang term of "arse antlers". ^[2]

Several attributes of lower back tattoos have made them popular. While the lower back is not the widest area of the human back, it has abundant space for a large design, and horizontal tattoo designs can be worked easily. Another advantage is that the lower back is less likely to stretch and distort due to minor weight fluctuations, thus reducing the likelihood the tattoo becomes warped and faded.^{[citation needed]} An additional consideration is that while a lower back tattoo may be easily revealed by casual clothing or during intimate moments, it may just as easily be concealed by conservative clothing as circumstances require. Lower back tattoos are often displayed in conjunction with halfshirts and bellyshirts (also called crop tops) designed to expose the midriff, and low-rise jeans that are worn low around the hips.

In the past few years, tattoo artists and doctors have questioned the safety of administering epidurals to pregnant women who have lower back tattoos.^[3] Such concerns have largely been discredited in subsequent studies.^[4] There is no consensus in the medical community as to the significance of the risk.^[5] Most anesthesiologists will give an epidural block to a woman with a lower back tattoo. They will avoid placing the needle through the tattoo in order not to introduce any of the color pigment into the epidural space.

Some celebrities that have had such a tattoo are Ana Beatriz Barros, Angelina Jolie, Eva Longoria, Todd Bertuzzi, Steve Czaban, and Dave Navarro.