FHM magazine has made a regular feature in both their US and UK editions of polling their readers for a list of the Top 100 Sexiest Women in the World.

One of the most astonishing things about the Top 100 List is the tremendous amount of cross-over the two lists have on either side of the Atlantic. We live in an age where film, music and athletic celebrities in particular have world-wide fan bases and admirers.

We originally did research on FHM's Top 100 List back in 2002, using the list of Sexiest Women in the World compiled by readers of the edition published in the United States in an attempt to determine how many of the women on the list, picked by the readers of FHM as the epitome of feminine beauty and paragons of desirability, had body art. Approximately 35% of the women voted to the American Top 100 List three years ago made the cut in the UK current list. Three years is forever in the life-span of the modern celebrity.

The 2002 Top 100 Sexiest Women in the World List was fascinating because it revealed the following statistics:

8 of the top 10 sexiest women in the world had one or more tattoos (80%), 16 of the top 20 sexiest women as voted on by FHM's readers had a tattoo (80%), 19 of the top 25 had tattoos (76%), 29 out of the top 50 had tattoos (58%), and out of the top 100 Sexiest Women 2002 as judged by FHM's readers, 45 had tattoos that we knew about (a still impressive 45%).

In 2005, in the UK - 4 of the Top 10 Sexiest Women in the World have tattoos (40%), 8 of the Top 15 (55%), 10 of the Top 20 (50%), 20 of the Top 50 (40%) and 36 of the Top 100 have tattoos - at least that we know about. The research to find out which celebrity women have body art largely entails looking at thousands and thousands of images online in an attempt to spot a tattoo and the good old Google search. This is the kind of back-breaking, ass-numbing, soul-draining work we do on behalf of our audience.

Because so many of the women are models, many of them have their tattoos and body art airbrushed out or digitally removed from their photos. The best shots at revealing tattoos are almost always the candid photos taken by paparazzi or by fans. If you send us a photo of one of the beauties on this list revealing a previously unknown tattoo, we'll send you a copy of The Vanishing tattoo DVD!

In the 2005 UK list, the median age of the women was significantly younger than the 2002 US list. The UK apparently has no shortage of astonishingly ripe young women blessed with quite staggeringly bountiful breasts who have absolutely no compunctions about posing in the altogether. The tabloid girls are often exceedingly young, as are the Pop music sensations du jour. The overall list of celebrity women as voted on by FHM readers showed a decline in the number who were tattooed. But given that the Top 50 number in 2005 were very close to the numbers in 2002, there might be a number of reasons for this.

Usually the 18-25 age bracket has fewer tattoos than those slightly older. The 2003 Harris Tattoo Poll had these demographic statistics for the percentages of which age group have tattoos: 18 to 24 -13%, 25 to 29 - 36%, 30 to 39 - 28% for the American population as a whole. The 2005 list has many quite young female celebrities who simply don't have that many images out yet, so we may not be able to spot all the tattoos, and they may not yet have reached the age at which most people have decided to get body art.

Still, given the overall numbers of women celebrities on the Top 100 List having body art, it can certainly be stated that having a tattoo carries with it no social stigma whatsoever in this day and age. And in terms of popular culture, one of the quickest way for a celebrity woman to bond with her audience and fan base is to get a tattoo.

Here is the full list of FHM's (UK) Top 100 Sexiest Women in the World to enjoy at your leisure. Happy hunting!

Vince Hemingson

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