FHM-US Magazine published their annual list of the 100 Sexiest Women in the World 2002 as voted on by their readers. The poll offers a fascinating insight into the popularity of tattoos among female celebrities. A quick look at the Top 100 list reveals that one of the things that many of the women picked have in common is body art, i.e. tattoos!

An afternoon of research revealed the following results; 8 of the top 10 sexiest women in the world have one or more tattoos (80%), 16 of the top 20 sexiest women as voted on by FHM's readers have a tattoo (80%), 19 of the top 25 have tattoos (76%), 29 out of the top 50 have tattoos (58%), and out of the top 100 Sexiest Women 2002 as judged by FHM's readers, 45 have tattoos that I know about (a very impressive 45%)!

These percentages are really quite amazing when taken into context with the overall general population. Esquire Magazine published a poll in March of this year that said one in eight of the general population in the United States sports a tattoo. Details Magazine published a poll that said 22% of those aged 18-25 have a tattoo. But neither poll can hold a candle to FHM's 100 Sexiest Women 2002. I think it's high time the mainstream media took a closer in-depth look at the popularity of tattoos and body art around the world.

*Search Engine Lycos, ranks the Top 50 search terms every week. "Tattoos" was the fourth most popular search term on the internet in 2001, the seventh most popular search term for the year 2000, and the eleventh most popular search term in 1999!.

*In July of 2002, "tattoos" reached its highest ranking ever, coming in as the number two most requested search term on the internet. "Tattoos" was requested more often than Pamela Anderson, marijuana or KaZaA, illustrating that skin ink is now more popular than "sex, drugs and rock n' roll!"

Vince Hemingson

After you've seen the USA results for 2002 you'll definitely want to check out the FHM UK Top 100 Sexiest women of 2005 to see how many of them have tattoos.

And the 2002 results were...

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