Getting a tattoo hurts. Your skin will be punctured thousands and thousands of
times by sharp needles. But there are definitely some parts of the body that
hurt more than others when tattooed. We’ve listed the top 10 most painful
places to get a tattoo. The most painful is definitely not where you think it is.
Number 10: the nipples. This part of the body is highly sensitive.
All someone has to do is step out into the cold and just this change in temperature will cause
them to slowly swell. This is because there are a lot of nerve endings in the nipples,
which can be stimulated during sex, or when a baby needs to breast feed.
However, with all these nerve endings it should come as no surprise that getting a tattoo here
would hurt a lot. Any part of the body that has a lot of nerves, also has a lot of pain receptors.
Sure, the nipples can provide pleasure, but they can also be a source of immense pain.
Just ask anyone who was given a “purple nurple” as a kid.
When the tattoo needle punctures the nipple, it is also ripping through the nerves that lie
just under the surface. When nerves are destroyed it is incredibly painful.
Signals are sent to the brain to make sure that you know your body is being damaged.
The highly sensitive nature of the nipples make them an incredibly painful place to get tattooed.
And speaking of pleasure centers, number 9 on our list of most painful places to get
a tattoo is the genitalia. Regardless of if you have lady parts or man parts down there,
getting them tattooed is going to be excruciating. Now to be fair there will be some areas where the
nerve endings won’t be as highly concentrated. But when the tattoo needles reach the head of
the penis, or the labia and clitoris, there will be an unbelievable amount of pain.
This is because like the nipples there are a lot of nerve receptors in these areas.
Normally these receptors are used for pleasure purposes, and that is why they are so sensitive.
But if they are being punctured over and over again by needles,
the body will react negatively, and send massive amounts of pain signals to the brain.
Before we go any further let’s be clear about what a tattoo really is.
When you get a tattoo your skin is being pierced by sharp needles at around 100 times a second.
This is obviously going to hurt. These needles need to break the skin in order to inject the
tattoo ink under the first layer and into your epidermis. The ink then dyes the tissue,
and this is what creates the color of the tattoo itself.
The craziest part is that a tattoo gun normally doesn’t consist of a single needle.
So, every second of the tattoo your skin is actually being punctured
by multiple needles at the same time. In fact, some tattoo guns can consist of up to 25 needles,
meaning you are being pricked by 25 pointy objects every millisecond until the tattoo is completed.
This is just something to keep in mind as we continue on through our list.
Number 8, is the ankles and wrists.
These areas of the body have basically the same structure, which lead them both to be
very sensitive during the tattoo process. The wrists and ankles are made up of a lot
of different bones all being held together by muscle and tendons. It is unlikely that tattoo
needles will ever go deep enough to rip apart these tendons, but if an inexperienced tattoo
artist makes a terrible mistake, you could end up with torn ligaments that would hurt like hell.
However, even if everything goes according to plan, getting a tattoo on the wrist or
ankle hurts because of the proximity of the bones to the top of the skin in these regions.
If you look at your wrists right now, I am sure you can see where the bone is located.
Whenever the bone sits close to the surface of the skin it means the needles will most
likely chip away at some of it. Not enough to cause any lasting damage,
but enough to cause an incredible amount of pain. Just as a rule of thumb, anywhere the
bone is close to the surface of the skin will be a painful place to get a tattoo.
Which brings us to number 7: the fingers. Considering that fingers are pretty much all bone,
getting a tattoo here is really painful. The skin on your fingers is really thin and sensitive. This
is because you need to be able to feel the things you touch. Touch is caused by the nerve receptors
in your fingers sending signals to your brain, which it then interprets as smooth, rough, hot,
cold, etc. Since touch is extremely important to the human species, our fingers are loaded
with these nerves and receptors to gather as much textile information as possible.
Unfortunately, when you get a tattoo in these sensitive areas, tons of pain signals get sent
to the brain. Since the skin and muscle is so thin on the fingers, it is inevitable that the
needles will come in contact with bone, causing even more pain. And if that wasn’t bad enough,
the shallow skin means the ink doesn’t stick to this area of the body very well, which requires
the tattoo artist to go over the fingers multiple times to make sure the ink sticks.
Number 6 on our list of most painful places to get a tattoo is the knee.
This area of the body can be excruciating to get inked because of the very thin skin
on the top of the kneecap. Think of every time you’ve skinned your knee,
and how much the initial scrape hurt. Now imagine your knee being scraped over and
over again every time the tattoo gun needles puncture the skin and pricks your knee cap.
It is the close proximity of the bone, tendons, and skin on the top of the knee
that make this area so painful to get tattooed. But even getting a tattoo on
the back of the knee can cause pain. This is because of the massive amounts of nerves
and tendons running down the back of your leg connecting it to the rest of the body.
There is practically nowhere on the body that has large bones so close to the skin
as with area number 5 on our list: the rib cage. Getting a tattoo here means that it
is all but inevitable you will have a needle poked into one of your ribs.
Again, the needles don’t go super deep, but deep enough that some nerve receptors are going to be
triggered. There is almost no protective fat or muscle surrounding the rib cage,
so once the needle penetrates the skin, it is coming into contact with bone.
Also, you unfortunately have to breathe during the tattooing process,
which means the rib cage will be moving, and the skin around it will be tightening and contracting.
This just makes tattooing the area a little more difficult,
and the pain a little more intense, than other parts of the body.
Number 4 is the head and face, which probably comes as no surprise. Like the rib cage,
this part of the body lacks large amounts of fat and muscle, making every stroke of the needles
painful. Also, the face is full of nerves that allow you to make all the different expressions
as your body is being tattooed. The combination of bone close to the skin, and the millions of
nerves running along the face and head, make this part of the body super painful to have tattooed.
There is also a psychological component to this area of the body. The proximity to the
retina and ears means that all of your senses are involved when the face gets tattooed.
This makes it very hard to remain calm and not tense up. Some research suggests that
the more tense you are, the more intense pain signals can be when they reach your brain.
So, you can see why tattooing your face would be both nerve-racking and painful.
We have now reached the top three most painful places to get tattooed. You may be wondering
what could be left that would be more painful than the groin, ribs, and face. One structure
in the body literally connects all of the nerves that run throughout it to your brain.
Number 3 on our list is the spine. Getting tattooed on this area of the body is so
painful that some tattoo artists warn against it, unless you have already
gotten tattoos elsewhere. The vertebrae that make up your spine sit just below the skin,
and each one has millions of nerves running around and through them.
Getting the spine tattooed can also be dangerous. Since the nerves are relatively close to the skin
in this part of the body, the tattoo artist needs to make sure the needles don’t go too deep. If a
needle does pierce a nerve, it will be incredibly painful, and blacking out momentarily could occur.
Number 2 on our list is probably not what you were imagining, but when you think about it, the
armpit can be pretty sensitive. Getting a tattoo on your armpit can cause massive amounts of pain.
This is a location that tattoo artists advise only people with high thresholds for
pain to get inked. There are a lot of nerves that run along the side of the arm and body,
which pass through the armpit. And although there is not much bone there, the number of veins,
arteries, and tendons in the area make getting your armpit tattooed really, really, painful.
This brings us to the most painful place on the body to get a tattoo.
If you’ve ever hit your funny bone, you know it’s not funny.
But getting a tattoo on your elbow may be one of the most painful experiences there is.
Number 1 on our list is the elbow. It has been reported by experienced tattoo artists,
and people who have been tattooed all over their body, that the most painful place to
get a tattoo is the elbow. This is because of the extremely close proximity of the bone
to the skin. It is almost impossible to ink the elbow without hitting the bone.
And since many nerves run up the arm and over the elbow, you have not only bone,
but the nerves that sit close to the skin there. The skin is very thin, there is no muscle or fat,
and the bone is very sensitive, which is why bumping, or tattooing your elbow hurts so much.
It is reported that the pain experienced while getting an elbow tattoo is not gradual,
but immediate. Once the needle penetrates the skin many people report reaching their pain
threshold almost immediately and needing a break. This extends the amount of time
to complete an elbow tattoo, which means the pain is drawn out over a long period of time.
It is important to note that everyone’s body is different, and everyone will have different pain
thresholds. But this list is the ten most painful places to get tattoos,
regardless of whether you have a high tolerance for pain or not. Also,
it has been suggested that age may play a factor in how intense tattoo related pain can be.
The older someone is, the more pain they tend to feel while getting a tattoo. So,
if you have been putting off getting a tattoo, it may be better to do it sooner rather than later.
Sex also plays a role in how painful a tattoo can be. For example, females may feel pain more
intensely than males , but males have reported pain in certain areas such as the head and groin
to be more intense than females have reported in the same areas Regardless of pain tolerance,
or sex, getting a tattoo in these ten areas is most likely going to hurt. So,
if you are planning on getting a tattoo, try to remain calm, and go to a tattoo artist you trust.
Now watch “The Worst Pain Ever? These Injuries Will Make You Cry Like a Baby.”
Or check out “Why Do You Have Pain Here When You Run.”