It’s called a tramp stamp, but I call my lower back tattoo a sign of the times

In Germany and Australia, they’re called “ass antlers.” In Canada, the term is “tramp stamp.” Mine is rather larger than the usual flower or Disney character, but it still qualifies. And 10 years after first getting inked, I simultaneously love and am embarrassed by my tat.

Lower back tattoos rose in popularity throughout the 1990s. They are the stamp of a generation of women, the “me” generation, which consists of today’s 18- to 29-year-olds, a.k.a. the Millennials. About four in 10 of us are inked, and of those four, half have gone under the pen two to five times, according to a 2010 Pew Research study.

By the early 2000s, the lower back tattoo had already turned into a bad sex joke and its derisive status as the mark of promiscuity was cemented in the 2005 film Wedding Crashers when Vince Vaughn’s character declared it “might as well be a bull’s-eye.” It also indicated how mainstream tattooing had become. By 2009, even Barbie had a tramp stamp.

So how did lower back tattoos go from being hot fashion statements to what feels like a permanent hangover from another decade?

“The problem is, it exploded and then became a cliché. It became a cultural joke,” says Eric Gaudet, the manager of New Tribe Tattoo, Toronto’s largest tattoo shop.

Between 15 and 50 customers file through his Queen St. parlour on any given day. They choose their ink from the flash — what artists call the sketches that cover most shop walls — plastering the waiting room.

So why did the lower back become so trendy for tattoo seekers? “It’s a symmetrical spot to get tattooed,” he explains.

That part of the body was also sexy for the era. Part of the popularity can be attributed to that other fashion must-have of the ’90s and early 2000s: hipsters. No, not those Pabst Blue Ribbon beer-drinking, skinny jean-wearing types in the west end. In the not-so-distant past, hipsters were lowrise flared jeans. And they provided the perfect frame for this particular tattoo. It probably helped the insulting “tramp” moniker stick.

“I just think it’s funny,” says Joey Nicholson, a 25-year-old tattoo artist at Way Cool Tattoos, another shop along Queen St.’s tattoo alley.

Nicholson has two armfuls of tattoos and a tramp stamp she got when she was 14. “I don’t think (the term) came out of the tattoo community; I think it came out of the critics of pop culture. I don’t have a complex about it.”

For middle-class rebels like me, who planned on becoming young professionals and suburban moms one day, the back is also a great place to hide a tattoo, especially if you outgrow it. In fact, 70 per cent of Millennials’ tattoos can be hidden beneath clothing.

Nicholson says tattoo trends have been around as long as tattoos themselves. When the art was first popularized in the Western world among higher classes, sailor icons, tribal symbols and Egyptian art were the tats du jour.

The lower back trend has gone the way of Doc Martens and Modrobes, but newer trends are taking its place.

Rib tattoos are the new tramp stamps, says Gaudet. And lettering — whether song lyrics, a signature quote or a few words in Japanese — is the new butterfly tattoo, he says.

“I’m not making fun,” he says. “People can get whatever they want. It’s just that women come in and say, ‘I don’t want to be clichéd and get it on my back so I’ll get it on my ribs.’ ”

Gaudet, whose own nautical star tattoos (standards of the American traditional style) have become icons of emo culture, says you just need a good sense of humour to get past the trends.

I can do that. I often have to: I share my second tattoo with actor Orlando Bloom. We both have a sun on our right hip — something my teenage cousin made me aware of several years after I had gotten mine. I’m not sure how Bloom picked his, but mine came from a generic flash wall, and I still choose to love it — and laugh about it.

LOVE IT OR LOATHE IT? We want to see your tattoo. Email a picture of your body art, subject line “tattoo,” to life@thestar.ca. Please include your name, and number and a description of the tattoo and what inspired you to get it. Your story could be featured in the Toronto Star or thestar.com at a later date.