It turns out that while women may be attracted on a personality level to “good boys,” on an exterior level, they at least want their good boys to look... a little bad.

Just how can the good guys get this image? Well, according to a 2017 study, ladies might just be more attracted to and more likely to consider guys with tattoos as more aggressive and dominant. That’s a lot of supposition to get from just a little ink.

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The study consisted of 2,500 heterosexual men and women gauging their reactions to photos, as researchers are pretty good at making people judge others in the name of science.

The researchers asked them to stare at and rate shirtless men who sported various types of tattoos on their persons. Some of the photos even added digital tattoos to the people in the pictures, like small pieces of ink on their otherwise non-tattooed arms.

It turns out that the tatted studs were more likely to be considered by the women in the study as more aggressive, dominant, and masculine. They also considered that these men had better health than non-tattooed people.

One good thing for those guys who haven’t undergone ink, though? Women didn’t rate the inked men as more attractive overall. The bad news for pink-skinned guys is that the ladies considered them more in charge, however, and both men and women believed that the guys with tattoos were going to be better in bed than non-inked dudes.

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According to the researchers, this indicates that the presence of tattoos changes other peoples’ perceptions of the men who sport them.

“Tattoos not only influence female preference,” said the research team, “but they may be even more important in male-male competition.”

This basically means that men considered guys with tattoos to be more competition for casual encounters — and they weren’t wrong, given a woman’s proclivity for bedding a man with ink.

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There was, however, some additional bad news for men showing off their art, and that is that men who appear to be more aggressive and have the projection of having more testosterone (because of their tattoos) don’t appeal to women looking for relationships.

This is because high testosterone is often linked to violence or infidelity. And, to add insult to injury, women don’t think that men with tattoos are likely to make good partners or fathers for children.

As for us women sporting our own tattoos? In 2015, researchers discovered that people considered women with ink to be “more open to intimacy without commitment, less selective, and having a higher drive when shown with the tattoo.”

So while men with tattoos appear to be more virile and better in bed, women with tattoos appear desperate, less willing to screen their partners, and more open to one-night stands. Thanks, double standards.

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Merethe Najjar is a professional writer, editor, and award-winning fiction author. Her articles have been featured in The Aviator Magazine, Infinite Press, Yahoo, BRIDES, and more.