Now comes the craze of
tattooing one's body. I cannot understand why any
young man--or young woman, for that matter--would wish
to undergo the painful process of disfiguring the skin
with various multicolored representations of people,
animals, and various symbols. With tattoos, the
process is permanent, unless there's another
painful and costly undertaking to remove it. Fathers, caution your sons
against having their bodies tattooed. They may resist your
talk now, but the time will come when they
will thank you. A tattoo is graffiti on
the temple of the body. Likewise the piercing of
the body from multiple rings in the ears, in the
nose, even in the tongue. Can they possibly think
that is beautiful? The First Presidency
and Quorum of the Twelve have declared that we
discourage tattoos and also "the piercing of the body for
other than medical purposes." We do not, however, take
any position "on the minimal piercing of the ears by women
for one pair of earrings"--one pair.