That’s because until you feel needle-to-skin for yourself, it’s hard to gauge exactly what you’re getting into. Rae Alexandra is a San Francisco-based journalist who has in the neighbourhood of 50 tattoos. As she points out, it’s hard to say with certainty which tattoo placement will hurt more than another. “A lot of people warned me about how terrible the inside of the upper arm was, but I breezed through it,” she says. “Same with the top of the foot.” Her point? It’s pretty hard to nail down how others may process pain.