Reclaiming My Love for My Body Through Tattoos

Empowerment manifests through many forms of self-love rituals such as saying daily affirmations, taking yourself out on dates or buying flowers to decorate your home. These rituals all serve a higher purpose in strengthening one’s relationship with themselves. One of the most prominent ways self-love shows up is through healing when getting inked, as it can be an influential way of reclaiming your body and processing trauma and grief. 

For myself, the biggest act of self-love I have ever done for my body was to get tattoos, and a lot of them, in just two years. Tattoos may not heal all wounds, but they sure act as powerful means of understanding yourself and your body better through all the beauty, joy and pain.

Though two years is a very short time period, I adorned myself with over 50 tattoos that symbolize my life experiences and the memories attached to them, as well as reclaiming what it means to be unapologetically hyper-femme in my appearance. These tattoos serve as small glimpses of my healing journey, my vulnerabilities and a personal homage to feminine power. 

Throughout my tattoos, one can spot a throughline of femininity; a fierce feminine force to be reckoned with. Looking back at black-and-white vintage photographs from the early 1900s of women with fully tattooed bodies has always been eye-catching to me, as they visually document tattoos’ popularity increasing among women as social inferences of getting inked has shifted. The women in those photos were an inspiration to rebel against social stigmas by transforming into the most hyper-femme version of themselves on their own terms. The idea that women should be “pure” and have their bodies concealed and controlled, and that they should not express their own desires was discarded the minute those women walked into a tattoo shop and took control of their own bodies in the act of permanently marking the skin with imagery that reflects their individual desires and tastes.

The tool for self expression has saved me so many times and has led me to develop an extremely healthy body image of myself and to view myself as an artistic masterpiece. This further validated me to appreciate the skin and body I have, rather than trying to change it.

Channeling the bad-ass tattooed ladies of the early 1900s, from pleaser shoes to potion bottles and pin-up girls, my body is adorned with classic feminine motifs that further highlight that my body is a gift and should be treated as such. My tattoos also act as a nice little layer of protection in situations where I am not in control, so it is a way of me reversing that gaze and having domination over my self-image.

Just a few months ago, I was smoking on a couch across from my friend Jojo. I asked him if it would be too tacky to get pleaser heels tattooed on me and if that would be seen as just a fad that would be frowned upon in a few years. Jojo instantly reassured me and came to my inspirational defense by saying that it is dangerous to present as hyper-femme in today’s world, and by wearing a symbol of extreme femininity on my sleeve, it is a defiant statement. He continued to say that hyper-femininity is often seen as a nuance, and that is why many shy away from that presentation. I was taken aback at how true the statement was in regards to the long-lasting stigma that women should make themselves more digestible for the public eye instead of transmuting that energy into their own personal empowerment. I think about that conversation with Jojo a lot and it led me to celebrate this new era of unapologetic inked freedom.

Whether your motivation for getting inked is meaningful, impulsive, healing or simply that it looks cool, the beauty of tattooing is timeless and can resonate for many reasons as our bodies age with those motivations. 

Transmuting pain into power has come pretty effortlessly to me since the start of my tattoo journey. 

One of the biggest ways that I showed up for my body was on Aug. 1, 2021. I will never forget the feeling of absolute heaviness as I went through an intense break-up that sent my body into a fight or flight state. My best friend Jessica took me to Family Tattoo in Chicago the day after my break-up to get one of my first American traditional tattoos. Naturally, I was gravitating towards a “lady head” flash of a woman who was embellished in jewels and had a crescent moon surrounding her. What really caught my eye was how American traditional tattoos carry a masculine energy to them, as it first started adorning the bodies of male sailors. This tattoo conveyed that traditional tattoos are also interpreted from the female gaze and carry the energy of both masculine and feminine, the yin and yang, the dark and the light. This flash instigated my American traditional tattoo journey and had me take a deep dive into hyper-femme tattoos. 

Refined, bold and iconic are some of the ways to describe traditional tattoos – it’s an art form. It takes a huge level of commitment to inscribe your body with an image that states your beliefs, desires or anti-establishment attitudes. Tattoos serve as a storyboard that showcase a culmination of experiences weaved together across various limbs on the body.

Self-love in the form of tattoos can be a constant reminder of staying committed to yourself and you are worthy of advocating for self-love and self-care. They are a source of recovery and a means of healing. The external process elevates the internal world.

Nowadays, many see tattoos in a variety of different ways, for some, tattoos resonate with empowerment and taking control of one's body. For others, tattoos are worn as a badge of self expression, or to mark an important life event or change. Beyond the skin-deep ink, they have become part of me and helped me blossom into an authentic version of myself. As Valentine’s Day nears, I always look at myself in the mirror and take the time to look through all my tattoos as they act as a reminder of my resiliency and how far I have leaned into my own love.