No Guilt Summer is presented by Just Cakes Bakeshop. JCB is a Food Network-winning bakery based right here in Surrey, BC. They aim to create a culture of appreciation around desserts & pastries while evoking emotion and memories through the power of sweet treats. Their Just Jars are my guilty pleasure (Reese’s one to be exact!) and exactly what I’ll be munching on guilt-free all throughout my No Guilt Summer. Visit their website www.justcakesbc.com or check them out on Instagram @justcakesbakeshop
The first time I got a tattoo on my wrist, someone said to me, “this won’t look good with your mehndi for your wedding.”
When I started filling up my arms with more tattoos, someone said to me, “no one is going to want a daughter-in-law with this much ink on her arms.”
Every time I tell someone I have 11 tattoos, almost every time they’ve asked me how my parents “let me” get that many tattoos.
Whether it’s tattoos or piercings, and even haircuts and hair dyes, most brown girls have had to ask for permission before modifying their own bodies. It’s almost like our bodies aren’t even our own. It’s almost like we’re paying rent to occupy our bodies. Just as we would need to seek permission and approval from our tenants before putting pictures on the wall, changing the colour of the paint, or ripping out the floors, we’re required to seek permission and approval when modifying our bodies, whether it’s our parents, our partners, and in some cases, our in-laws.
My tattoos have been a point of guilt for me. I often feel that my parents raised me and gave me a beautiful body, only for me to spoil this vessel with ink in the flesh that they built. I often find myself hiding my tattoo appointments, saying I’m going for tattoo touch-ups when really I’m going for new ones and covering my healing tattoos with my clothes. This is not because my parents have told me I cannot tattoo my body, but because even though I understand at a fundamental level that my body is my body, I still feel like I am disrespecting my parents every time I modify it.
I very vividly remember a discussion I had about my 11 tattoos with my dad. He was trying to understand the rationale behind my deep love for and interest in tattoos. He said he didn’t want to see any more tattoos on my skin and that enough was enough. I remember replying back to him and saying, “you really can’t tell me to stop, and nor will I stop just because you’ve asked. This is my body and I will do with it as I please.”
And yes, I know what you’re thinking: “Harpo, you got SOME balls saying that to your dad.” Of course, I got into hot waters for saying that, but I’d had enough of being apologetic for who I truly was. Even more, I’d had enough of constantly being told that my body was everybody else’s but my own. I was tired of hearing how my future relationship with a partner or his family would be entirely contingent on the number of tattoos I had. And I was incredibly tired of how the only concern most aunties around me had was how my tattoos were going to look on my wedding day.
I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that as grown-ass women, we’re made to seek permission and approval for all that we do to our bodies. And this extends beyond just tattoos in my skin and piercings on my flesh. It goes beyond the colour of the highlights in my hair or the infamous nose piercing some brown girls are never allowed to get because their parents told them, “hell no!”
With #noguiltsummer around the corner, I know the weather is going to get hotter and my clothes are going to get shorter. And with that comes more exposure to my beautiful ink and more stares from aunties and uncles whose picture-perfect idea of good brown girls that I challenge. My commitment to dismantling the guilt I experience when I modify my body has to be strong, as does the mantra that I will tell myself when it feels too hard.
On that note my dear #cutiegirls, I offer you this mantra if you are also in a similar place as me: I do not pay rent to exist in this body. This body is mine and only mine. I am the sole owner. I do not need to seek anyone’s approval or permission to do what I, a grown-ass woman, a badass woman, would like to do to her body. My body is my temple and I will worship it as I please.
