Tattooed Into My Flesh

On The Sacrament of Marriage

Half of my work is behind a paywall. If you are truly unable to afford a subscription, please DM me on Substack or reply to this email requesting a free comp, and I will give you 6 months free, no questions asked.

Don’t want to become a paid subscriber? Buy me a coffee instead.

Last week, my partner Jonathan and I celebrated 10 years together. This week, I got a tattoo to celebrate this milestone. I figure that, after a decade together, he has made such an indelible mark on my life that a tattoo is warranted. The tattoo is a version of one Jon has — a medieval hare — which I have always admired. In addition to contemplating that I am now a grown man who will have a happy little bunny rabbit on his forearm for the rest of his life, I am also thinking about the past decade. I am thinking about love, and what it means to be committed to another person for so long.

Tattooing is a ritual of blood, ink, and pain. I understand why tattooing has historically been used in ritual settings. It hurts, it's bloody, it’s a confounding fusion of pain and pleasure, and it permanently changes you, much like the sacrament of marriage.

We were dumb kids in our 20s (well, I was a dumb kid — extremely immature at 26) when we first met online. He had just left religious life and was enthusiastically abandoning his vows of celibacy. I, meanwhile, was putting in a Herculean effort to no longer be a slut. We met in the middle. On our second date, he again broke his now-desecrated vows, and I committed to having sex with one person.