The #MeToo movement from 2017 onwards generated a significant cultural conversation about bodily autonomy, consent, and self-determination that intersected powerfully with the feminist dimensions of body modification culture. Many women publicly discussed their tattooing and body modification practices as acts of reclaiming control over bodies that had been subjected to violation, with tattoo studios reporting increased requests for tattoos connected to sexual assault survivor identity and recovery. The intersection of feminist body politics and body modification generated extensive literary, journalistic, and social media discourse about the self-authored body as a site of healing and resistance.

The #MeToo moment's convergence with feminist body modification discourse produced a significant body of confessional and witness poetry about the tattooed body as a site of reclamation after sexual violence. Poets including Morgan Parker, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Nicole Sealey wrote poems in this period that engaged with the politics of bodily autonomy in ways that drew on the tattoo tradition of the permanently self-authored body. The idea of tattooing over or through a site of trauma — rewriting the violated body — became a potent figure in contemporary feminist and survivor poetry for the reclamation of bodily narrative.