[Upbeat theme music plays] It’s a Revolution

Gabby:  I’m sitting down with my favorite tattoo artist, Tamara Santibanez and we’re talking about the joy in tattooing and the joy and pain and maybe even a little bit a kink.

Tamara: You know, it’s not kink to me, is some straight guy who’s like a finance bro making tons of money being like, guess what I’m a dom, like no dude you’re not kinky you’re just a misogynist.

[Arrow sound effect]

Gabby:  I’m Gabby Rivera, your asthmatic prima that makes your mami laugh so hard she forgets all about that pain in her back and this is Joy Revolution: the podcast that asks how do you prioritize joy?

[Theme music ends]

Gabby: My guest today is a healer, she is a multimedia artist living in Brooklyn, the founding editor of an indie publisher Discipline Press, and she teaches tattoo art to incarcerated youth in Rikers. Getting a tattoo by her is like an out of body experience where all your defenses are down and it’s like your grandma is in corner watching over you too and that’s why we’re talking tattoos and  the joy of healing queer bodies with Tamara Santibanez.

Tamara, tell everybody who you are, any pronouns you might be using today. I’m using she/her and what you do in your own words.

Tamara: I’m so glad to be here today. Wow, that was a powerful intro and it might be my favorite one that I’ve ever gotten so far on a podcast. Wow, I’m so excited to be here with you, it’s been a while since we got to chop it up, [Gabby Laughs], catch up, umm there’s a lot we can talk about. So, like you said- Oh my pronouns are she or they; both are good.

Umm, I am a tattoo artist. It’s sort of my primary day job but I also am an independent publisher with Discipline Press, I’m also an educator, I think I can say that now, I teach a workshop, I’ve taught in correctional facilities before, and I also am a visual artist. I have a studio practice. I just finished a long residency so I’m getting ready for some shows up coming.

Gabby: Yo, y’all can’t see this right now but Tamara is covered in the most gorgeous tattoos ever. I just wanna want y’all to picture it all in the hands and the arms, long nails, big hoop earrings.

Growing up, I thought the tattoos were so cool, like, I wanted them so bad.

Tamara: Yeah.

Gabby: I was growing up in a Pentecostal, evangelical, Puerto Rican household and my family was like, no no no that’s for the devil, that’s the demons. You get a tattoo, your foot is already in Satan’s house. And and and, no daughter of theirs would get a tattoo, had me thinking literally right, because evangelicalism is like a literal interpretation, I thought I was going to go to hell.

And yet look at this bitch right here. Tattooed, big ol’ tattooed dyke [Gabby and Tamara laugh]  with one of your giant space babes on my arm! You did that!

Tamara: I love that piece. I love that I got to do that for you, it’s really one of my favorite ones.

Gabby: Do you know what else you did? You made me feel really safe. And feel like I was making a beautiful choice to put something on my body. You asked me for consent. You saw me as queer and butch, that I was trusting you with my flesh, and my pain, and my life. And you just offered me all of his healing joy.

So, I’m curious like, one, what got you into tattooing, and two, let’s talk a little bit of the joy of possible.

Tamara: Yeah yeah. Absolutely that’s a really good prompt because it’s something I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about and trying to in a way- I can nail down the essence of how to create that experience for somebody. Because it is really important to me, and I love hearing that you felt that way when you got tattooed by me. Because I really strive for that to whatever extent clients need it, right?

And I got to tattooing young in a really punk, really DIY, way. You know, homemade tattoos stick and poke, was very much the introduction and I think for all of us at the time it was just about making a mark on your body and claiming it as your own having. Having a sense of ownership, of having a sense of defiance, of rebellion, and maybe not having money for good tattoos or not having materials to do really good tattoos and just doing it with whatever was around in that very feral teenage way.

Gabby: We talking like 15 or 18? What’s the?

Tamara: Probably like 17ish is when I can really remember so umm so yeah that was kind of my first introduction and to tattoos. And then I wasn’t old enough to legally get tattooed until I moved to New York, and then there was just this wide world of amazing professional artists here. I mean, tattooing, the tattoo scene here is just unlike a lot of other cities. It’s so diverse. It’s people operating in every style, in every kind of corner set up, shop, private studio, practice.

Gabby: Wow.

Tamara: So there’s really somebody, somebody for everyone I think, here in New York. And that was really exciting to see for me when I was a young person and came here. And so I started doing tattoos on my own, I really want to learn how to do it if I didn’t get a formal apprenticeship because I was still in school. And I just started trying to figure it out, because I’ve already seen DIY tattooing and kind of doing DIY tattooing, and I knew that that was kind of a no-no. At least at the time, I think times have changed quite a lot. We can talk about that too, but, that was sort of a no-no. It was like you’re a scratcher, you’re a kitchen magician and you’re fucking people up.

Gabby: Was that like, from everybody in the tattoo world, or was there like – because to me that seems a little like elitist too, right? So what was the…?

Tamara: For sure, for sure, well I think that that, what I see in tattooing,  is that tattooing has worked, tattooing in the US is really hard to professionalize itself. It’s worked really hard for a lot of years to legitimize itself.

Which is why I can sit here today today and talk to you about all the things that I do. Because tattooing has given me this amazing creative profession. It’s only a great living. People take it seriously as a creative outlet and that’s because of all the work that people put in. I mean tattooing was literally criminalized for a long time.

Gabby: Right.

Tamara: So in New York it was only legalized, in I believe 96 or 97.

Gabby: What!

Tamara: It’s only been legal in New York for about 20 years now, a little over 20 years.

Gabby: What, whoa. [Gabby Laughs]

Tamara: I know! It’s kind of mindblowing!

Gabby: Yo, I need a moment, that’s wild! That’s wild!

Tamara: Well check this out! I just went to Tulsa, and tattooed in Tulsa for the first time, and they told me tattooings only been legal there for, I think, 11, 10 or 11 years.

 Gabby: America! [Gabby laughs]

Tamara: Yes! So, tattooing was- yeah it was…

Gabby: So the stigma wasn’t just my Penecostal Puerto Rican parents it is like across the- there is, like, a deep rooted in, like, fear or phobia, of like, tattooed people.

Tamara: Absolutely! And there was- so that’s, that’s changed recently, of course.

Gabby: Yes!

Tamara: Tattooing has become really mainstreamed. There’s tattoo television, there’s all kinds of tattoo branding on products you can buy in the stores, at Hardee’s, it’s kind of a household name.

Gabby: Oh yeah, what that reality show, it’s like Black Ink Crew or something like that.

Tamara: Oh yeah, we’re really close to there, [Gabby laughs] so yeah, so now tattooing has really exploded into the public consciousness and people see tattooers almost as like rockstars.

Gabby: I mean you are a rockstar, [Tamara laughs] like, we got you [Gabby laughs]

Tamara: But you know people think tattooers are just like rolling in money, and flying all over the world, and tattooing celebrities. The pendulum has swung the other way.

Gabby: Got it.

Tamara: So there’s, ummm, but, tattooing, when I got into it, still wasn’t cool

Gabby: Yeah

Tamara: Still wasn’t really cool to be doing DIY tattoos, umm partially for that reason, I think. Because tattooing had to be very sort of self regulating and work to establish itself as a professional field and was very protective of that. That being said, a lot of people have started on their own and there’s a lot of really well-known, really acclaimed artists, who started by being being self taught, that’s a little bit of a well kept secret. Ummm so I was doing my tattoos in my house .

A lot of them are not very good, [Gabby laughs] very homemade, and I got tattooed at a shop, a shop in Brooklyn. And, so I knew the owners there a little bit, and a friend of mine who I had tattooed in my house, went to get a tattoo there, the day after until he saw the piece that I had done on him and they called me and they were like, hey we saw the tattoo that you did, and that was a moment where I was felt really scared because I thought that I was seriously busted and I was in big trouble.

But the guys were like, we think it looks OK, do you want to come and keep learning here and start working with us and can keep going with what you’re doing?

 So that’s how I started working at Three Kings Tattoo.

Gabby: I love Three Kings Tattoo! Oh my gosh!

Tamara: Yeah! So they brought me in, the people who are the owners

Gabby: Brooklyn

Tamara: Yeah,  yeah they give me this chance, which is- whenever , everytime like without fail, whenever I retell that story I feel still in awe, in disbelief that they were like, hey gross cross punk kid, come do tattoos in our beautiful professional studio.

Gabby: Listen! We were just- oh my god- mad imposter syndrome, right? [Tamara laughs] Like, it pops up in every place! Like, we were just talking to Maria Hinojosa, like, journalist extraordinaire, and she’s talking about imposter syndrome and here you are in a world kinda, I would imagine, many folks, like the misfits, the like, people who do what they want and don’t have anyone telling them what to do, and here you are also still feeling like an imposter.  That’s wild to me.

Tamara: Yeah, to be fair, I really didn’t know what I was doing. But it is a craft that you can really only master through practicing, so, so those guys really took me under their wing and they gave me the space and they lent me their reputation which meant a lot.

They were mentors to me and they really help me get started on my career, and that’s such a busy shop too. So I was able to hit the ground running, do a ton of tattooing.

Gabby: Yes.

Tamara: Develop a clientele really quickly. Fast forward to today where I work at Saved, I’ve been there for almost 6 years and I’ve been tattooing for a little over a decade, which is so wild to say. I’ve been really…

Gabby: Congratulations!

Tamara: Thank you!

Gabby: That’s like [Gabby laughs] That is a beautiful amount of time, right? And that is time for you to like, grow and yourself, grow in your profession, and put in maybe, like, an intentionality in your work, like, that’s one thing I wanna talk to you.

About like, when you’re when–you’re in community with folks and you’re like, literally, like, putting your energy, and your intention, and your spirit into the work that you’re doing, right? To me that is its own form of joy. Folks may not call it that but that is something magical. And I want to talk about that piece of your practice, right? The spiritual element, of like, tattooing as well as like a sharing of energies

Tamara: Yeah

Gabby: Would you say that?

Tamara:  I fully believe in that, not maybe not everyone would agree, but I think that- I think that every tattoo artist’s experience is like that to an extent. And there’s a sort of I think you’re good at your job there’s a sort of heightened consciousness that you have to develop.

A sort of an intuitiveness or sort of empathic ability, to be able to read nonverbal cues and get on the same page as your client, and figure out what they need in that moment to be able to get to the piece or to be able to to sit for long hours or to even it took to just to communicate with you about what it is if they want. To make yourself open to that while, also at the same time, maintaining boundaries. [Gabby laughs]

Gabby: Yes!

Tamara: Maintaining professionalism and being conscious of what you can and can’t take on, which is a big challenge.

Gabby: And, and it’s also really  connected to the principles, right? The principles that you’re talking about, like, make sure somebody feels comfortable, that you’re  open and compassionate, that you’re asking for consent.

Those are like legit principles that I feel like all of us navigating queer and trans POC identities are utilizing in incorporating at every step of the way and so just to like get through and to be in a relationship with each other, right?

Tamara: Right.

Gabby: So can you speak specifically to like, umm listen, to tattooing us, right?

Tamara: Yes!

Gabby: Because when I came to you, Tamara even for, you know, the space babe on my arm, like, I knew inside of me, that there was this, like, pain, that I didn’t know how to release. And I could feel it, like, in my bones, in my skin, and in my head, I was like, I need to get a tattoo and I need to get it from Tamara.

Tamara knows me, she can hold it. I don’t even have to say anything. And there we were, right? And we did that. And there’s something about the needle on the skin and someone like you pushing that there, that releases that, that paint on the inside

Tamara: Yeah, I don’t think that’s a unique experience. I think that so many of the people who I tattoo are coming with some sort of desire to assert an ownership or reclaim their bodies in a way. Because so many of us move through the world in ways where our ownership of her body has denied to us, or our ownership of ourselves more broadly, and this is my- my theory is the tattooing, well I see there being so much radical potential in tattooing and I’ve come to think of tattooing as like liberation work in away.

Gabby: Yes! Ahh! [Gabby and Tamara laugh] [Gabby claps] Say it again, say it again. Please

Tamara: I’ll say it! I think of tattooing as liberation work often times. And I think even if there’s so many aspects of liberating who we are, there I see coming into tattooing.

And again it’s not every single one of these things or every single time for every single client in the same way, but you know wanting to reclaim your body after trauma wanting, wanting to have something with you that could never be lost,  can never be taken away from you, wanting to assert a permanent marker of your identity or recording on history on your body, treating your body as if it’s an archive. There is yeah, there’s a, there’s a lot to it.

And I see that being especially important for people who are experiencing the violence of their personhood being denied to them in whatever way, whether that be, you know, I’ve been working on this writing which I did that I gave you a little bit of info about.

But, trying to ask– ask tattoo artists to consider their clients a little bit more deeply. To consider what identities people might be walking into the shop with, right? So, I’d like to think what if– what if you were tattooing somebody and you knew that they had an abortion? What if you were tattooing somebody and who was trans and you knew that their doctor had denied them the hormones that they needed? What if you were tattooing somebody who you knew was recently incarcerated and had been wearing a uniform for the last 4 years of their life? How would that make you think differently about what the tattoo that they were getting, meant to then? And I think we really need to see as things always start to overlap with marking our bodies.

Gabby: Yes.

Tamara: And I think even in the most fun, casual, spur the moment, tattoos there’s elements of that to come into play.

Gabby: 100% . Just hearing you say that, like, that is what I want. I feel like I want everyone to kind of be walking that walk, you know. Like, what are people coming into our spaces with? Like, yes, what trauma, but also what immediate, like, experience? What harm on their body?

Tamara: Yes! It’s not just, what pain to be transmitted? [Gabby laughs] But also, how can we show up for each other? How can I show up for you, right?

Do you have a really bomb story about your day that you just went on and you want to tell me too? I’m here for that! I want to– I want to celebrate that with you too! You know, it’s not all about healing what’s painful.

Gabby: Right.

Tamara: Although, that’s possible too, you know.

Gabby: But I really like, yes! It’s not just about that, but I love, I think you called it when we talked uuuh what was it trauma informed tattooing?

Tamara: Yes yes

Gabby: Trauma aware?

Tamara: I’ve been using them interchangeably though, I think I like trauma aware a little bit better.

Gabby: I do too. I think, I think, you know, acknowledging what folks are experiencing and creating a space where people can share those experiences, right? Like and going back to pain for a minute. Let’s talk about pain that I was experiencing with you, in the chair, right, internally. When you were tattooing me, I felt like it, like, being released, right? And so in that pain that I was having, that I was letting go of, there was a healing joy. That like, that physical act was not only releasing, like, my pain but also like cracking into even generational pain, right? And being in community with you and us having this energy together, releases it. And so like, pain and joy I think are kind of like deeply connected too.

Tamara: Yeah, I’ve been thinking about all of this so much and I’ve been doing a couple of things recently that have brought the healing potential of tattooing really and these questions that I have about it right, really to go to the forefront of my mind, in an urgent way. Because the shop where I work did– we’ve done a couple of days at the shop with organizations, so we did one to do free mastectomy scar coverups for survivors of breast cancer.

Gabby: Wow.

Tamara: And then we did another one with the Women’s Prison Association to do free coverups for some of the clients who have been previously incarcerated. So, so in tattooing some of the women from WPA, I- I think that both of those events raised some really interesting questions about the potential of tattooing, the power of tattooing.

And getting to witness these really, really profound emotional moments for people who felt that their body had been returned to them in some way. And so with the WPA’s event some of the women had been tattooed in situations that were somewhat coercive or potentially non-consensual and so raises questions. I ask myself, OK if someone has been in this exact position before in a way that was so harmful to them, how do we re-create or how to how do they revisit the space, this practice of tattooing, this shop, in a safe way

Gabby: In a safe way. Yeah.

Tamara: How do we equip ourselves to show up for them, to give them that. And so in doing that I wrote a guide with the Women’s Prison Association, that was sort of like a practical guide, trauma aware tattooing, steps to a more informed consent style of client care. Which I think is useful for all clients.

Gabby: For sure, yeah. One hundred percent.

Tamara: Yeah  and there’s a difference between consent and there’s a sort of an implied consent when you’re walking into the tattoo shop that we’re leaning on, right? That you’re– you’re there cause you wanna get a tattoo, right?

Gabby: So I can have access to your body and like, yeah you agree to all this.

Tamara: Right, but it’s not that simple so then the informed consent part comes in where you know what’s gonna happen you know what you can expect. You’re excited about it, you’re agreeing to it throughout the process, every step of the way. So that’s what I created. A brief guide that’s gonna be coming out soon.

Gabby: I was gonna say, where is it? Like, how do I get it? Does it look like a zine? Is it done in your incredible style of illustration, like?

Tamara: So this one’s very bare-bones. It’s really informational. So it’s just a trifold brochure. I’m going to do a downloadable PDF that’s gonna be free if people wanted to access it.

Gabby: Listen, y’all better access it! [Gabby laughs]

Tamara: I think I think everyone could benefit from reading it. To use with any other clients honestly. And in a lot of the things, many tattooers are already doing, but I wanted to present something cohesive and to frame it as…

Gabby: For sure, People need guidance. And I feel like baby queers too they’re like, you now, I want my respect upfront, you better know my pronouns, you better ask consent. [Tamara laughs].

They are going to take this guide and be like see, Tamara gave it to me and why aren’t you already doing this. [Tamara laughs] You are offering, right? You are offering a model for folks to like come forward and run with and adapt, right? Like, you’ve created this thing and now anyone that comes after has this like…

Tamara: I hope so. I hope that I can be grown and added onto by other people. Because it’s not– Those conversations are always happening, always evolving so this is hopefully a little bit of a starting point.

But I’m working on also, more long-term is– so I’ve– I am working with this consent educator named Karin Kai, who is developing a series of consent workshops for tattooers specifically. Which is really exciting. So we’re doing the first one, as sort of like a little test of the phase 1 workshop.

Gabby: Is it open to all the people that are tattoo artists? It’s not specifically for any particular gender, group, or anything like that, it’s for everybody?

Tamara: It will be. So this is the beginning of testing that shop and see how it goes. But — but yeah it’s directed at anyone practicing tattooing.

And we were speaking about other types of bodywork as well. Because tattooing, it is a type of bodywork, and a lot of people who do things like, physical training, or massage, acupuncture, piercing, things are coming to contact with the body, a lot of the times we don’t have his resources.

Gabby: Right.

Tamara: And for example, we don’t have the same type of ethics or frameworks that a medical professional might have.

Gabby: Totally.

Tamara: We’re not being– we’re not being given models that are handed down to us of proper client care necessarily.

Gabby: You don’t even have it!

Tamara: A lot it is intuitive or demonstrated by the people that you work with or you’re figuring out as you go what the best way that works for you and for your particular clientele is.

Gabby: For sure.

Tamara: So, the challenge has been trying to streamline and maybe get some universal core tools that can be useful for everybody.

Gabby: But what you’re talking about sounds like you are also doing the work for you- in yourself.

Tamara: Oh, One hundred percent! [Gabby laughs] I just came from my trauma therapist earlier today. So I’m there, I’m in it with everyone else.

Gabby: We are here. We are healing the world here, Tamara!

Tamara: Right, I think that there– I see there being this schism that’s happening, right, of like new generation, old generation; new guard, old guard. Like the young, baby queers, like racially diverse, like trans folks coming into the industry who are making space for themselves and they’re really insistent about how they want to do things differently.

And I think that that’s so important, but I also don’t want to– I mean I don’t think that binaries serve us in any way and so I don’t want there to be this false notion that for example a private studio is safer to get tattooed in for queer people than a tattoo shop is. Or that like, oh like, uuuh like a person of color will always show up for you better than a white guy can, because I think that tattoo artists as a whole I– I believe are trying to do a good job.

Gabby: For sure.

Tamara: I think a lot of them don’t have the tools because they don’t have the community in a lot of senses. And I have worked with so many, you know, kind of, biker ass, tough [Gabby laughs] guy white dudes who are–who have been so tender to me.

Gabby: Of course!

Tamara: And have taught me so much and have really showed up for their clients in the way that they knew how to do it. And maybe that wasn’t what the client needed but it was what they knew to be good. So what I am wondering is that like, how do we bridge that gap, right? How do we maybe do a little skill exchange, a little information sharing, as you know, for example like if I just like…?

Gabby: Just like generally, across the board, right? Like, you are also looking out for other people, right? To offer those burly dudes this type of understanding and education, you’re also looking out for everyone that comes into their world, right?

Tamara: Yeah, totally! And I think and I know so many people who you know are really good people, but they’re like I don’t have a lot of transgender friends, I don’t necessarily know, like what’s the lingo? watch how to talk to somebody who’s trans and make them feel at ease. That maybe not in my wheelhouse or my experience or you know if their a white guy like, I don’t understand the intergenerational trauma that a person of color would be coming in with.

Gabby:  Right, right. One hundred percent.

Tamara:  Not that they’d have to necessarily…

Gabby: But to be aware that it’s there.

Tamara: Totally.

Gabby: That it could be there.

Tamara: To listen! To see someone the way they want to be seen. I think all those things are really important and I and I believe that people are really capable of learning.

Gabby: You are offering healing, right? You’re offering, like, methods and models. You are, like, creating like a pedagogy of how to offer tattooing, that, like you said, trauma aware. But that opens up space for like compassionate conversation and energy sharing intimacy. So like you literally are at every turn, like [Gabby and Tamara laugh] the wave, like, the water, right? You know, you are the motion and you are…

Tamara: The motion in the ocean? [Gabby and Tamara laugh]

Gabby:  This is why you should never be deep on your podcast, y’all, because it’s always a dad joke. When it comes to the motion in your ocean, speaking of which, I think that’s a perfect segway into kink. Ummm [Gabby and Tamara laugh] That’s it we’re going home everyone, it’s over.

Do you know, when it comes to kink I’m like butter pecan ice cream, right? You know, mostly vanilla with a little nut inside of me, you know?

Tamara: Crunchy! Yeah a little crunchy!

[Gabby and Tamara laugh]

Gabby: You know, so I don’t know, but I’m here, like I got my popcorn I don’t wanna be– like, I’m not trying to fetishize, I’m in my educational popcorn, you know, like. [Gabby and Tamara laugh]

What is kink!?

Tamara: Let me get the overhead projector.

Gabby: What, everyone! All the cutest people are involved in kink too! So, I’m like what’s happening? In your words, Tamara, what is kink?

Tamara: Oh man. Okay that’s a big question to have to answer.

So kink and BDSM or fetish can all have slightly different definitions of each other, right? So, BDSM stands for bondage, discipline, domination, submission, and masochism.

Gabby: I didn’t know that. My mouth is agape. And what did you say demons and?

Tamara:  Dungeons and dragons. [Gabby and Tamara laugh]

So–what–essentially, I think it’s all about power exchange and role-play.

Gabby: Okay, okay.

Tamara: That’s the long and the short of it. So, then, you know, kink can also be a descriptor for that in the practices

Gabby: Okay.

Tamara: And fetish can also describe, like a more specific type of fetishism, like if you have like a shoe fetish or you have a good fishnet fetish

Gabby: Do you have a particular kink?

Tamara: So I definitely am into leather, I would say, is the first one that comes to mind. I definitely have a leather fetish in a really kind classic sense of the word. Like, love the material, love the connotations of it, it’s this very sexy, sexy fabric, right? That kind of transforms the person who wears it.

It’s like very coded, like it’s coded very masculine, there’s a lot of gender play they can come into it, you know, that sort of Marlon Brando, biker archetype,

Gabby: Like you’re a rockstar

Tamara: Yeah, totally, totally. It’s a very – very sensuous aspect to it too. I also really love leather shoes. Bootblacking is something that I like doing. Which is leather care basically and cleaning and polishing.

Gabby: Oh yeah, you were telling me about that.

Tamara: so that’s something I’ve been taught to do by a friend of mine who is a bootblacking title holder. Actually miss bootblacker, [Gabby laughs] Miss national bootblack.

Gabby: Amazing!

Tamara: Which I love, I love doing! Again and it actually feels really similar to tattooing, you know?

If I’m at the leather function and I can just be taking care of people’s shoes and chatting with them a little bit, for like 10 to 15 minutes each one is kind of a nice thing.

 And I think maybe I’m really just a service bottom. [Gabby and Tamara laugh]

Gabby: I mean, why am I blushing. I don’t know, this is the vanillarican. [Gabby laughs]

I ask about kink, right? Again, it isn’t to fetishize, and you know, I’m a little wide eyed and stuff, but also it something I see– I am seeing and noticing way more now that I live in Oakland that is a big part of a lot of the queer, trans, POC expereinces that’s folks are happening.

Folks are trying to center themselves in kink spaces, you know, and I’m here like, this also is one of those, you know, kink, BDSM has also a lot of stigma, right? Like, a lot of shame.

Tamara: Even within the queer community.

Gabby: Okay, see I didn’t even know that. To me, like, that I think that’s definitely one of the reasons why I have shied away from it because I’m like, growing up that was considered, like, wrong and again part of the same evils and sinfulness, right?

That I grew up like you know experiencing and so now I’m trying to reclaim, I’m trying to reclaim my body, Tamara. I’m trying to reclaim what it means to be an intimate relationship with others. And I’m trying to open myself up to, like, you know, things outside of my understanding things that I may have been like demonized to me.

And like, when I see my fellow cutie pocs so fucking happy in their kink. I’m like that is a joy!

Tamara: Yeaaah!

Gabby:  . I’m like that is a joy!

Tamara: Right!

Gabby: Where do you see joy in kink communities?

Tamara: So my God, well I mean kink is so rife with possibilities, for like, imagination, world making, unlearning things that we’ve all learned, creating new models for stuff, like decentralizing the body. Totally, like… I don’t even know?

Gabby: What does that even mean? [Gabby giggles]

Tamara: Right? Like, you know, imagine, you know, if you’re, you know, if you’re somebody who has like a lot of trauma around penetration, for example.

Gabby: Okay.

Tamara: Like a lot of kink and BDSM play doesn’t have to involve any kind of penetrative sex .It could be all about like sensory stimulation. It can be all about a dynamic that you establish with a partner. It can be about role-playing different things that don’t actually have anything to do with like genitally involve sexual contact a lot of it is of us.

A lot of it is about stimulating your mind. A lot of it is about creating an environment. A lot of it is about…

Gabby: Wow.

Tamara: Yeah, so..

Gabby: Yo, y’all can’t see my face [Tamara laughs] but I’m like I just walked into a library. I’m just like [Gabby gasps] [Gabby laughs]

Tamara: Totally, but at the end of the day, it’s also like, there’s a reason it’s called power exchange, right? It’s all about power. And to me, kink in its best incarnations, is about understanding the power you do or don’t have in the world. And about inventing, subverting that, inventing new ways to have it. You know ,there’s kind of a trope, a stereotype that, like what, you occupy in the world, that you’re the opposite in the bedroom, right? If you’re like an alpha, boss, you’ve gotta balance it out by being submissive behind closed doors.

Gabby: Yeah

Tamara: Or, you know, if you’re a kind of a shy person then maybe being, like, a really dominant personality with your partner is a place that you can shine and get to experience that agency.

Gabby: I think you said something that, made me feel like, I feel like I’ve had certain experiences where I haven’t been able, to like, be the kind of, like, sexual partner that I would want to be. Because of like, different expectations placed on me for, like, being butch presenting, or like being more masculine presenting, or what the expectations of like, I should be an agressor or like these things.

And I’ve been in like, intimate relationships with folks that, like, have not had that space, so like, what you’re describing sounds, like, really lovely, actually, and like not scary, at all you know.

Tamara: Yeah because it can kind of be anything that you want it to be. And, and something– I think is it– something I really value about queer kink in particular is that in queer kink in  particular, is that I think, we would do this evening queer community, but even in like a straight sex, for example, there such a linear, linear view of what sex is. [Gabby laughs] It’s like ABC, right?

Gabby: There’s like a hand gesture. It’s like in and out, and that’s it.

Tamara: Exactly! [Gabby laughs] So, but you know with the queer, BDSM it could be like, you start at the letter Z, then you go to Y, then you go to a number instead, and then you come all the way back to ABC and then you do it all over again.

It could be totally outside of you know, rather than what we might think of as being a sexual encounter, a sexual experience, if you were to imagine, like your archetype of that, and steps it would involve. You know, sex between two people in the BDSM relationship could be, like, polishing someone’s leather shoes, like I said earlier that could be it,  that could be the only thing you do in a scene and that could be what satisfies both people involved.

Gabby: And, for whatever reason, like, there could also be healing in that act between the folks, right? Like?

Tamara: Totally! Acts of care, acts of service. There’s a lot of vulnerability in both, you know, topping and bottoming.

Gabby: There definitely is. [Gabby and Tamara laugh]

Tamara: You want to trust,you know, we’re talking about a lot of the same things, with tattooing and kink, it’s a lot of trust and about coming together and creating this mutual space, and compromise for each other‘s needs and listen to each other and sort of co-create what the experience is gonna be like.

Gabby: Right, and it really also connects to what you’re talking about earlier about liberation, right? Liberation, tattoos, liberation and so, like, what you’re saying sounds like in kink communities, like, folks are able to liberate each other.

Tamara: Absolutely

Gabby: Or, liberate themselves.

Tamara: Totally. You know what’s not kink to me, is some straight guy, who’s like a finance bro, making tons of money, being like, guess what I’m a dom. I just wanna dominate.

[Gabby laughs]

I’m just so naturally dominant. I can’t help but dominating women all the time. It’s like, no dude, you’re not kinky, you’re just a misogynist.

Gabby:  You’re just a misogynist.

Tamara: If you’re one of those people and you’re not interrogating that power you have in the world and bringing that interrogation into the bedroom then, that’s not the same thing.

Gabby: You, ready? The next segment

[Space theme music] Lighting Joy!

Gabby: You’re gonna have 30 seconds to answer as many questions about joy with one word answers as we throw at you.

Tamara: Oh man.

Gabby: Are you ready? Put on your game show hat, actually put on your game show leathers.

Tamara: Ooo! I’m gonna try my best right now, estoy ready!

Gabby: Okay how we doing on that timer?

[Kat yells off set]

Gabby: Okay! It’s time for lighting joy! Tamara, what would joy’s first tattoo be?

Tamara: I don’t know, but I want to do it!

Gabby: Exactly! If joy had a safe word, what would it be?

Tamara: Uhh, I don’t know, oh my god, I feel really put on the spot!

Gabby: Is joy a top or a bottom?

Tamara: I think joy is a bottom. I think joy is a greedy bottom. [Gabby and Tamara laugh]

Gabby: What is joy’s kink?

Tamara: Joy’s kink is probably just wrapping is like wrapping themselves in saran wrap, or something. [Gabby laughs]

Gabby: What did joy eat for breakfast this morning?

Tamara: Mmm, waffles. [Gabby laughs]

Gabby: I ran out of questions. [Gabby and Tamara laugh]

Gabby: I know, mi gente, that you are now officially booking your tattoo session with Tamara. Follow her on Instagram @TamaraSantibanez.And currently she is tattooing at Saved Tattoo 426 Union Ave., Brooklyn, NY. And you can check out www.disciplinepress to see what she’s got coming out next.

And as always a big ginormous thank you to the Joy Revolution fam!

On audio we got Marcella Carbajal, Julyssa Contreras is our studio manager, Music genius Angelica M Rodriguez. And producer extraordinaire to the stars of my heart. And me,I’m your host Gabby Rivera. You can follow me on Instagram and Twitter @quirkyrican and if you haven’t already, remember to jump on the joy ride and subscribe!

Thank you for listening to Joy Revolution, the podcast that asks how do you prioritize joy?

[Outro music]