For most of my life, stretch marks were something I believed needed to be hidden—smoothed out, covered, or erased entirely. They were visible proof that I had failed to contain or control something essential—softness, growth, myself. They made me feel as thought I didn’t measure up to society’s standards I had absorbed about beauty, desirability, and confidence.
As a gay Black man, I’ve often existed beneath a magnifying glass that many cannot see. In queer spaces especially, your body becomes your introduction—it’s your calling card, your currency on dating apps, your access point to attention, and, sometimes, the reason you’re overlooked altogether.
And when I looked at my body, what I saw were all the things I thought rendered me invisible: stretch marks on my thighs, hips, and lower back. These silvery reminders of expansion became symbols of shame, and at some point, I decided that my body’s natural evolution was something I needed to correct.
I became skilled in camouflage. I posed strategically, wore long shorts even in the height of summer, edited my photos to soften what I couldn’t erase, and manipulated lighting to create illusions of smoothness. I told myself I was confident, that I had come into my own—but beneath the surface, I was deeply afraid. I feared judgment, rejection, and the possibility that I would be deemed “too much” for taking up space in a body that didn’t align with curated ideals.
I’ve always known I was gay, and even before I came out, I was already absorbing what desirability looked like in queer spaces—slick, muscular bodies with no softness, no stretch marks, no visible signs of growth or change. By the time I hit puberty, I developed a curvy frame, fuller through the hips and thighs. The result is it came stretch marks that stretched across my skin. To me, I didn’t fit the mold. I remember standing in front of the mirror, pulling at my skin, wondering why I looked so different from the ideal I saw celebrated—and fearing that this difference might cost me my confidence in getting into a relationship.
I began to internalize the message that stretch marks were something to fix. I tried creams and exfoliators and flirted with the idea of laser treatments—anything that promised to “correct” what my body had naturally done. I had absorbed the idea that stretch marks meant damage, and damage, I believed, required an apology.
Throughout my twenties, I found myself chasing a false sense of flawlessness. I trained at the gym not always for health, but to shrink certain areas and harden others. I took countless photos I never shared, engaged in intimacy with the lights off, and preemptively joked about my stretch marks so no one else could mention them first. I believed that if I acknowledged my insecurities before anyone else did, I could somehow soften the blow.
Then I turned thirty. There is a unique clarity that comes with that milestone—a quiet but powerful invitation to confront the version of yourself you’ve been avoiding. Not the curated one who posts filtered photos, but the real one. The body you live in every day. The skin you have talked to more with criticism than with kindness. The stretch marks you’ve hidden, softened, or ignored for years.
This wasn’t a breakdown. It was, in many ways, a breakthrough. These marks were not evidence of failure, but signs of movement—of growth, of transformation, of seasons when I held more weight, both physically and emotionally. They were the imprint of survival, of heartbreak, of healing, of joy, of becoming. My body had not betrayed me; it had carried me. It had adapted. It had been resilient, even when I was not gentle with it in return.
From that moment on, I made a quiet decision to stop hiding. The real test came when I posted a photo on Instagram that revealed my stretch marks. I hesitated before clicking “share,” convinced vulnerability would let anyone criticize my body. But when the comments came in, no one mentioned the marks. Instead, there were people sharing the same experience.
I still have moments when I second-guess a photo or find myself angling away from the mirror. The old instincts haven’t disappeared completely. But what has changed is the relationship I now have with my body. It’s rooted in acceptance and gentleness I never used to offer myself.
Today, when I see my stretch marks, I see texture. A timeline of where I’ve been. They remind me that my body is not a trend, not a problem to be solved, but a home I get to live in—messy, marked, and miraculous.I’m honoring every chapter of it. And in choosing to live in my skin, fully and without apology, I’ve finally returned to myself.
