n the mid-2000s, there was an ABC show that followed an adolescent boy who wakes up, naked and afraid. Other than apparent amnesia, Kyle XY is a classically handsome and apparently normal teenager, except for one small detail: he’s missing his belly button. As it turned out, Kyle XY’s un-pitted stomach became the central conundrum of the series, and essential to the promotion of the show.

Kyle XY debuted at a time when, coincidentally, the belly button’s popularity was already waning. Over a decade had passed since Alicia Silverstone rebelliously decorated her navel in Aerosmith music video, or Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington exposed their hardware on the runway. The sugary rhinestone culture of the new millennia was dissolving into a gritty, dark academia-style. Britney Spears, famous for embracing her bare-tummy was now a new mother and in the grips of a mental health crisis, and teen girls began to distance themselves. Within a few years, waistlines had ridden up to the ribcage, where they would stay until, well, now.

Yes, bellies are back. Addison Rae and Tyla’s mid-sections sparkle. On her press tour for The Shards, Kaia Gerber revealed she’d spontaneously pierced her navel. Amanda Seyfriend was recently asked about hers. Maybe we credit the 20-year trend cycle — which has catalyzed the romanticization of 00s icons, and their flat tummies — or maybe the mass access to weight loss drugs has helped more people stomach their stomachs. Neither was the case for me in 2015.

Allow me to briefly take you back there. The girls were furiously spinning at SoulCycle. Everything was gluten-free. Taylor Swift was in full, 1989 drag (her rotation of crop tops and high-waisted skirts fueling the argument that she, like Kyle, was without button). Our outfits were a mix between dystopian army-core and Yeezy — from the lace up shirts to the thigh high boots and distressed green jackets. We were still three years away from Kim Kardashians’s “nothing to wear LOL” selfie, and body positivity was in its infancy. This was no time to celebrate the belly.

Like many women, I have had a complicated relationship with my belly for as long as I can remember. Then again, my gripes are specific. It not only swells and deflates with my hormone cycle, but is a kind concave shape — dipping in under my ribs and out again — in a way that looks like I’m both perpetually sucking in and have a pooch. It is something I rarely address even with close friends, because the anatomical condition is indecipherable to this day (seriously, I can’t find it explained online). Basically: my belly didn’t look like everyone else’s. As such, I didn’t buy low-riding swimsuits — RIP to my childhood tankini — and was definitely adverse to my naked belly being seen by men. On the day I turned 21, I decided I was done with insecurity; the only way out was through. This is going to sound dramatic — I was dramatic — but I would have to put lipstick (a ring) on the proverbial pig (my stomach).

Not that just any kind of piercing would do. Re: the aforementioned cultural context: belly piercings were considered tacky and misguided at best — at worst, white trash. I was too old for this archetype of disobedient teenage girl with an older boyfriends indulging in perceived freedom and the kind of navel jewelry they adopted: a thick, 14-gauge barbell with crystal baubles plugging either end. Instead, I requested a tiny nose ring, which is technically not allowed but my piercer was easily charmed. I walked out of a suburban Auckland tattoo parlor $60 poorer (he threw in my first tattoo: a red love heart on my finger), and newly punctured. The emboldenment was immediate, as evidenced by this below Instagram post.

I’m not I’m the first, or the only, to search for a semblance of self-love on a tattoo bed. There are studies dedicated to the impact body modification — participants claiming significantly greater body appreciation, self-esteem and self-ascribed uniqueness in the weeks after receiving a tattoo. In a survey of around 300 women with navel piercings, 68 percent specifically reported increased body satisfaction. Even though mine wouldn’t be seen in public for years, staring down at that tiny gold ring, I felt free. For me, exposing my belly was exposure therapy.

Since, I’ve really embraced my belly piercing’s potential. I forcibly adapted it to a higher gauge, and now rotate all different kinds of jewelry: chunky butterflies, real pearls, gaudy crystals that dangle far below the button (for the curious, these are what I’m currently wearing). When I swap out a style and my stomach is briefly nude, and I feel myself almost immediately regress to that same self-loathing I experienced from all those years ago. Maybe one day I’ll be forced to remove it, and confront those feelings head on…but I don’t plan to any time soon. The same way I determinedly won’t outgrow glitter or pink, I will keep my belly button bedecked.

Recently, a friend intimated that she admired my embrace of the low-rise trend. Similarly coming of age in the 2010s, she couldn’t imagine feeling her belly in the open air. “You just have to do it,” I told her — an admittedly reductive, unnuanced and unhelpful response. What I should have said is “Get your belly button pierced. After all, what do you have to lose?”