Sexual abuse is an act of violence that steals more than just safety—it erodes identity, voice, and the ability to be seen without shame. Survivors often live with the burden of silence, as society continues to scrutinize their stories more than it holds abusers accountable. In mythology, Medusa is often painted as a monster. But at her origin lies another truth: a woman violated, then punished not for her crime, but for her suffering.
 
This tattoo is a stark black-and-white portrait of Medusa—but unlike classical depictions, her eyes are voids, completely black. She doesn’t glare. She doesn’t petrify. She stares blankly, stripped of power. Her serpentine hair is absent, her mythical rage quieted—not because she is weak, but because the world has already silenced her.
 
The black eyes carry deep symbolic weight—they represent the erasure of agency, the way survivors are often forced into emotional blindness, unable to look back or forward without fear. Medusa’s story is reclaimed here not as one of vengeance, but of mourning: for justice denied, for voices doubted, for power stolen.
 
This tattoo stands as a mirror to our failure to protect and believe survivors. But more than that, it is a demand for change. A call to unlearn the narratives that villainize the victim. To give Medusa her eyes back. And to let those who have been silenced be seen again: not as monsters, but as humans with truth and power in their gaze.