A long-haired man is loosely bound to a pillar with ropes. Arrows pierce both his upper and lower body and he is wearing only a loosely tied
Saint Sebastian is a recurring motif for submissive male imagery. There’s certainly much to like in the implications of strength evident from martyristic narratives, but they are not without their problems. First and foremost, martyrs are not sexy by virtue of being martyrs, but rather due to their other traits. Almost every submissive depiction of men in our culture specifically showcases martyrs—Jesus himself being an even more famous example than Saint Sebastian. I find this troublesome because it dilutes any possibility of a message that submissiveness can be something men desire to express by adding implications of tragedy and sadness to the act.
Such implications are not actually bad, but they are not well understood by most people. We live in a society where young men and women struggle merely to express a desire for the sexuality they do want, so it should come as no surprise that many people would be confused at their own desire for having the things things they don’t want happen to them. I’m the first to admit that such seemingly-but-not-really paradoxical desires can be sexy, but it’s not okay to use a discourse of shame and double-speak in expressing these things, as pictures of martyrs without analysis creates. Instead, we need a transparent and honest appraisal of the things we are looking at.
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