Pablo V. Cazares

Sebastian, Penetrated

Diocletian was much angry and wroth, and commanded [Saint Sebastian] to be led to the field and there to be bounden to a stake for to be shot at. And the archers shot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin is full of pricks.

— The Legende Aurea, Jacobus de Voragine, 13th c.

Saint Sebastian has a long tradition of being associated with homosexuality throughout art history. Martyred and canonized for his faith, he is always depicted as heartbreakingly beautiful, inside and out. Stretched out in various states of agony and religious ecstasy, penetrated and bound, he is lithe yet muscular, he is the jock made low, he is the boy next door flush from an innocent wrestling match. Pious adoration of his eternal soul and eroticized admiration of his eternal good looks are united. My martyrdom will never be his martyrdom.

The trans body trespasses ideals of immortality and objective beauty. All mortal flesh experiences changes throughout a lifetime, but the trans body shifts by definition, and with it our perceptions of the physical. Whether through medical or social transition, we are reinventing what beauty means, redefined through the lens of mutability of form. We are bodies in motion. We remember that flesh is decoration for the soul. In this way, aspects of christianity and trans folk are united in a view of the world that is post-beauty. But where does that place lovely Saint Sebastian? Why is his flesh incorruptible? If his context changed—if Saint Sebastian was trans—would his flesh be coveted in the same way?

My Sebastian series explores the physicality of this question. Flesh and all the horrors that come with it are a fundamental part of being human. Martyrdom and transness both vacillate between emphasis and de-emphasis on the flesh, shifting focus between interiors and exteriors. What’s inside is what matters, but the flesh must go through trials to reveal the euphoric “true inner self.” I consider this paradox as I feed and eventually harvest the thick sheets of wet bacterial cellulose coagulate I grow from kombucha cultures. How does the question of false tortured exteriors and idealized interiors shift if a trans person can grow their own skin?

Martyrdom and transness both vacillate between emphasis and de-emphasis on the flesh, shifting focus between interiors and exteriors.

To make these bodies is not to simply nourish and harvest the cultures. Bodies are messy, and Sebastian’s body is a proxy for my own. The weight of the wet cellulose, frantically dripping and running down my arm, slippery and disobedient, reminds me that these cultures are still alive. I pin him to the wall with all his failings and, clutching an arrow, I penetrate him. The skin resists and slides underneath the sharp point before the surface tension finally gives way. I breathe in the dusty sickly sweet vinegar of his skins. I feel rising humidity on my hand as I twist and work arrows through him into the drywall of my studio, feeling him shudder and slide down until the weight rests upon another support. I pierce him again and again.

Panting from the effort, I finally step away and look at my labors. In the morning light, he is transformed. He has become both more and less animate; the overall effect resembles the eerie feeling of presence that arises from a corpse. Somehow, by inventing and torturing an exterior, I have conjured the impression of an interior soul. Have I received the answer to my questions? Is suffering what defines beauty, only revealed by contrast?

I am not sure. I work this process again and again, Sebastian after Sebastian. I work with and through the flesh, like we all do.