We have everything we need: gags, rubber masks, leather, various whippy, stingy, thwacky things, hoists, chains and 100ft of rope. Also: one razor blade, three axes, a rack of gold-plated wire bikinis (fashioned from safety pins), several buttocks, plenty of dicks, a bucket of blood and a load of offal.
There’s Saint Sebastian, pierced by arrows and a paintbrush, and here’s Bob Flanagan, photographed with his balls dragged low by a weight on a chain, with various bits of metalwork piercing his penis, scrotum and nipples. Presenting himself as a BDSM superhero in a cape made from a hospital gown, Flanagan was a sado-masochist performance artist. Working with his dominatrix accomplice and lover Sheree Rose, he turned his cystic fibrosis, constant pain and fortitude into art, transforming suffering into a kind of celebration.
