František Drtikol – Estudio de la Crucifixión (1914)

My BFF was out of town visiting his poly partners. Ahead of this he arranged for me + a friend who is a trans woman to hang out.

It really wasn’t the best time for a number of reasons–the least of which is I am literally off the charts as far as being an introvert, I have social anxiety and I’m just generally not a people person.

Anyway–that’s all just set dressing–she asked me what I’d been working on and I showed her Gabriel Palencia Ubanell’s painting Martydom of Saint Eulalia.

Her response was instant: Ewww, gross. The last thing the world needs is so much as one more martyr. No thank you.

…

In the early and mid-90s, I was an obsessive comic book aficionado. I didn’t know who Clive Barker was at the time. (In all fairness, I still don’t really know other than he created Pinhead from those Hellraiser horror movies.

There was a quote that stuck with me from an interview he did with Wizard Magazine wherein he mentions that although he isn’t an Xtian, he keeps a crucifix hanging in his office because to him it is an aspirational image as far as the purpose of horror.

…

I think most maladjusted, troubled kids go through some dark patches. I had mine. I was supposed to write a position paper on the death penalty in sixth grade: pro or con.

But in classic me fashion, it ended up being a rigorously detailed explication of the various methods of capital punishment. (This was well ahead of my obsession with serial killers phase, FYI.)

I remember some really morbid details from that project. For example: death by firing squad leaves a hole the size of a grown man’s fist and essentially rips the heart out of the body.

You have to be careful when you hang someone; there is a ratio between height, weight and the length of slack in the rope. The goal being to fracture the spine in such a way that although your brain is screaming to your lungs to breath, the signal doesn’t ever reach them. Too much slack and there’s a very high risk of decapitation. (It’s theoretically not the worst way to go–especially if you consider that there’s anecdotal suggestions that as many as half of the victims orgasm in their death throes.)

The gas chamber was little more than al means of fomenting asphyxiation. Still, it pales in comparison to the electric chair–which it boggles my mind how the fuck that was ever deemed uncruel and usual. :::Shudders:::

The guillotine wasn’t a bad idea, actually. Except that the blade was frequently used so much it was dull and they had to drop it multiple times to sever the spine.

…

Crucifixion was not a pleasant way to go. As a kid I didn’t understand enough to understand the mechanics of it. I guess I romantically thought that the personal surrendered to public scorn and shame–which is what I think many Xtians actually believe.

However, crucifixion is actually a means of causing death by suffocation. Due to the way the body was hung, the condemned had to use their legs and their arms to pull themselves up in order to take a breath. Think about it like this: you can’t breathe unless you do a pull up and you can only breath so long as your head is above the bar. There’s no getting off and resting.

The way the romans typical crucified folks involved letting them go for a day or so and then breaking their legs to speed up the process. Now, bear in mind that you’ve been nailed to a tree and that you are essentially having to pull yourself up by the fresh wounds to stay alive.

As far as Mr. Barker is concerned, I’d have to disagree with crucifixion. Being burned at the stake was hardly a good way to go out but you did at least stand a good chance of dying from inhalation before the flames ever got to your body. The so-called Brazen Bull was an attempt to increase the suffering of the condemned while also adding the novelty of a spectacular unhinged voyeuristic thrill.

…

I think part of the reason I’ve been thinking about this is a result of several states in my own country going to extreme measures to execute those sentenced to capital punishment.

There’s legitimate question about whether or not the drugs are as ‘humane’ as we’ve been led to believe. There have been alarming accounts of botched executions, of people strapped in and writing in seeming distress.

Many of the companies that make these drugs have refused to sell them to state governments. Some states have bought them illegally. Others stockpiled them planing to use them far beyond their shelf life, in several cases block out hospitals that needed the drugs for legitimate medical and life-saving purposes.

Several states have opted to buy them through shady private pharma operations–with no regulatory oversight. These drugs have routine proven to be well below average as far as potency. Yet still the executions continue…

…

Conceptually the thing about crucifixion is that you essentially die how you lived–just at a substantively accelerated pace.

Whereas the concept of hell, emerged around the same time as we in the western world started burning folks at the stake.

…

While I was out in California last week, I said to one of my friends that I don’t really believe there’s a god because if I believe in that god, I also have to accept that he made this world and a hell on top of it, so essentially two hells. (To show my work I was unconsciously refering to this quote from Annie Dillard about the singularity of the giraffe in terms of creative impetus and this article about the current trend in horror movies away from torture porn–thank fuck and towards a fixation on existential dread.)

…

The trip out west went mostly better than I’d expected. I had purposely avoided placing expectations on it because I needed low-key and restful.

Unexpected, it became clear to me that despite the onslaught of doubts I’ve been having about whether or not it’s a good idea to completely up root myself and move, I did manage to get clarity on one thing: the Bay Area is where I need to be.

Beyond that, I don’t know. There was some other things that transpired and I’ve been thinking again if maybe I should step away from this project–if not to dedicate my job to an actual paying second job (like I have the time or energy for that) but it’s also becoming increasingly farcical that I write what’s essentially a sex blog. It’s artfully aware but it’s about smut mostly.

And it’s become apparent that’s just not something that’s ever going to be a part of my life. I am just too undesirable and broken.

There are days like today where doing this feels like nail myself to a tree and just waiting to suffocate. But I keep telling myself at least maybe one or two of you out there gets it and feels less alone.

I doubt it but it’s just another lie I tell myself to keep on going.