Bound Gods

     We love seeing him like this.  His gentle, blue eyes weary from the battery.  His slender, nearly nude body hanging exhausted on a crucifix.  Christ's malnourished belly revealing the abdominal muscles rippling beneath the bruises and scars.  Lo and behold, The Son of God!

There is a soft spot in our collective hearts for masochistic gods.

     Shiva smiles so sweetly.  Pinched between the earth and The Soles of Time, his body is crushed for our sake.  His nude body is the only thing between us and certain doom.  Absorbing the steps of Kali's death dance, Her thirst for destruction is quenched.
     I believe the depiction of these deities are the product of libidinous iconographers.  Looking through the scope of kink, I find it ironic that there is this reoccurring theme.  The bound sacrifice.  The pleasure found in the perishing.  The cheering audience.  Perhaps my mind is in the gutter, but it all sounds like an elaborate, deadly version of "Naked Kombat".
     I can't say for certain why these elements continue to find themselves in sacred texts.  But I do feel the need to experience this for myself.  I believe there is a space where fetish and spiritual practices can intersect.  I believe The Holy Ghost, sex and candle wax can co-exist in a purely religious experience...without fucking a Catholic priest. (LOL)

Art by Sadao Hagasawa