Yukio Mishima and the love of St Sebastian.

It's not my bag

It is Sebastian’s almost base physicality and masculinity that instantly strikes us, upon viewing this painting. The dark shadows, the harsh lines, the piercing gaze, the massive semi-erect penis. If not for the arrows one would imagine the image to be designed for the purpose of proudly displaying a person’s authority and achievement. Sebastian in the picture stands erect and exclaims ecce homo – behold the man!

Yet there is a white elephant in the room, Sebastian this symbol of masculinity is seen in the painting as being ravaged by a swarm of arrows, (an obvious reference to the traditionally dominant phallus). Why is Sebastian a paragon of masculinity so often portrayed as being humbled by the phallus? Why is this sadomasochistic perspective seen as so erotic by writer’s such as Mishima? For the answer to the latter we must look deep into the mind of the great poet and writer.

Mishima’s childhood was rife with difficulty, he was often sick with tuberculosis and and was only allowed to associate with “weaker” female relatives for fear he would be bullied by boys his own age. In the beginning of “Confessions of a Mask” Mishima often escapes the sufferings of worldly existence by escaping into a world of sadism and dominance. His actual sufferings giving rise to imaginary sadistic triumphs. As Mishima grows this striving for dominance takes on a sexual aspect, he writes:

“I cried sobbingly until at last those visions reeking with blood came to comfort me. And then I surrendered myself to them, to those deplorably brutal visions, my most intimate friends.”

It is logical to assume that in the case of Mishima this early repression of the will to power led to a rebound of the ID – an explosion of sadism. The will to power that had been repressed and denied him in his childhood grew exponentially more violent in adulthood. Yuko Mishima strives from his mid twenties to be a real-life Sebastian, ceaselessly exercising with heavy weights, each day trying to fit his ever bulging muscles into his spandex pants.  Tiring to become like the heroic and ever masculine Sebastian.

Sexy

We see in the life of St Mishima then a pattern, a childhood of submission, a rebound and an adulthood of sadism and dominance.

And yet like Sebastian Mishima wants to die, and indeed declares that it would gratify him, to "die among strangers beneath a cloudless sky".In November 1970 Mishima commits Japanese ritual disembowelment (seppuku) in the back room of a military compound. For the reason why we must look to Sebastian.

Sebastian is the key to Mishima's entire oeuvre. As Mishima plunges the blade into his abdomen. He is reduced once more to his childhood weakness and surrenders to the power of death.  Mishima who strove all his adulthood to become masculine is seen here secretly craving domination and the power of another man's willy (represented by death).  Thus Mishima the Sadist becomes the Mishima the Submissive in death, completing his darkest desires and finally creaming his pants. Mishima is not only a sadist but a masochist and indeed his masochism finally overpowers his potent sadism.

RIP