Confessions of a Mask

At 12, Kochan begins to discover his own sexuality, but his erections and sexual functions bewilder him. He sets out methodically to learn what arouses him. He discovers that his attractions to men and heroic, tragic figures are not just aesthetic, but sexual—and this attraction extends to his fascination with death, blood, and violence. The things that had fascinated him as a child gain a new dimension as he enters puberty. He hides gory pictures out of shame at the lust they create in him. Despite this, he is not able to ejaculate to them. This changes when he looks through an art volume from Europe, which his father had hidden from him so he would not see the nude women in the art. In this book, he finds a painting of St. Sebastian by Guido Reni. The saint is mostly nude and youthfully beautiful but covered in arrow wounds. Aroused by the painting, Kochan masturbates for the first time. Kochan then delivers a history of St. Sebastian and an unfinished prose poem about the saint’s death and his reaction to the painting, noting, “And was not such beauty as his a thing destined for death?” (45).