RE/Search: Bob Flanagan: Supermasochist

Los Angeles writer and artist Bob Flanagan created performances with partner Sheree Rose which shocked and inspired audiences from Seattle to Boston to Berlin. He combined text, video, and live performance to create a highly personal but universal exploration of childhood, sex, illness, and mortality. Bob Flanagan used his body as a laboratory to test out every possible sensation and stimulation. Born in 1952 in New York City, he grew up with Cystic Fibrosis (a genetically inherited, nearly-always fatal disease) and lived longer than almost any other person with CF. The physical pain of his childhood suffering was principally alleviated by masturbation and sexual experimentation, wherein pain and pleasure became inextricably linked, resulting in his lifelong practice of extreme masochism.

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