Bob Flanagan

American BDSM performance artist, poet, writer, comedian and musician (26 December 1952, New York City — 4 January 1996, Long Beach, California). Bob Flanagan suffered from cystic fibrosis, a rare, uncurable genetic disorder, for his entire life and became an extreme masochist to cope with the condition's physical pain and suffering. He was married to Sheree Rose (b. 1941) from 1989 till his death in 1996. (Rose, Flanagan's muse, "producer," and primary collaborator, donated his archives to USC's ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives in 2014.) Bob Flanagan grew up in Costa Mesa, California, with two brothers and a sister. He was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis in early childhood and battled mucus build-up and chronic respiratory infections for his whole life; Bob's sister died from the same illness at 21. Flanagan studied literature at California State University, Long Beach and the University Of California-Irvine, settling in Los Angeles in 1976. He joined a poetry community at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center and began performing with public readings around Southern California. Flanagan's first book, The Kid is the Man, came out in 1978. In 1980, Flanagan met Sheree Rose, kickstarting their extensive lifelong collaboration and "Master-Slave" relationship. They co-founded an LA chapter of the Society of Janus, the second official BDSM organization in the United States. In 1989, Flanagan and Rose presented their first performance, Nailed, featuring Bob hammering down his penis and scrotum to a woodblock while singing a famous pop schlager, "If I Had A Hammer" by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays. (The project coincided with a publication of Andrea Juno/V. Vale's book Modern Primitives about body modification by RE/Search Publications.) His best-known exhibition, Visiting Hours, debuted in 1992 at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, later staged at New York City's New Museum in 94. It featured Flanagan's writings and videos, with Bob in his hospital bed interacting with the visitors. In 1992, Flanagan starred in a controversial "Happiness In Slavery" music video by Nine Inch Nails, banned and censored in many countries after the release. The clip portrays naked Bob brutally tortured by various mechanical devices, with the entire sequence (besides the character's death) unsimulated and shot without special effects. He also appeared in Danzig's '93 video "It's Coming Down;" Flanagan pierces his lips together and then hammers a nail through the head of his penis, bleeding directly on the camera lens. (A "totally uncensored" version appeared on Archive De La Morte DVD/VHS compilation in 2003). Bob Flanagan had a brief cameo in the '94 "Crush My Soul" video by Godflesh, as Christ suspended upside-down from the church's ceiling. In January 1996, Flanagan died in the hospital, aged 43, from complications of cystic fibrosis. During his final years, Bob was accompanied by filmmaker Kirby Dick, who documented their public activities and intimate, highly personal conversations and practices with Sheree Rose. (Flanagan only agreed to work with Dick on the condition that the final movie would include his death.) The film Sick: The Life And Death Of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist debuted at Sundance Film Festival in January 1997, winning the "Special Jury Recognition" award.