For These Artists, Christ Became a Gay Icon

F. Holland Day and the Invention of Hysteria

F. Holland Day, Crucifixion, 1898

Introduction

Sometime in July 1898, Fred Holland Day — emaciated, profoundly unshaven, and practically nude save for a loin cloth and crown of thorns — strapped himself to one of three crosses he imported from Syria. Guised as Jesus Christ, he cautiously gripped the thin wire that bound him; in his left hand, a…