The Power of the Mask in Art, Indigenous Culture, and Eroticism and the Self
Some people are not afraid to take off their masks, but in my case, I am not afraid to put it on. The mask is a useful and essential item in my work as an artist and my own self development as a human adult. I want to stress the word play in this statement. For me, playing with masks has allowed me to better connect to my own Mesoamerican indigenous ancestors from Mexico, connect better to my own identity and my gender experience, and it has made me a more playful and interesting artist.
It's also worth noting that as a person, unmasking myself at the age of 21 and coming out to my friends and family as gay and queer was a seminal moment that led to unlocking greater freedoms for myself. That moment of coming out was so liberating that years later, when I started to get my work noticed as a novelist and visual artist, I felt 100 percent comfortable playing with masks as a way to understand myself and also make art that truly resonates for me.
In this essay I plan to highlight some interesting ways in which masks play a part in my identity, in my art, but also inside the worlds of queer people, leather people, and those of us who dialogue often with our ancestors and our roots from before the genocide and colonizations of the American continent took place.
Ancestral Root: Masks in Mesoamerican Art
Everything I have ever created as an artist comes back to a quest to explore my most ancestral roots from Mexico, coupled with a quest to understand and describe human consciousness and the cosmos. This mirrors what my ancestors did when they told stories, founded cities through prophecy, made art, created stunning architecture, and practiced their own unique polytheistic religion that honored nature. My Mesoamerican forebears also used the mask as a powerful symbol of worship, storytelling, and even god-like incarnation.
My own area of focus in my published fiction is the Mexica, the nomadic group of peoples that settled in the valley of Mexico and founded Tenochtitlan in 1325. As part of this work, I have researched and explored the myths of the four Tezcatlipoca brothers from Aztec mythology by including them as major forces in my Coil book series. In Aztec art, the faces of these gods were sculpted, adorned, and even worn by people as masks to venerate these four powerful deities.
In particular, the Black Tezcatlipoca (known as The Smoking Mirrror) was celebrated every year by selecting a healthy and strong young man who was given the mask and the costume of the Black Tezcatlipoca. Once he slipped into this mask and costume, the young man was treated by the community as a physical incarnation of the god for one year. At the end of that year, he was sacrificed, and a new recipient was chosen. The yearly festival where the Mexica celebrated and performed these rituals was called Toxcatl.
This symbology of masks and the skin of the god has been so powerful for me as a person that I decided to re-tell that story in a 21st-century setting through my book series How to Kill a Superhero. In essence, I re-told Toxcatl through the adventures of Roland, who also begins to understand his own identity through mysticism, sex and even violence in the saga.
In Mexico, there is a wealth of diversity of the types of masks that have been crafted over the centuries, and I continue to explore and visit in order to further my research. The past of my ancestors remains alive, and it's no wonder that to me, the mask plays a vital role in development, just like it did for the Mexicas, Tlatelolcans and many other of my ancestors.
Additional Reading:
National Geographic article on the Red Queen in Maya history
Mexican Masks, Past and Present: Researched by Emily McClain and Joshua Burd
A Connection to My Literary Hero Carlos Fuentes
The late novelist, essayist, diplomat and intellectual Carlos Fuentes published his book of essays El Espejo Enterrado in 1992. His book changed me forever as a writer. In that book, Fuentes sought to name definitions of Latin American identity in this work, and in particular, he honed in on the ways in which the mask serves as a powerful symbol of the Mexican identity. We see it in the many expressions of the mask in regional folkloric art, in the ancient masks designed and worn by the Maya, Olmec, Mexica, Zapotec. And we even see the mask in full force in the culture of lucha libre, where the mask is worn yet again as a way to wield power and at the same time create a specific kind of distance from the world or even an adversary. Though it may not be specifically outlined in my books How to Kill a Superhero or Our Lord of the Flowers, the inspiration from Fuentes' book is always there in my own narratives and fictional universes.
Additional Reading:
American Historical Association Review of The Buried Mirror by Carlos Fuentes
Mask as Depth Psychology Symbol
Carl Jung's ouvre focused on the ways in which humans can individuate if they are willing to face their shadow. The mask can become a powerful symbol of the shadow through art and play, and whether you are appreciating Tutankhamun's death mask in a museum like the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, or working with a Jungian analyst or a therapist on your self development and psychology, the mask can become a handy way to discuss ways in which you occult parts of yourself when interacting with other people. Next time you are spending dedicated time on your own psychology, willingly ask yourself the question, "What are the masks that represent my own shadow?" or "Why have I chosen to wear a mask for a specific person or a specific set of circumstances?"
Additional Reading:
Masks and Shadows: Exploring the Concept of Masking Through a Jungian Lense
Mask as Tool of Personal Exploration
Even if masks like the ones in Our Lord of the Flowers don't stimulate you the way they do to the characters, you can still recall times where you played with masks. You attended a masquerade ball. You dressed up as Batman at Halloween. You wore a mask at Mardi Gras. Or maybe you even made one with household items to play prank. These are great examples of how the act of play and masks can lead to a broader sense of exploration and imagination.
Think about code switching and the masks we wear to corporate offices. Most people in today's capitalistic culture can admit that what we do on Zoom calls or board rooms in corporate jobs is wear a type of mask in order to fit in and become a less nuanced version of ourselves that knows how to conform. That is a good example of a symbolic mask we wear. But it's when we start making art with masks, when we play with masks in our own environments and safe spaces, that we start to understand that some masks (such as the ones we wear at work) may no longer serve us, or in some cases, they may be necessary for sheer survival.
The mask shows up in many other powerful spaces, such as relationships, sports and the political arena. And while I think that it's fair to dissect and critique how other people wear metaphorical masks, the power of masks I am describing in this essay is something far more internal. I propose that it's the individual which must confront his, her, or their own masks whenever they choose to play and create with a mask intentionally. We cannot control people and things, but we know we can change ourselves internally. That change can often take place by donning a mask, and becoming someone, or something else; don't forget that with masks there is no limit of what we can become.
If we make time to use our imagination to play with masks, we can actually move into who we really are, not what the world or the culture expects us to be. A mask, if used or played with properly, can help destroy the status quo and the limitations of our identities and inherited roles.
The Role of Masks in Queer Leather History
There is so much to say about the role of the mask in leather history that there wouldn't be enough space in this essay. And when it comes to the history of queer, lesbian, trans and gay leather communities, there's also full tomes of academic and non-fiction to consume to understand it.
But it's also easy to tell this story in broad terms. The use of the mask in BDSM play for queer folks allows us to play with exchanging, obtaining, or giving away our power with the safety of a consensual partner. This is a safe space that is not afforded to us in the systems of the world we live in. But inside the roleplays and dynamics of an SM scene, the powerless can obtain power, and the all too powerful can give theirs away, simply to experience pleasure.
To this day, many groups still label LGBTQ+ people as deviants, and that accusation deepens when they run across superficial depictions of BDSM culture. But the truth is much richer and celebratory than you know. Queer leather and kink communities have resisted fascism and erasure precisely because they foster a safer framework in which to explore who we are. In BDSM play, the mask (or hood) affords anonymity, a way to fully surrender. It affords a type of darkness that is safe, but also thrilling. The mask also allows players to reconsider the narratives that make up their world view, and to some extent, they allow them to destroy or transform identities that are oppressive or no longer serve us. The mask plays an important role in the self development of queer kink practitioners.
The mask is not a requirement for a BDSM dynamic or a scene. But if both partners consent to using as mask as a toy for either the submissive, the dominant, or both, it can begin to unlock whole new realms of understanding and pleasure. And this is the very reason why a bondage leather mask can evoke such feeling of taboo. Because it has a power that can only be accessed by playing with the mask. People can describe to you what it may feel like to wear it, but the story will never compare to the act of actually putting one on and exploring your desires with a healthy partner who engages in power dynamics.
Additional Reading
Wiseman, Jay (1996), SM 101: A Realistic Introduction, Greenery Press.
My Personal Relationship to Masks
It's worth mentioning again that I love masks. I have a hefty collection, most of which are masks that are made of lycra, rubber, leather. You might say they are simply BDSM masks. But they are more than that. Recently, I also reduced my collection by getting rid of my superhero cosplay masks, but over the years I did accumulate many Batman, Spiderman and superhero masks that I used when I published How to Kill a Superhero. But interestingly enough, I outgrew the superhero archetype as a foundational inspiration, and thus I decided to move on from that subset of masks in my collections dedicated to superheroes. What was left was a rich collection of masks in various solid colors, patterns and materials that speak more to who I am now at 51 than who I was at 37, when I started writing the HTKS tetralogy.
At the moment, I continue to explore the symbol and power of the mask through my novel Our Lord of the Flowers and the photo art I publish in my photo galleries and my store. In that sense, my work speaks for itself.
What masks represent for you will be different than what they do for me, but I want to stress that there is an archetypal power and mystery in the mask, one which my ancestors played with for years, and one which I embrace as part of my heritage and also as part of my artistic vision with all my books, photo art and designs. The mask affords us play, and through that free-flowing state, it also brings us the gift of inner, personal power.