How a brutally tortured 3rd-Century saint became a gay icon

Because Sebastian’s gay icon status is so layered and deep-rooted, it has also proved malleable. At the height of the HIV/Aids epidemic in the 1980s and early ’90s, his image was referenced in works by contemporary artists including Keith Haring and David Wojnarowicz, both of whom would die of the disease. In medieval times, Sebastian was perceived as a saint who could protect people from the plague, perhaps because of the way Irene was able to heal his arrow wounds. “There are clear parallels with the way he is embraced in the 1980s, during a very different plague, when depictions of Sebastian herald him as a kind of patron saint of queerness, sickness and perseverance,” Fountain says.