Is It, or Isn't It?


it may be fake and or scripted, but its not gay, it has millions of fans worldwide and the main company wwe has the most watched show on cable with its main show raw, so how is that gay? 

You know whats gay ? That fucked up fake wrestling america, thats what I call gay.

I am a wrestler and I have quite a few friends that wrestle too. When we get together, we often end up wrestling. You know, just to dominate. It’s fun. But I have been reading and often when viewing online (youtube) the majority of the comments are gay in nature. I don’t know if these are guys that are just messing around or if they are really gays that think we are gay because of our sport.

I count wrestling, along with boxing, mixed martial arts, bodybuilding, the ballet and modern dance, action and adventure movies, the circus, Christian iconography, and rock and roll, as one of those things that have a particular appeal to many queer men, different from, yet alongside or in addition to, other people's appreciation for the same things.  Like the other activities, it lets homos admire male physical beauty in public--even if the near-nude has to hang on a cross or swing from a trapeze or bleed against the ropes--with, for homosexual men who are still in the closet, the added plausible (though increasingly suspect) deniability that there is nothing overtly "gay" about it.  Like the rest, wrestling often permits a greater freedom of bodily contact between men--and, in the best cases, expresses a certain measure of masculine exhibitionism and transgression suppressed in most other areas of American life.  Gays are by no means united in their appreciation of wrestling, and homoeroticism is not the only pleasure to be gained through participating in or watching wrestling.  But that different sorts of eroticism play a role in all these activities is widely acknowledged--either openly and enthusiastically, as in this blog and others like it, or with a great deal of fretting, tut-tutting, and hand wringing.


Comments

  1. Joe, as always you nailed it square. I like to think of it as "license to pleasure." The pro bouts in small town armories are an escape - the escape? - for the closeted guy who can't or won't head to the nearest city for something else.
    Another note - around July I suggested boycotting homophobic wrestlers. I'm reconsidering. Nothing would piss them off more than to know they have a queer cult following. A huge following. Obviously the radio show caller hit a nerve with A.J. Styles, which is not altogether a bad thing. So let it flow, my bro.
    Finally, a storyline theme you discussed back on Aug. 9 - "for your own good" - is played out beautifully (if simplistically; there was no prior friendship or mentoring going on here from what I can tell) by villainous Derrick Bateman out of Florida Championship Wrestling. Check him out in this match v. Joe Hennig from last March. Damn gorgeous, and totally hate-able. The FCW videos are of good quality so google his name and check out the ones released by that promotion:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJZR9RfVg4Y

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Archive

Show more