Kid
A great little tirade in 1998's The Opposite of Sex nicely parallels my feelings about a recent debate on BGE's group message board, about whether Kid Leopard and some of the other veteran wrestlers at BG East, for instance, should just hang up their Speedos and retire for good, never to be seen or heard from again. The tirade, delivered while twisting a young queer boy's nipple ring, goes something like this:
Listen to me, you little grunge faggot. I survived my family, my schoolyard, every Republican, every other Democrat, Anita Bryant, the Pope, the fucking Christian Coalition, not to mention a real son of a bitch of a virus, in case you haven't noticed. In all that time since Paul Lynde and Truman Capote were the only fairies in America, I've been busting my ass so that you'd be able to do what you wanted with yours! So I don't just want your obedience right now--which I do want and plenty of it--but I want your fucking gratitude, right fucking now, or you're going to be looking down a long road for your nipple in the dirt. Do you hear what I'm saying?
What some of the under-35 kinksters out there sometimes forget is that what Leopard, Vicious, Sterling, Conlin, Dean, Perris, and others did a few decades ago (pre-HDTV, pre-QuickTime), VHS tapes of homoerotically charged wrestling shipped through the post office, was not only important in a fuzzy-focused, grainy history-in-the-making sort of way, but also fucking hot by anybody's standards. And a few of us are still alive (by cracky) for whom these wrestlers are better than 65% of today's contestants, not just because they remind us of our golden youth, but mostly because they make us clench up tight, shiver all over, and shoot loads of junk at the drywall.
The pioneering work of KL and others of that era remains some of the hottest, most erotic entertainment I can imagine. I don't enjoy every one of his matches, but I enjoy enough of them that he's earned my admiration and respect over a very long period. If anyone doesn't want to see his matches, they don't have to buy them. Simple as that.
ReplyDeleteI'm one of those under-35 "kinksters" you mention as being generally unaware of history. I actually agree that most people honestly don't care about such things so long as what they see now appeals to them. In fact, I'd even say that a lot of over 35 y.o. guys are just as dismissive. It's kind of like eating in a fancy restaurant: most folks only care of their steak tastes good and could give a fuck about the chef's training and planning and all the trial and error that taught him all the ratios and temperature controls and seasoning that enabled him to make the entree in the first place.
ReplyDeleteBut here's my irritating twist. As much as I admire and appreciate history and evolution, there's a substantial proportion of you "older" guys who get astoundingly arrogant and dismissive of anyone who doesn't share your precise experiences and observations. Pro wrestling didn't peak in 1960 or 70. It didn't even peak when I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s when i was getting into wrestling. The way wrestlers dressed then isn't the ultimate look. The stories they told weren't the pinnacle of imagination. And the types of guys weren't the sum total of all possibilities.
Pro wrestling is about evolution, recognizing what's provocative at a precise moment and hoping/planning/praying that what any one company puts out connects with enough people who'll pay to see it to make it possible to try again next time. I've seen a ton of guys, mostly older, who'll bitch and moan when some new "kid" who happens to have a really hot bod dared to wrestle in a bikini or a thong or anything but straight up (no pun intended) high-waisted trunks, knee pads and boots. And that drives me up a wall not only because, hell, we're gay and a nice body should be an asset, but because the only reason wrestlers dressed like that back in the day is because it's what people responded to and the censors allowed.
I think it's all about balance, respect for the past AND respect for the proverbial now. I personally enjoy a lot of past wrestlers along with new ones. I also enjoyed a lot of the range of types and archetypes from back in the day. I'd like to see all of those things integrated into new tapes in the future. I mean, am I the only gay wrestling fan who thinks the idea of some 50-ish guy dressed in old-school gear vs. some cocky new upstart with a hot bod dressed in a 2(x)ist jock and baby oil sounds like a perfect set-up for a new match? Well, maybe I am. Anyway, and even though I know it won't be popular, but I have to say in closing that it's not so much younger guys who are judgmental and dismissive as much as it's you "older" guys who act like anything but your own specific tastes are the only things that deserve attention. For every one comment I've seen online about someone needing to "hang it up" (which doesn't actually mean the speaker is himself younger than his target), I've seen 10 from guys complaining about someone new not conforming to some past era of wrestling.
And one last (annoying) thing. "The Opposite of Sex" is one of my favorite movies, too, and I love that speech you referenced, which was so awesome in it's context precisely because the young guy who deserved the rebuke wasn't being young so much as cocky and dumb and, honestly, more than a little defensive cuz at that moment he was desperately hoping to hang on to the guy he was dating who happened to be the ex of the "older" guy putting him in his well deserved place.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, as much shit as prior generations of gay men (hell, gay people! let alone the transgendered) had to put up with and as much as there are more outlets and the internet and 18-24 y.o. demographics who, according to polls, are more likely to be supportive of gay marriage and such, the unfortunate reality is younger gay people still catch hell.
The internet is a good outlet; few gay guys can grow up now thinking that they're the "only" ones like even a couple of decades ago. The thing is, doubt, loneliness and self-loathing are immune to external outlets and turn on where a kid is in the moment, how he's raised, what he sees in his own life and his own opportunities. So, fellow man-lovers (lol), let us not get too smug in our own triumphs and transcendent accomplishments. As much as one can rightfully argue that what he suffered was worse than what later folk did, there's no real hierarchy of such things. I think the last few weeks of what we've seen on the news attests to that.
I love Paul Perris!!!! Most sexy in Can Am to me!
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