Dakota

More navel gazing.  Today I'm going to scratch a little deeper into my tastes in men and wrestlers.  I've said it before that "wrestlability," if I can mint a word, is and has long been Item Number 1 on my criteria for male attractiveness.  In my private language, "I'd fight him" equals "I'd tap that."  In a real sense it is the only criterion, but this sense unfortunately drains the word of a good deal of definition.  (It's indefinite and inconsistent for a purpose, though, so that it can cover a fairly large field of body and personality types--from slim to bulky, from quiet to cocky--and do nothing to explain why I am not then attracted to plenty of other capable wrestlers, for either fucking or fighting.)  

In me, hostility and intimacy are closely aligned--a synthesis one might label (if he were of a mind to go on minting words) "intimical."  I am consistently drawn to men I can imagine generating a certain degree of hostility towards.  By most standards of decency and normalcy I am a sick puppy.  Trust me, I came to terms with this decades ago.

Right now I'm thinking of Florida Underground Wrestling star Dakota Darsow.  He is not GQ handsome.  In fact, a good many of you probably do not find him handsome at all.  But then my tastes sometimes run against the grain--favoring raven-haired over blond, strapping over svelte, callous over nice, cold over soulful, tough over well defined.  This is not to say he lacks conventional charms--youth, a full head of hair, an attractive smile, a fit physique, the face of somebody smarter and wittier than average.  It is also not to say that he is pointedly unattractive.  Whether you like the type or not, you would probably crane your head to catch a glimpse, if this guy ever walked into your favorite bar.  

What I like about him and others like him can be reduced to eight basic traits, which we'll take now as a first step towards defining "wrestlable" (or "intimical," your choice):  

• he looks like he can take his lumps, without boohooing all night about it; 
• he looks like somebody with whom I could settle my differences efficiently, without having to have a long Oprah-style powwow picking over our feelings; 
• he looks like he could deliver a bearhug I could actually feel (ditto: a bodyslam); 
• that square jaw looks like it could take a good punch; 
• he looks like the sort of guy I would want at my side should I ever be ambushed in a dark alley;
• he looks like the sort of guy I would pick to ambush me in a dark alley; 
• he looks like he can tell a funny story, rude and dirty as hell; and
• he doesn't look like somebody who would talk my ears off over prime real estate or the devastating profiteroles at Chez Panisse.