Dar Knows His Audience

An hour ago, eighteen-year-old Scottish wrestler Noam Dar posted this on Facebook:

homosexual status warning!: 4 years ago i started training to become a professional wrestler, 4 years later im still a throbber strawb but have met some amazing people and great friends that i hope will be part of my life for some time to come. I have had some unique experiences that could only have come about with the window lickers i associate myself with. Thanks to the people that deserve gratification and proud to call some of you my best friends. Also quite like wearing spandex feels decent!

Like a lot of Facebook/Twitter  communiques, this one is borderline incoherent. Me, I say things like "yikes," a term my office-mate says makes me sound like one of the Katzenjammer Kids (comics characters whose publication life ran from 1912 to 1949, yes, a bit before even my time), so don't expect me to parse 21st-century teen slang all too well. "Strawb" and "window likker" are politically incorrect terms for people with a disability and (as alluded to in the latter term) ride the "short bus." "Throbber," according to my online sources, is Scottish slang for "contemptible."

But as I try to read between the lines, what young Dar, who is in a relationship with a young woman, seems to affirm is that he appreciates the gay fans drawn to him for his dark sultry looks and the way his nice body fills white spandex, as well as for his ring charisma and wrestling abilities. I only wish more pro wrestlers on both sides of the Atlantic (and Pacific) would affirm openly that they have gay fans and really don't mind sometimes being objectified by women and men alike, without getting all icked out and hoity toity about it (oh dear, I do sound like the Depression-era funny papers).

If I find out different, I'll let you know. But, for now, I'm feeling a little proud of young Dar, who shows a level of acceptance of gays (if not exactly gaining PC votes for understanding disabilities) that is rare in athletics, and all the more appreciated by this particular gay fan of pro wrestling, who often feels that the most likely audience for the spectacle of two fit men bumping up against each other in their underwear is too often the proverbial elephant in the room.