The Simplest Tastes

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.--Oscar Wilde 

I like muscle with a little fat on it, nothing too gelatinous, just some pinchable flesh at the midsection and on the ass. I prefer muscle men when they're hydrated. I don't need to read their musculature like a map or ride it like a rail. I don't know why I'm this way about men. Maybe I prefer men who are equal parts gods and regular guys. Maybe I like bodies that feel comfortable as well as durable and strong. Maybe I don't like the impression that a man is as studied and affected about his appearance as an aging movie siren. What it boils down to for me is that I don't like pretension or things that appear too intentional, worked out, or desperate to impress. That said, I don't like undisciplined and sloppy either.

Show-offy works for me only in small doses. This is how I am about other things, too. I like homes that look neat and clean, yet cozy. They shouldn't perfectly match the architect's presentation drawing. They shouldn't look like museums. In food, I prefer taste over presentation. And I prefer an earnest love song to a smart, clever one. I think moviemakers and novelists should have style and verve without being cutesy or false--unless we're talking about high camp, which I prefer in small doses, too. But on any day I'll take flowery ostentation over a disordered mess that lacks strategy, energy, or intent.

I'm this way about wrestling too. I prefer pro wrestling when it looks most like sport or most like a real fight. I'd rather it not appear too choreographed and decorative. I keep my wrestling and my Cirque du Soleil in separate drawers. Holds and moves should look like fighting tactics, unartful and unavoidable, not as numbers on a playlist. I have a special liking for the last halves of matches, after the hairdos are mussed and the bodies are shiny with sweat, when the moves are slower and the holds are longer, when the wrestlers' faces have gone a little slack after about nine or ten minutes of heavy exertion and high emotion. Sometimes, often, I fast-forward to this part of a fight. It's the part of the fight often described as when the wrestlers are fighting on "instincts alone," yet you and I both know that this is the moment when all their training and preparation are most crucial.

As a number of wrestling bloggers and other fans have said already, vulnerability and power are more interesting when combined. I like beatdowns as the capstones of long events, not from start to finish. I like variety, surprise, and spontaneity, but all that's nothing without discipline and knowhow. Since I'm not a wrestler, when I "wrestle," I basically roll and rub and thrust. It's a mess. Fun to do, because I crave the heat of bodies, the pounding of hearts, and the friction of body against body--but it's not the sort of thing I want to watch other people do. Not for very long, anyway. Since I'm not a wrestling expert (just an enthusiast) and not an industry insider (just an occasional pen-for-hire for wrestling websites), my "reviews" reflect nothing so much as my own erotic tastes. 

Sometimes I'm asked why I don't give bad reviews. In passing, I will at times comment on aspects of a match or wrestler I don't care for, but if I don't mostly like a match or wrestler, I don't blog about it or him. Ringside at Skull Island is about my tastes, my kinks, my experiences in exploring the worlds of wrestling. It doesn't shill for the fine wrestling companies I write about (and sometimes, elsewhere, for). It's not meant to be a marketing tool. If there's a company or a wrestler I don't write about or write about much, it may mean that I don't like the products, but it's just as likely due to unfamiliarity, or lack of access, including not enough money in the bank or time on my hands to diversify my experiences in wrestling entertainment as much as I'd like to. (After the blog was up for a year or so, some companies started sending me free stuff--and I love that--it saves me from writing about my memories of Kevin Von Erich in every posting. But never has any of these companies requested a favorable review in exchange for the disks and downloads they send me, though a couple have asked that I don't post bad reviews, which, as I just noted, I'm not likely to do anyway.)

That said, I am interested in readers' comments, supportive and critical alike. Our differences in taste are what make our own particular tastes a little more fascinating for us. I ask for at least a certain level of propriety and respect, though I'm not thin-skinned or prudish. If the blog lost its readers and commenters, it would be far far less than what it is, whatever that may be construed to be, but I'd probably still blog, for my own amusement, to dissect my peculiar interest in wrestling as sport, spectacle, and (more and more, I'm convinced) totemic ritual. I'm also supportive of my fellow bloggers on the subject of wrestling kink. Our tastes don't always agree, but if we all agreed, there would be no point on our maintaining separate blogs--or having different minds, different senses, different lives.

(Photos taken from a number of different blogs on Tumblr. You can follow my Tumblr blog here. It has nothing original--and, for you non-readers, not a lot of wordy pontificating like the above.)