I’ve been distracted from blogging for a few weeks, and about the time I get back to it, I find Joe announcing that he’s discontinuing posting regularly on his blog, Ringside at Skull Island.  Ringside predates neverland by about half a year, and I’ve often found myself about half a step behind Joe in attending to the hottest and hardest homoerotic wrestling content I can get my hands on.  Joe and I have mused about the abundance of overlap between our homoerotic wrestling kinks, and I’ve enjoyed deconstructing the relatively rare points of divergence in what catches our eyes and turns our cranks. I’m unambivalently sorry to see Joe taking a step back.  And, truth be told, just a little envious.

For almost 6 years, in addition to curiously exploring my own erotic infatuation with wrestling, I’ve also witnessed a gaggle of aspiring wrestling bloggers start-up their own broadcasts.  An elite few fans, and just a couple wrestlers, have kept up the discipline.  As I’ve chided the handsome jobber boy Drake Marcos often, sticking to a commitment to blog about wrestling is way harder than it looks. The most consistent voice on the scene for well over 6 years, however, has been Joe.  From fresh insights on local indy pro finds to classic and contemporary YouTube wrestling matches to the broadest sampling of full-on homoerotic wrestling companies for gay eyes, Ringside has cut the broadest swath through the the most titillating sources of wrestling kink inspiration. Joe’s interviews with wrestlers and producers have been the best. Following his tastes and eye for hot wrestling has introduced me to new outlets, new genres, and new favorites.

Based on Joe’s goodbye, I’m holding out hope that we’ll at least occasionally see new contributions to the wrestling blog world at Ringside, when the muse grabs hold of him by the shorthairs. And I know his words and opinions are sincerely valued by many wrestlers and producers, so perhaps the boys on the business end will tempt more of Joe’s genius out of him.

Although Ringside at Skull Island may be going dormant, clearly it’s premature to be writing an obituary.  As is so often the case, I feel like I know exactly what Joe’s experiencing in saying he’s tuckered out, recognizing himself repeating himself.  I’ve often, and recently, wondered if the same is true for me.  Do I have anything original to say anymore? My moments of getting distracted from keeping neverland updated, I have to admit, often come with a sense of relief from feeling the pressure of putting word to page, looking for an interesting angle to analyze, keeping you provoked, prodded, entertained, inspired.  Google’s nanny-state flirting with turning Blogger into a Disney version of its former frontier days of quirky, kinky self-publishing was exactly what sent me packing up shop and migrating to WordPress over a year ago. If the domestication of homoerotic sensibilities continues to consume us in so many spheres of public and private life, I may also tire out and hang up my commitment to this blog as well someday. For now, I’m sticking it out. And I’m sending my best wishes to Joe and my sincere hope that we’ll continue to hear from him.