According to Greek mythology, Narcissus was a devastatingly beautiful and proud mortal man who disdained those who loved him. When Narcissus glimpsed his own reflection in a pool, he was captured by the sight of his own beauty and slowly died unable to tear himself away from adoring his image.
It’s an ancient tale that survives today because it says something that’s timeless. Narcissus is a morality tale, most genuinely, warning against excessive pride and self-worship. On another level, it’s a story about the way things are at the heart of the human condition. We praise beauty. We idolize and idealize the beautiful. We worship beauty, and those in possession of an overabundance of socially reinforced standards of beauty fail to surprise us when they are clearly wrapped up in their worshiping within themselves that which others prize, praise, and worship in them.
Confession: I’m a sucker for a hardbodied narcissist who’s completely in love with himself. Sadly, that’s true in my personal life, but more to the point, it’s definitely true when it comes to the homoerotic wrestling that I dig. Self-worship is a succinct, well-trod tale in the wrestling ring. The opening scene of the narcissist soaking in the gorgeousness of his own reflection sets the table for countless battles. Sometimes the challenger arrives equally as self-adoring, and the match ensues as each adonis defends his claim to embody the pinnacle of beauty. The banter that centers around, “sure, you’re not so bad, but take a look at me!” works to establish the characters, define the terms of the contest, and begs the question of who the objective observer would select as the most beautiful of the beautiful. A delightful alternate ending to this tale is when both beauties are so evenly matched that slowly, eventually, the competition turns into mutual muscle worship.
Sometimes, the narcissist is met by a challenger less concerned with his own self-worship and more incited by contempt to attack and tear down the work of art before him. The battle is its own morality tale, determining the superiority of the aesthete or the athlete. When the phrase “pretty boy” pops up frequently in the ring, we see the psychological struggle to determine who is the superior man: the one with the stunning proportions and classic beauty, or the one built of rougher stuff filled with determination to mess up his opponent’s beautiful face. This story works swinging either direction, as far as I’m concerned. I’m no less a fan of the pretty boy beatdown than I am of the I-told-you-so narcissist victory.
The narcissist in the ring is a character that typically works for me. It’s probably a profound character flaw in me (which would explain a lot of my dating history), that I find a man deeply in love with the sight of his own beautiful body incredibly arousing. Now I’m completely engaged by a muscled stud who poses proudly to awe and intimidate his opponent (and you and me). But the hot side of beef who is stunningly beautiful, knows he’s stunningly beautiful, and just a little awed and aroused by his own stunning beauty, is a character I’m tragically drawn to.
I think it’s no coincidence that both Lon Dumont (my reigning favorite homoerotic wrestler – nonpornboy) and Mr. Joshua Goodman (top contender for Lon’s title) are fantastic self-worshipers. Lon’s compact, competition-ready musclebod is sufficient to give me whiplash, but Lon’s delight in looking at himself propels him to the heights of homoeroticism in my book. Mr. Joshua is probably even more the epitome of the narcissist enamored his own gorgeous, crafted muscles and overabundant endowments. Win or lose, Joshua’s role is the stunning muscle stud who genuinely, passionately adores his own fantastic body and is ready to deploy his painstakingly toned muscles to demand from any opponent their concession to his superior beauty. It’s not hard for me to imagine that when Joshua’s eyes are closed in that moment just before orgasm, the image that fills his imagination is his own classically proportioned naked body.
I believe my pathological arousal for a self-loving hardbody probably also explains why Rafe Sanchez manages to keep rising to the surface of the homoerotic wrestling matches in my cue. Any and every match that I’ve seen with Rafe prominently features a healthy dose of Rafe self-love. Even when his opponent’s engage in Rafe-worship, it seems to only fuel Rafe’s arousal even more as he marvels at every beautiful inch (and he has plenty of inches) of his hot, tight body. And the more Rafe adores his gorgeous proportions and flexed muscles, the more I’m entirely at his mercy.
Even short of full on, characterological narcissism, just a lingering gaze a muscled wrestler gives his body is a major plus in my book. A classic babyface hero who can’t help but pause and marvel at his own massive bicep (Mitch Colby, I’m looking at you) is astonishingly erotic. In fact, I’d say that what gets plenty of people in the world diagnosed with a personality disorder is the very same thing that puts at least 75% of the homoerotic into my favorite homoerotic wrestling. So bring on the self-worshiping body beautiful muscle hunks in awe and obviously aroused by the sight of their own stunning bodies… I just can’t help myself.
Sidelineland 
OK, I'll ask the obvious question: How can you praise everyone from Lex Lugar(!) to Mitch Colby for so proudly being self-worshiping body beautiful muscle hunks, yet completely excoriate Rio Garza (and by extension, anyone who likes his wrestling videos) in the very prior post for doing the same thing? For that matter, while I always enjoy your take and appreciate the effort you put into this blog, and while I don't disagree with any of the examples you cited as instances of the narcisstic hunk and all the different ways that theme can play out in gay wrestling, I think you've missed some even more blatant examples.Troy Baker is/was perhaps the single most blatantly "narcissistic" wrestler anyone's ever promoted. It was a core element of his character. He'd preen and pose before a match even started and, once it did, he'd often do so again, literally distracted by his own image mid-match, often to his own detriment when the guy he had been controlling gets a moment to recover and retaliates. I consider that one of the smartest "gimmicks" anyone's ever had in gay wrestling. After all, what's a gimmick but a hook to keep the viewer engaged, a tool to emphasize a wrestler's strengths and minimize his weaknesses? Troy's strength was obviously his body and his blond, tanned good looks, so flaunting it was virtually required. But his weakness was his lack of blatant skill and ability to suffer and sell vigorously. So, when he inevitably lost the upper hand via strutting his stuff in the mirror, it added to the action, made everything a little more believable.Rio Garza's "Breaking Point" match with Jobe Zander was another twist on the theme. It wasn't so much that Garza was proud and a preening prick; it was that Zander was a big mouth braggart and simply took it personally that Garza was good looking. That the beating that ensued wasn't morally justified actually added to the story and its appeal. After all, what's a heel if not a guy who does bad things without justification or even explanation? As a squash job lover, the best squashes for me are always the ones where some hapless hottie innocently, even naively, steps into the ring with some thug who works him over for no other reason than because he can and there's nobody to stop him.And maybe that's my minor beef with gay wrestling at the moment. It's not that there's a lot of flexing and posing–that's to be expected, even anticipated. It's that it's completely unstructured now. EVERY SINGLE WRESTLER flexes before and after the match, between every fall and even during the action itself. And if any group of wrestlers in particular does it in spades, it's no longer the prettyboys, the guys who were obviously hired for their looks. It's the heels themselves. Nobody poses more in a match than Jonny Firestorm. And it doesn't matter if he's beefy and hairy or lean and ripped. And it doesn't matter if his opponent is a one-timer twink or a mega-hunk who's been in and on the cover of fitness magazines. I don't begrudge him or any heel that moment, but I just wish the powers-that-be would clue in again to posing as part of the story itself.It doesn't enhance a match or make a guy look tougher if he punctuates every moment of offense with flexing. If a guy's dominating, he doesn't need to pose, since the action itself shows off his toughness axiomatically. The ironic result is that most gay matches end up being nothing more than the obviously "hot" guy on his back and forgotten while the less physically beautiful guy gets shot after glamour shot in the foreground. That's why I applaud twists like "Forced to Flex," since it corrects that visual imbalance. Anyway, just a rambling thought…
Hey Josh. You give a lot of food for thought in your comment, so I won't try to respond to all of it (at least not at one time). But two quick points I'd like to make: 1) I don't exactly praise Lex Luger… his pic is in the opst mostly as a nod to his titular character "the narcissist," not because I really think he played the character all that well or provocatively. 2) My beef in my last post about Rio is that he's significantly overexposed, not that he or those who like his work should be excoriated because Rio preens and poses (I don't think I said that at all in my last post). The critical tone of my last post was primarily directed at marketing strategies. If I came across as slamming Rio for playing the narcissist or slamming those who are his many fans for any reason, I clearly didn't communicate my thoughts clearly. Okay, a 3rd and final point is that I TOTALLY agree with your assessment that Troy Baker and many others deserve to be mentioned in a retrospective on narcissism in homoerotic wrestling. If I thought about it more, I'd definitely have added an ode to the arousing narcissism of Troy in the post. Nice catch, and I humbly acknowledge that my shout outs were far from exhaustive or even well-prioritized.
Sometimes Lex did pretty good…one match in particular he had a large mirror at ringside and after beating his opponent, held him up in front of the mirror for some forced posing, trash talk, and general humiliation…for professional wrestling, pretty hot.
Hey guys,I was a little aggressive in my response, Bard. I'd finished a brief earlier and I was still a lil bit in isolate/analyze/attack mode. It's all love, tho–I enjoy reading your blog and your take on this thing we call gay wrestling. In fact, I wonder why so few talk about it when there's so many who get into it.But as far as dwelling goes, I have to admit, I get a little defensive on the hunky wrestler tip, especially when said hunk is taking a beating. Most of the commentary and responses I've seen on the net usually goes into back and forth type matches, especially for "indy" trained wrestlers. I know there are fans of that, and I like it, too. But, still, there's a unique and deep response for me when all the spectre of competition goes out the window and the only drama isn't who wins or loses, but how far the brutality will go and how the hapless hunk quivers and begs and will he survive to wrestle again aspect. I know there's a market for that, in fact, that those matches and workers are pretty much the bread and butter of this industry. But sometimes it just seems I'm the only big mouth out there who just straight up says, Rio/Troy Baker/Brad Rochelle are hot, hot, hot!I'd like to think it's because I'm just so special that I'm into that, but, honestly, it's probably just plain ole nature vs. nurture in action. The first wrestlers I ever noticed and went out of my way to follow were basically good looking guys who didn't get much press or money doing jobs. And I'm not talking about Alex Wright or Tom Zenk–those guys were big names, if certainly not the biggest of their era. I'm talking about the Bob Emorys and Kenny Kendalls. Now and then I'll do a google search to see what became of those guys (and that was quite revelatory), but, mainly, I see it's only gay guys who remember them, because WCW/WWE/straight wrestling fans just didn't respond to their appeal. So, when the audience itself is gay and I see a lot of gushing for guys who do variations of straight wrestling, but don't see similar gushing for the hunk types, I get a little, umm wtf? But I see you've already written a new post that covers the topic, so, onward and upward!