A Side of Wrestling

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Another “wrestling on the side” type of video, PowerMen.com has taken some notable stabs at the wrestling genre. In honor of a recent three-way match I just posted to my gay celebrity wrestling fiction group, I thought I’d give a shout out to one of the three-way wrestling (and workout, and worship, and boxing) vids publicly accessible. These fellows have a little more of a roid look than I generally get into, but there’s something endearing about the way that they try to maneuver their overly muscled bodies around in an attempt to grapple. The big guy clearly has no stamina whatsoever, but the boy in blue has some impressive flexibility for being so musclebound. They’re clearly more into being worshipped than in the wrestling, though, as they frequently get distracted with posing, licking their biceps, comparing physiques. In another stab at a wrestling-ish vid, PowerMen constructed the story of two swollen Eastern European muscle heads, squeezed into painted-on jeans over thongs, who get drunk, go back to their hotel room, and inexplicably start to grapple after comparing physiques. Once again, the models are a little more roided out than I typically enjoy and the wrestling is weak, but their commitment to the drunken straight-boys-go-gay storyline is pretty adorable. PowerMen.com hasn’t produced the most entertaining gay wrestling matches, but still, they get a “B-” for effort, in my book.

What Turned Me Gay (again, not really)

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It hardly needs mentioning that Steve Reeves must bear some of the responsibility for turning me and at least a couple generations of us gay. In my childhood, Hercules movies ran and re-ran on television on Saturday afternoons (often alternating with the aforementioned Tarzan flicks). Of course Hercules was also portrayed by actors other than Reeves, such as the very memorable Three Stooges Meets Hercules.

But it was Reeves’ ridiculously handsome face and dizzyingly, perfectly muscled body that fueled some of my earliest sexual fantasies. His torso was almost always bare and oiled up. By definition, he was perpetually engaged in grunting tests of strength. And, the coup de gras, he almost invariably wrestled in every movie. Watching Hercules grappling, dominating, and possessing his opponents must get a great deal of the credit for my lifelong obsession with wrestling body-beautifuls. In Hercules Unchained, Reeves fights an extended battle with the pro-wrestler Primo Carnera. Hercules is such a dismissively cocky heel in this scene! Bearhugs, full nelsons, cocky carries… all seeds planted in the fertile imagination of a gay boy.
In addition to cementing the homoerotic images of wrestling, Reeves’ Hercules also taught me the joys of body worship. In the 1959 Hercules, beautiful but lesser young men literally throw themselves at Hercules in adoration. As Hercules watches perched on a rock above, soldiers in training spar and exhibit their feats of strength and athletic prowess (9:14) in an effort to catch Hercules’ eye. One elder observes that the young men “have all become fanatics since Hercules arrived” (9:41) . The one eager young man who pole vaults up to Hercules’ perch (0:06) is clearly in love, desperate to worship at the feet of the bodybuilder demigod. “I wanted you to notice me!” he says passionately (0:20), despite his father’s disapproval. Like the good muscle Daddy, Hercules both disciplines and encourages the young cub who offers himself to the son of Zeus. In the sequel Hercules Unchained, as Ulysses tries to convince the amnesiac Hercules who he is, Hercules strips his torso bare and stretches across a table for an oil massage. Lustful body worship, infatuation with the cocky muscle stud, the eager bottom offering himself to the dominant top, the passion of sweaty, body-to-body wrestling… all the wonderful lessons that Hercules taught me as a gay boy.

The Wrestling Voyeur

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Wrestling commentators can make a match distinctly sexy. Of course, there are the loudmouth commentators who pump their own storyline and serve little purpose other than to distract from the action in the ring. But the commentator doing his job, commenting, describing in detail, focused intently, can kick up the sexiness. The role of the commentator is by default the perspective of the voyeur. He observes the muscled fighters from a distance, uninvolved directly in the action. He’s like the guy in the shadows, the third man who gets off on sitting in the corner of the room watching two others go at it. He has the ability to heighten the sexuality for all involved, appreciating the details, bringing the bird’s eye view of the intimate moment that the two grapplers themselves are too close to perceive. The British commentator for this old match from the UK is clearly engaged in some spontaneous body worship of the very hotly muscled Japanese wrestler, Fuji Yamada. “13 and a half stone of solid muscle,” (07:05) is both true and perhaps a little gratuitous. One might think that the commentator is drawn to note Yamada’s muscles in comparison to his scrawny, ugly Brit opponent. But then in a moment of watching Yamada just circling the ring, the commentator sounds almost beside himself, noting from out of the blue, “the musculature there… look, just look at the body on that Japanese guy!” (00:15). Of course, we were already looking! But the excitement from the voyeur on the sidelines publicly confirms what we’ve privately recognized. This is a body to be marveled at, remarked upon, admired and worshipped.


Heck, just the written descriptions of matches from some of the gay wrestling companies like BG East, BG Wrestling, and Can-Am make even more erotic the visual images of hot bodies grappling. Not that anybody needs any more inspiration than Tyrell Tomsen’s stunningly naked body bearhugging his totally outclassed opponent, but BG East’s write-up of Strip Stakes 1 is hot voyeurism:
  • “Chiseled slabs tense and ripple in high relief as he flexes in a self-indulgent display that will thrill muscle marks and even entrances the cameraman, who can’t tear himself away as The Arena door opens and Tyrell’s opponent enters.”
Its the color commentary, the perspective from voyeur sitting in the shadows in the corner, watching and worshipping, that helps to turn the concept of competitive violence into homoeroticism.

John Savage’s bouts in Arena Island Celebrity Wrestling (get there via Rants Roids n Rasslin if he’s taking new members) do a nice job with celebrity “color commentary,” bringing both humor and a distinctly voyeuristic sexiness to the wrestling happening in the ring. In my own homoerotic wrestling fiction in the Producer’s Ring, I think I see my narrative as the view of the voyeur, the third-person color commentator. Perhaps it would be sexy to try to out the character of an actual commentator at some point.

Silver Lining

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As I’ve mentioned, mixed martial arts don’t generally do it for me. For one thing, Joe Rogan creeps me out for some reason (the ink, the body, the grappling… you’d figure I’d be all over that). And there’s Dana White’s, “oops, sorry for saying ‘faggot.'” If the whole genre, from top to bottom, didn’t seem to be overcompensating for sexual insecurities, this would be much more of a gay destination sport (which would send the bi-curious self-haters running, but would make them much more money). But I do appreciate an astonishingly hot body, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter and coach Pablo Popovitch is dizzyingly hot. Seriously, now, look at that body move. Now that puts the “art” in martial arts. I don’t know about his sexual orientation or how secure he feels in his sexuality, but he really has no choice in the matter: he might as well just sit back and be worshipped!

Forecast: Hot

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Hooray once again for studly newsmen publishing photos of themselves shirtless! Rob Marciano is the beautiful weatherman from CNN with a big internet fan following. A series of artsy-model photos shows that Rob’s looks have long been identified as a key asset he brings to his broadcasts. He’s got a sexy deep voice, a sense of humor that frequently cracks up his anchors, and as is apparent from his beach photo, a very nice body.

My gay wrestling fiction prominently features Marciano in the first series of matches that I wrote for the Producer’s Ring. I’m guessing that he’ll make future appearances in The News Division, perhaps in an intramural CNN weatherman-match against their international weatherman Guillermo Arduino.

The Body Block and the Bassist

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Is it wrong for a gay man to get turned on by a television program targeted at children? No, I’m not talking about my lustful appreciation of Sportacus from Lazytown, or the nerdy, yet oddly hot brothers from Kratts’ Creatures (though I could be). I’m actually thinking of the very short-lived Saturday morning live-action wrestling-themed program, Los Luchadores. It should come as no surprise that in 2001 my alarm clock was set for 7:30 Saturday mornings to see this fantastically tragic, sexy, dorky trainwreck. It was a supercamp, superhero wrestling story. Think Batman/Robin meet the WWF, with a script written by a Power Ranger. The Argentine slab of meat, Maximo Morrone first caught my eye as Lobo Fuerte, a tag-team professional wrestler by day, and a superhero crime fighter the rest of the time.

I was initially uncertain whether I could, with a clear conscience, lust after Lobo Fuerte’s youthful ward and tag team partner, Turbine. Played by Levi James, I believe he was supposed to be an impetuous, overenthusiastic, somewhat clumsy and naive adolescent. I was SO relieved to discover that James was 22 when the series came out, so checking out is hot little bod in wrestling tights seemed okay at the point. When the series ended, I was sorely disappointed, but not surprised. James carried the show as the every-boy, hero-worshipping, superhero in training, over-the-top cheese-factory. But Morrone was all body, no chemistry, and the scripts really were stolen from the most inane Power Ranger’s episodes.

Now, I think I’m connecting the dots correctly, when I say what a fun thrill it was to stumble across Levi James playing bass and managing his rock band, Irreverents, in his hometown of Vancouver, BC. I think he’s about 30 years old now, and my…. oh…. my, he grew up nice. He’s making a go of his band, pimping himself out for modeling jobs, and keeping a toe in the acting world all at the same time. He’s made some guest appearances on a few series, but hasn’t gotten a hold of anything big. But I am officially beginning my campaign to get this man more exposure. Look at the guns on him!
Holy hell. His shirtless pics on stage are insurance that I will ceaselessly track down the Irreverents every time I’m in Vancouver, from now on (oh, yeah, they’ve got a great sound!). Casting directors take note: hire this man now. I will personally make sure that every gay man on the west coast will pay money to see him, preferably shirtless. Perhaps he won’t be doing anymore wrestling. In fact, I suspect if he were ever to make it big, Jay Leno would interview him and play a clip from Los Luchadores to embarrass him (that asshole, Leno). But as for me, I became a hardcore fan of whatever he does from that first moment I saw him in his red tights get whipped into the ring ropes and fly through the air for a crossbody block. Rock on, Levi!

A Side of Wrestling

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Some of my favorite gay wrestling porn is from porn companies that don’t specialize in wrestling. Perhaps one-shot wrestling products like Randy Blue’s bout with Chris Rockway and Reese Rideout are enjoyable because of the genre crossing. These guys clearly aren’t wrestlers, or actors for that matter. But they’re gorgeous, campy, and fuck like pros (okay, that they are). They don’t even pretend that this is anything other than over-the-top, which has a distinct charm all its own. And speaking of charm, Rockway and Rideout are charmers. I got sucked into a Randy Blue subscription for a while (mostly to check out the uncensored wrestling bout), and most of these performers’ work is not only incredibly hot (have I managed to control myself from mentioning Reese Rideout’s dizzyingly gorgeous ass this long!?), but they both have a nice presence on camera. So I guess they are pretty good actors after all, I suppose.

The Price of Wrestling Porn

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I haven’t taken a poll, or anything, but I imagine that I support the gay porn industry just as much as the next man. I have friends whose video and DVD collections require whole rooms to house, so by comparison I don’t think that I qualify as a “fanatic” really. But I have my own little treasure in my closet, and I pitch in for a couple recurring subscriptions here and there. My porn fix is managed, and I don’t intend on increasing my tithe to the industry, particularly in these tough times.

Then along comes a nicely packaged new site that completely grabs my attention. YouTube teasers for Naked Kombat look promising. The website is attractive, the teasers are sexy, and the backstories (complete with transparent “rules“) add a nice touch to the homoeroticism. The wrestlers appear to be, on average, perhaps a little hotter than other wrestling video products. But the subscription price is premium, significantly higher than other gay wrestling companies. Also some of their links to other “kink” sites that they produce take me to shots of women, which I find immediately… deflating. What to do. What to do.
As I take shopping for porn way too seriously, it makes me think of the harsh backdrop that I paint when I write my wrestling fiction. When I started writing the Producer’s Ring, I conceived of the setting for my homoerotic celebrity wrestling fiction as an alternate world where the entertainment industry has become the basis for political and economic order, where everything and everyone is a commodity, where capitalism has run amok and marketing and profits are the first and last word in political dominance. This alternate reality seems ripe with possibilities for gay wrestling fiction, but I really don’t want the reality that I live in to actually drift that direction. Where more and more of our lives are given a price tag, I hope that we continue to work into the calculus the pricelessness of imagination, romanticism, justice and humanity.

Masked Muscle-Gods

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Why is it that masks can make a wrestling match that much sexier? On the one hand, there’s less of the athlete to see, and that seems like it would always be a bad thing. Yet masks on hot, hardbody wrestlers kick it up a notch for me. The history of Mexican masked wrestlers suggests that they harken back and somehow access the mystery and power of pre-Christian heroic gods (which is starting to sound hot). The unmasking of a pro-style wrestler is portrayed as stripping him of his power, laying him out entirely vulnerable (which sounds even hotter!). Masks are frequently worked into a thematic costume, which can be hot or distinctly not hot, depending. This guy could go either way, I think.

But for gay wrestling, or wrestling through the gay eye, I think the mask is more overtly sexualized. The hidden identity of the muscle-god who bares his body and pounds against another man seems to me to touch on the empowered oppressed seeking sexual liberation…. Okay, that may be a stretch, but you cannot tell that Marcus Bagwell wrestling as the Handsome Stranger wasn’t overtly a sexual object, employing his gorgeous body in the ring to dominate his opponent and then stepping outside the ring to be worshipped by fans reaching out to touch his muscles. And returning to that image of the self-empowered oppressed seeking sexual liberation, masks on the internet have become a device for sexual self-expression and body worship. Seemingly ironically, there are plenty of men ready to expose every other inch of their body in classic exhibitionism, behind the cloaked modesty and anonymity of a masked face. This impressively tooled hardbody on xTube hardly needs to be ashamed of his body, but perhaps it is precisely the mask that empowers him to stroke his cock and spank his ass for millions to see (okay, perhaps spanking his ass like that might be shame-appropriate, but I forgive him because of how enthusiastically he spanks his very beautiful monkey!).
I think that BG East has done some nice work with the sexualization of the masked wrestler. The Enforcer beating Brad Rochelle combines the sexy mysteriousness of a masked muscle-stud with the fantastic suffering of an astonishingly flexible jobber (later turned heel). The Enforcer’s return match against an oddly familiar Blueboy seals the deal of linking the mask to sex. Blueboy nearly conquers the clearly dominant Enforcer by applying strategic liplocks and grinding pelvises. But in the end, the dominant wrestler unmasks his prey, bringing us full circle to the frighteningly heroic muscle-god beating the mere mortal into submission and claiming his victorious prize.

My gay wrestling fiction is celebrity-based, so masks have seemed out of keeping with the genre. But as I mull over the masked muscle-wrestler motif, I’m thinking that it could be a very fun storyline to work in masks, unmasking, and the sexual domination of muscled talent in the wrestling ring.

What Turned Me Gay (again, not really)

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If I wasn’t gay before I saw my first Tarzan movie (I was), surely that would have put me over the top. As a kid, the old Tarzan movies ran on Saturday afternoons. It was another genre within my pre-porn collection. I always hoped for the house to be empty when I could sit in front of the TV and enjoy a private moment with the Edgard Rice Burroughs‘ character. I became somewhat of the connoisseur of Tarzans by the time I was an adolescent. Buster Crabbeplayed the part around the same time as the more popular Johnny Weissmuller, but for my money, Crabbe’s Tarzan was far sexier and more entertaining. Denny Miller’s sole project as the “ape man” was memorable… well, Miller in a loincloth was memorable. When I first saw a Mike Henry portrayal of Tarzan, I was instantly in love. Henry played a more “intellectual” jungle man, but his loin cloth was astonishingly brief, his muscled legs were stunningly long, and his hairy torso was incredibly hot. But I believe my favorite and most lusted-after Tarzan had to be Gordon Scott. He didn’t have quite the hard body that Henry had, but there were more than occasional bare-ass shots as Scott’s loin cloth rode up his crack. He perhaps wasn’t quite as handsome as Crabbe, in my book, but he was totally adorable. Although bondage and wrestling seem to have been regularly occurring themes in many of the Tarzan movies, the image of Scott captured and bound is seared in my memory and cherished in my mental collection of homoerotic images. Of course much later portrayals of Tarzan featured gorgeous boys. O’Keefe’s wrestling scene in the 1981 Bo Derek movie can still inspire a hands-free orgasm for me most days.
Two things I have to mention looking back on my early education in homoeroticism worshiping at the feet of Tarzan. First, the whole concept of the man raised as an animal without the inhibitions of “civilized” propriety was all one HUGE metaphor for male sexuality. So who could be surprised that a gay kid like me would be instantly aroused. He was the totally sexualized man, perfectly matched to the hormone-saturated, pre-adolescent gay boy. Second, as a white, gay kid, I marvel today at the (terrible) lessons that those movies taught me about race. Although the villains were often also white (poachers, usually), there were almost always “primitive,” cannibalistic, violent, terrifying black African characters who Tarzan, the great white champion, had to conquer. White women were invariably threatened by horrific (and actually quite hot) dark-skinned menaces who might be about to eat them, rape them, or enslave them. Decades later, I think I’m still trying to live down those early racist lessons.