…when it all changes…

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I’m just catching up on the new season of Torchwood from the BBC. Just the occasional shot of John Barrowman’s ass walking away would be enough to keep me a loyal viewer. Add to that the love affair between Barrowman and David-Lloyd’s characters (don’t get me started), with lots of snogging, and that just cements it as a gay-fave for me. Imagine my surprise to discover still one more object of my obsession in the first episode of the new season! Rik Makarem totally lit up the screen. Gorgeous face, stunning eyes, and we get just a hint that he is quite a fit young lad. I’m finding scandalously little on this beautiful man, so I’d love some help learning more. His modeling agent gives us the provocative information that he has a 38 inch chest and a 32 inch waist on his 6 foot tall body. That will come in handy should he need to audition in the Producer’s Ring. An interview with the Sunday Mail reveals that he’s also a martial artist, and he’s single. This is just getting better and better. So I now know way too much about this hottie now to know so little. I’m supposing Indian or Pakistani descent? Where are the shirtless photos? Rik Makarem is due for a lot more exposure!

The Art of Gay Wrestling

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I wish that I had talents in graphic arts. I’m so impressed with people with a good eye, particularly those artists who work in the gay wrestling genre. As an adolescent, I tried my hand at drawing the sort of bodies that I found beautiful. I kept notebooks of sketches. Drawing the beautiful men of my imagination became an obsession for a while. The sense of mastery, possession, ownership that came from the act of creating a gorgeous hunk was quite a turn-on. The exercise of posing, displaying, and directing the performance of a lustful work of art was very sexy. I think it’s not far removed from the sexuality of wrestling dominance and submission, to control (and be controlled), to manipulate (and be manipulated), to conquer (and be conquered). Sadly, my adolescent work was crap, and it all got lost at one point or another. Happily, there are more accomplished artists on the net these days producing the work that I only aspired to in my youth. Marc has a wonderful new site for his growing collection of graphic Gay Wrestling Art. The graphic lead for this post (used here with permission from the artist) is one of Marc’s original pieces featuring an unfolding storyline between Superman and Superboy (a subject for a future blog: the subgenre of superhero gay wrestling). As I’ve mentioned before, Savage at Rants Roids & Rasslin’ has a very fun original series of superhero wrestling comics, as well as a group site for several more comic-style wrestling stories. Of course there are the classics, like the Tom of Finland collections, but I particularly appreciate the non-commercial works of sincere artists sharing their talents and inspiring my homoerotic imagination.

Newsboys

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As I’ve mentioned, adoring Chris Cuomo is a morning ritual for me. Last Monday, he bragged about catching a 25 pound fish over the weekend. This image from his Twit shows his shirtless moment of glory. Oh my God. Again, I say, Good Morning America, indeed!!!

Tracking news hunks is a hobby of mine. There are the obviously stunning newsboys, like Cuomo, Lauer, Cooper. There are the slightly less exposed objects of lust, like Marciano, & Engel. One of my wild card favorites is Carter Evans, who appears to be on the payroll at CNN, but also does remote coverage of Wall Street for local affiliates. The emphasis on making newsboys into hunks (vice versa, really), is probably bad news for journalism, but fantastic news for shallow gay men like me that tune in for the beefcake. Since we NEVER see enough of these fine looking men, I’ve written a whole wrestling division devoted just to them in my wrestling fiction.

What Turned Me Gay (again, not really)

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So I definitely knew I enjoyed the look of an athletic male body before I saw my first Soloflex ad, but I believe that original ad campaign was my first introduction to body worship. The original Soloflex boy, Scott Madsen, was stunningly displayed. Clearly, he was featured as an object to be adored, envied, lusted after… The faceless shot of him pulling his t-shirt over his head drew the observer’s attention away from the “person” in the photograph, and instead focused our gaze on the muscles, the bellybutton, the incredibly narrow waist, that one visible nipple. The intent of the photograph is clearly sexually provocative objectivication of the athletic male body. And boy, did I get the message. I remember being a pre-teen getting a hold of a magazine with that ad in it. I studied it. I obsessed over it. I traced it on paper in order to get a sense of the shape and the feel of it. I cut it out of the magazine and treasured it in my dresser drawer. No, the Soloflex ads didn’t “turn me” gay, but they fired up my youthful, lustful imagination. I collected images of beautiful male bodies after that. I practiced (without much success) drawing the male body. Eventually, I graduated to collecting muscle magazines, then later gay porn and wrestling videos. The bodies of lovers always fill me with a sense of awe that not only gets me hot, but also leaves me just a little blissfully lost in the beauty of any fit male form. The classic images from my childhood, like the Soloflex ads, continue to take me back to that wonderful moment of discovery and self-discovery, when I recognized that the male body could enthrall me, entice me, and arouse me.

Domination Fascination

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As one of many gay men who find wrestling a turn on, I ask myself, why? Besides the obvious allure of scantily clad men pressing and grabbing each other’s sweaty bodies (and that would be enough), I think there’s something more about the sexually provocative nature of wrestling for many gay men. Wrestling also plays to the sexuality of power, domination and submission. Perhaps there’s a primal connection between sex and domination, but it plays a special function for gay men, I believe. As the more testosterone-fueled half of the species, men pitting their strength against one another aggressively is probably rooted in evolutionary behavior of male competition for mates. The strongest, fiercest, and dominant males in most species end up passing along their genes as a result of besting other male rivals to claim their sexual prize (typically females). To physically dominate another male is often the immediate precursor to sex. For gay men at this point in the evolutionary stream, perhaps that primal connection between physical competition and the sexual prize is simply translated for many gay men today. We get off not only on the bodies and their proximity, but also on the exchange of power, the domination and submission, and our genetic coding that ties together one man’s domination and another man’s submission to sex. Of course, this little theory may be totally wrong. But I’m certain that there’s more than just hot bodies and groping that makes wrestling a major genre for gay male porn. It certainly gets my blood pumping to see not only hot bodies battling, but one of them controlling, dominating, possessing the other. The cocky stud, the humiliated hunk, one gladiator clearly toying with another… the story itself is incredibly sexy. All the gay wrestling productions work the angle of domination and submission. Though not strictly gay, the French wrestling video company W&L also does a nice job of telling the domination story.

More Moore

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In my frustrating search for more beautiful men of color on the net (and on TV, and in print, and in movies, and on stage…), I wanted to write a little ode to the almost supernaturally beautiful Shemar Moore. Despite a little run-in with the a breath-alizer a few years ago, Shemar seems to garner attention for all the right reasons. He’s been photographed showing off his rippled abs countless times, so he’s clearly not shy about showing what he’s got. And speaking of not being shy, the photos of him naked at the beach probably aren’t exactly the (lack of) coverage that his publicist is working for, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with what Shemar is packing. The way he handled the tabloid photos was classy and body-positive, so more power to him. His denials of being gay also seem quite classy. He’s the total package, so it should be no wonder that Shemar shows up in my celebrity wrestling fiction schooling Ryan Kwanten in the Producer’s Ring. A gorgeous, biracial, body-positive, sexually secure man with a rockin’ body from head to toe!? Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Vintage Wrestling

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“Vintage” wrestling art holds a special place in my heart. The old photos and movies from the dark days of homoerotic suppression capture an amazing slice of history. American obscenity laws around the middle of the 20th century shaped the standards by which men’s bodies could be displayed for the sake of “art.” Videography and photography from early gay “porn” featured men in posing straps, frequently in highly contrived wrestling scenarios clearly intended to display beautiful young male physiques provocatively. Today, the images appear awfully tame, naive even. It’s homoeroticism cloaked in the (barest) pretense of modesty. The scenarios are so melodramatic as to be laughable, non-threatening, even juvenile. But what seems naive from today’s standards landed people in jail under the obscenity laws of the mid-twentieth century. The non-threatening scenarios and strategically covered up men were the flashpoint between a growing homoerotic sensibility and the desperate efforts of the establishment to defend heteronormativity. Although it’s apparently changed corporate hands at least once, AMG (Athletic Model Guild), is still selling the old catalogue and producing some new stuff with a nod to the vintage style. I hear that the 1998 movie Beefcake tells the story of AMG pioneer Bob Mizer (haven’t seen it yet). However far we’ve come in gay liberation and the maturing of the homoerotic and gay porn industry, the classics are still charming, beautiful, and sexy.

Wrestling Ink

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Beautiful tattoos are, of course, in the eye of the beholder. As for me, I enjoy a beautiful, colorful, well-placed tattoo on a gorgeous body. Brazilian model Miro Moreira is a perfect example of a stunning man made even more beautiful by a fantastic (and fantastically placed) tattoo. How can you resist just yanking down his trunks to get a better look at that amazing ink on that beautiful round ass? Wrestling tats are also an entirely subjective matter. Some inked wrestlers, like Can-Am’s Kevin from Muscle Wrestling 1, bring ink to the mat that tells a whole story in and of itself. Wrestling naked with the word “SLAVE” tattooed just above one’s crotch is, undeniably, quite a bit more revealing that nakedness alone would be. Some inked wrestlers, like BG East’s “German stud-god” Wolf Schmidt from Motel Madness U.K. 4, seem to have amazing bodies that get lost behind a bit too much ink. David Taylor, from several recent Can-Am and Jet Set productions, looks absolutely stunning in his very colorful ink. As he grapples, his ink flexes and stretches in an incredibly sexy fashion without hiding anything. Like Moreira, Taylor’s ink is artfully beautiful, provocative, and utterly lickable. Not all tattoos look good on all people, under all circumstances. But when it works, it’s so hot!

What Turned Me Gay (again, not really)

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I was a young adolescent when I first stumbled across the local wrestling show on television. Before there were nationally televised wrestling corporations, before cable television offered endless access to wrestling, I began watching the local wrestling show that came on at 11 p.m. every Saturday night. Just seeing scantily clad men grabbing one another would have likely been enough to cement wrestling in my homoerotic fantasies, but it was, without doubt, the appearance of a young Billy Jack Haynes that filled me with homoerotic awe. Billy Jack was huge, with hairy muscles, a slender waist, and an incredible round ass. Watching a physique like that move around the ring was a thrilling moment of discovery for me. This was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. His story lines worked on multiple levels. He was the perpetual jobber: younger, fitter, clearly more athletic than any of his doughy, bleach-blond opponents, but he typically lost as a result of his opponents’ cheating. The plot always worked for me, in that it made me root for Billy Jack all the more passionately. It cemented in me an investment in seeing the classic good vs. evil battle play itself out every Saturday evening, with Billy Jack as my champion. Of course, on a whole different level, it planted within me the seeds of a wrestling fetishist. I was aroused watching him flex and overpower his physically inferior opponents. His signature move was a standing full-nelson, with Billy Jack thrusting his hips into his opponents’ asses and lifting them off their feet. I was even more aroused witnessing this hairy, sweaty, muscle-bound god being picked apart, dominated, and destroyed, as he usually ended up. Eventually, more hot heroes (and anti-heroes) made their way through the local circuit and into my fantasies, notably including Tommy Zenk, the Dynamite Kid, and Lance Von Erich. Billy Jack did a stint in the WWF, of course, and returned to local productions as a heel, getting older, fatter, uglier. But I credit the image of him as a fierce young jobber as the start of my homoerotic wrestling fantasies.

Jokes and Jocks

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There’s something very sexy about a man who can make you laugh. Those blessed few that combine true comedic gifts with gorgeous looks seem to comprise a fantastic genre in entertainment these days: the funny hunk. Some current favorites of mine in this pantheon of comedy studs include Ryan Reynolds, who just seems to be getting more thickly muscled every day. I have my fingers crossed that his casting in the new Green Lantern movie will include lot’s of skin-tight spandex (which will then be removed). Chris Evans is another funny-man who just seems to ooze sex. When that fantastically hairy torso is bare, it’s hard to actually pay attention to his clever dialogue, but I’m willing to cope with that challenge. And finally, I think Sean Maguire is absolutely stunning. Funny, astonishingly hot, and an English accent?! Good God. I have to agree with SquareHippies‘ assessment that Sean’s is “the face of sex.” Whatever timing, attitude, self-assurance it takes to do comedy well seems to me to translate well to the wrestling ring. The cocky self-possession makes for great characters to battle it out… at least that’s where my imagination takes me. The Producer’s Ring has one hot and sweaty match between Ryan and Chris already, with more comedian hunk appearances on deck.