2025 was a shit show. And, at the same time, it included some of the most fun and fulfilling things I’ve ever done. Whenever I mention anything even obliquely political, I know that it’s going to grind the gears of some readers. However, after 16 and a half years, it’s still my blog. So, I’m fine to start 2026 shedding some followers who can’t tolerate hearing me say that 2025 seemed to me to be a complete dumpster fire when it comes to free speech, human rights, and the rule of law. Of particular relevance to what I write and obsess about here, the pendulum swing toward sexual repression and desperate conformity aren’t just politically ominous. They’re already having a direct and damaging impact on what has always been at the heart of this blog, namely, the celebration of homoeroticism and, specifically, homoerotic wrestling. It’s chilling, that explicit social project to transport us into a romanticized, puritanical re-imagining of a Reagan/Thatcher/Brezhnev world order (but with internet and social media-supercharged globalization and without the lip-service to democratic idealism). But, then again, my homoerotic wrestling self came of age in 1980s. I’ve witnessed the ways that we endured under the pall of cultural repression, and I honestly don’t think there’s any way to stuff the genie back into the bottle, no matter how much a neo-Falwellian moral minority tries to crawl into bed with the incoming tide of a transparently lascivious cult of personality. The first time around was scary and dark, and we’ve probably got scary and dark times still ahead. But, I believe we’ll march out of this moment in history like we did the first time, chagrined and with a shameful reckoning ahead, but with hard earned victories against provincialism and the persecution of sexual and gender diversity and, let’s face it, sexuality itself.
But, like I said, 2025 had some of the most enjoyable and rewarding moments for me in recent years, as well. My mind is already on WrestleFest NYC again. I’ve got my room booked and bags packed already for next month, but holy hell, WrestleFest NYC 2025 was pretty unbelievably fantastic. I regularly have flashbacks to the kick-off party last year, walking around the bar and feeling like my homoerotic wrestling social media feed had magically materialized in 3D before me. I mean, even if I didn’t recognize dozens of the homoerotic wrestlers I regularly get off to from my Smaug’s treasure of wrestling videos, the eye candy alone at that party, with all of these gorgeous men in singlets (+/-) would’ve been haunting my wet dreams all year long. I might have mentioned before that I chatted with Dio Characi that night, which has got to be near, if not at, my top, brush with fame for 2025. I actually don’t believe I’ve mentioned before that, after we were done talking, Dio turned back to his friends nearby, and I swooned every time his truly magnificent ass incidentally bumped against me in the crowded press of hot horny men packed into that bar. Fuck, 2025 definitely wasn’t all bad.
The WrestleFest NYC Live event was another absolutely spectacular highlight of 2025 for me. It was hot drama, without any effort to disguise that this wrestling show was entirely for gay eyes. It was earnest and larger-than-life in a way that mainstream pro wrestling shows don’t come close to for me. If anything, it was that much better for the authenticity and all-in brilliance of bringing homoerotic wrestling drama into the ring and in front of a sold out crowd with absolutely everyone in attendance being on the page. Sitting in the front row that night was fucking special for me. Not just because it was fun and sexy, but because it was this beautiful crystalizing of a community of us who, I bet, all quietly got off to watching professional wrestling on TV at some point in our lives. I’ve got my ticket to the sold out 2026 show already in hand, and I’m hoping to have another sweaty, nearly naked wrestler/wrestlers fall into my lap again.
Speaking of brushes with fame, I profoundly enjoyed wrestling with Scott Williams again in 2025. I continue to marvel at my life each and every time I stand in front of the Thunder. Talk about homoerotic wrestling fantasies materializing before my eyes… fuck, Scott is literally the fantasy muscle man of my dreams, somehow, improbable yet true, standing in front of me and demanding that I show him just how much my infatuation and fanaticism translate into crushing him into perpetually shocked submission. He confessed to me the last time we scrapped that, a couple of years ago, when we wrestled for the first time, he approached that meet-up in a spirit of “charity,” indulging a fan fantasy just to be generous. He keeps coming back for more, though, which makes me think he’s either the most charitable muscle man on the planet, or he genuinely looks forward to trying to earn back that Thunder cred he spends down every time I wring a submission out of him.
Another truly gratifying adventure in 2025 was finally launching a creative collaboration between me and my best buddy, AR. We’ve been writing and creating homoerotic wrestling fiction together almost daily for years now, and we’ve been discussing the possibility of formally sharing some of the art we co-create with other homoerotic wrestling fans. The precise recipe of our written narrative and AR’s gorgeous graphic art bakes up something that feels both entirely novel and thoroughly familiar to a homoerotic wrestling sensibility. In May, we began taking subscriptions for our original homoerotic wrestling serial, Heels & Heroes, an erotic pro wrestling fantasy told in entirely original graphics and text. We launched a roughed-out version of our vision directly on Patreon, and then an amazingly talented and generous subscriber and friend, JoseSustanciaP, constructed a stand-alone site for us to have even more creative freedom to build the Heels & Heroes universe. It was something I was genuinely proud of, not only because I love the quality and integrity of the content, but because it reflected this wonderful synergy that I enjoy so much with AR.
Much less satisfying, and much more in keeping with the zeitgeist of 2025, was what happened next with Heels & Heroes. After posting weekly updates for more than six months, we were nearly at the climactic end of the initial story arc, encompassing seven chapters centered on a traveling big-time international professional wrestling fed putting on televised wrestling shows down the U.S. East Coast… when abruptly, Patreon deleted our account and confiscated the $1,000 we’d earned through subscriptions thus far. This was as completely unexpected and out of the blue as it sounds. In a truly Orwellian turn emblematic of 2025, Patreon publicly announced one day in November that they had revised their community standards, and a day later, our account was deleted and all evidence of having every existed scrubbed from their platform. I hope that subscribers were, in fact, reimbursed for all of the money that they invested in Heels & Heroes, as Patreon implied they would. AR and I are deciding how to finish the final chapter of Heels & Heroes for fans to enjoy, while we consider the realities of a world in which censorship and gaslighting are increasingly mobilized to pretend that homoeroticism does not, and never did, exist. And doesn’t that just sum up a whole lot about the end of 2025 for all of us?
I’m still way bitter about how things played out with Patreon, but almost two months later, I’m more philosophical about it. This whole debacle happened literally at the same time that Can-Am was announcing they were closing business because of the patchwork of U.S. states who have enacted laws trying to outlaw internet pornography. These anti-pornography laws have been buoyed by the political tide of a head of state famous for (among other things) asserting that men with enough celebrity star power are entitled to grab women by the genitalia. Companies like Patreon, as well as purveyors of homoerotic content like Can-Am that we take for granted, are cracking down as the end result of a concerted effort to protect the sensibilities of a moral minority that’s gunning for much more than just pornography. They’re out to construct a world in which sexual and gender minorities and the celebration of eroticism don’t exist, or, let’s be honest, they’ll exist only behind closed doors and mostly for the benefit of those with sociocultural capital to keep themselves and their desires hidden. As we come to the close of 2025, I finally get all the romanticism about “the way things were” and hearkening back to a pre-internet, pre-social media world dominated by a U.S. president who refused to acknowledge the existence of AIDS, much less truly mobilize resources to fight the epidemic, because it was (mis-)understood to be “just a gay disease.” Yeah, it’s no coincidence that the puritanically romanticized re-imagining of the world they want to drag us into was in its hey day right around 1984.
Oh, wait. Did I get political again? Honestly, if you don’t recognize that your life, your passion, your homoerotic wrestling kink, your sexuality, and your very existence are political, you should should probably wake up right about now. Wake up. Act up. Keep yourself safe, but recognize that this is a shit show. New players. New technology. But this is a shit show we’ve seen before. And, while far from everyone survived the 80’s the first time, yet, we endured. So, join me in making a commitment to celebrate homoerotic wrestling in 2026. Not because someone else has given you permission to, but because we are fierce and beautiful and defiant and passionate, and we will continue to endure.
Sidelineland 