Tag: David Gandy

Year in Review – 3rd Favorite Moment of 2011

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Every so often, I take heat for the opinions I express here at neverland. Most of you fine readers, even when you disagree with me, demonstrate class and grace in pointing out where you believe I’ve missed the mark in identifying the hottest trending homoerotic wrestling. Every so often, however, I’ve been accused of a variety of insidious, irrational vendettas against one wrestler or another, or one match or another, because I didn’t show it the proper respect in the pages of this blog. On just a few, rare occasions, the criticisms have veered toward personal attacks, questioning my integrity, sanity, or intelligence. In late spring of this year, I polled a few of my fellow homoerotic wrestling bloggers to discover that I’m not alone in this experience. So in response, I began collecting testimonials from bloggers and regular commenters, exploring what should be the most intriguing and delightful part of wrestling kink sensibilities: our diverse tastes.

JoFX is right up Joe’s alley

Posting the “Diverse Tastes” series this summer was most definitely one of the top highlights of my year. As I suspected would happen, posing the simple, straightforward question “what turns you on?” sparked a beautiful variety of responses from the assembled voices. Joe at Ringside at Skull Island kicked the series off with interests ranging from Mighty Mouse to Stoney Hooker to just about any tall, dark Italian with a pronounced adam’s apple, a slightly convex and strong belly, hairy chest, small ears and big nose.

Randy Orton makes SP feel randy.

Regular commenter and, since then, fellow homoerotic wrestling blogger Stay Puft followed up with an erotic taste range that still makes me gasp. Where Joe drilled right down to the prototypical object of his lusts (acknowledging that he’s fickle and refuses to be pinned down… unless you earn it), SP’s tastes stretch from TNA Wrestling’s Daffney to Jamie Scott of Grafitti6 to Kate Beckinsale to Big Rob Terry. What readers of SP’s blog, Inner Jobber, will quickly point out is that while variety is clearly the spice of SP’s life, he’s got a special place for a certain Randy wrestler fantasy man.

Pablo Martin has a big hunk of wood between his thighs!

Bruno of Beefcakes of Wrestling offered a contribution to the series that introduced me to instant infatuations in the form of Spanish language soap hunks William Levy and Pablo Martin. This is what I love about lots of eyes on the prize in homoerotic wrestling! Without the discussion, the mutual respect and the genuine interest, I might never have “come across” smoldering William and Pablo. On my to-do list for 2012 is to introduce these two hunks to the brutal world of the Producer’s Ring!

Dante Rosetti demonstrates exactly what AH likes to see.

And yet again, regular reader and commenter AH contributed to the series from an entirely different angle. For AH, the question focused him on the particular hold that makes homoerotic wrestling the tastiest for him: the slow, withering sleeper. The drama of the sleeper touches the core of AH, as the crowd watches a muscled warrior get the consciousness squeezed out of him like juicing a lemon… the ref raises a hand that drops limply to the mat… the victim’s eyes flutter as he’s held upright entirely at the mercy of the man with the bicep pressed against his carotid.

Fashion models David Gandy and Noah Mills star
in Metellus’ and my homoerotic wrestling imaginations.

Co-author and commenter Metellus added to the series with some specific recommendations of wrestlers that he likes, with a common theme of nice bodies, nice faces, wearing trunks and jobbing. Metellus also raised the topic of media, noting the particular allure of homoerotic wrestling fiction in his repertoire of wrestling kink delivery for its capacity to incite his imagination to go where live action has yet to take him.

Cage Thunder relishes “the turning point.”

Wrestling stud, Cage Thunder who journals online about homoerotic wrestling, succeeded in yet again stroking my wrestling fantasies with his contribution to the series in which he focuses much less on the body or the hold, but the attitude and the moment in a match that send him over the edge. Cage Thunder keys in on the moment when the tide has once and for all turned, that point in the match when one wrestler has built up just too much momentum to be denied, when there’s more wrestling to happen, but it’s icing on the domination cake from that point forward.

Choices, choices, choices…

The final installment of the Diverse Tastes Guest Series came from the wicked sharp insight and creative mind of blogger Manof1000Holds, the author of Wrestling Arsenal. Having been at this homoerotic wrestling blogging longer than most (all?), Manof1000Holds knew exactly what I was talking about from around 5 seconds into my explanation of the concept of the Diverse Tastes series. And like a cruise missile, he zoomed in on the heart of the matter. Each of us, everyone one of us, has our triggers, our short hairs, the little moments and scenarios that set our hearts pumping the hardest. So he created a Cosmo-style quiz for readers to take to assess their own profile. Now, some could take the idea of the quiz too seriously and get bent out of shape about being pegged as one thing or another. But that’s the piece of this puzzle that I think all of my guest contributors get (and just a couple of readers haven’t quite cottoned onto yet): essential to fully appreciating our wrestling kink diversity is a healthy sense of humor. It’s all fun, or at least it all should be fun, as far as I’m concerned. It’s all about seeing reflected back from the wrestling drama in front of us something about our own fantasies, our own vulnerabilities, our own idiosyncratic longings that we have to hold gently, with some humility and a lot of kindness for our ourselves and others.

Regular star of my favorite wrestling fantasies: Lon Dumont

What all of my guest contributors this summer proved was that the homoerotic wrestling universe is beautifully varied and populated by fans and wrestlers that run the full gamut of bodies, holds, venues, gear, and scenarios that our powerful homoerotic wrestling imaginations can devise. I’m humbled by the wisdom and generosity of my fellow writers, and their contributions as a whole most definitely rank among my most favorite moments of this year!

Diverse Tastes – Guest Contributor Metellus

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All of the guest contributors for our running summer series “Diverse Tastes” fall into my category of delightful collaborators: clever, savvy, unconventional and creative fans of wrestling who know what they like and enjoy the adventure of hunting it down with their bare hands. Today’s guest contributor, Metellus, is a prime example of what I’m talking about. Metellus contacted me quite a while ago about his appreciation for my Secretarial Pool auditions in my fictional homoerotic wrestling universe, the Producer’s Ring. But Metellus is no back-seat driver. His own hot, kinked, wrestling imagination kicked into high gear. About every third sentence in an email from Metellus starts with the words, “What if….” And that yearning to explore the next idea for a wrestling fantasy, in my opinion, is the heart of the very best of homoerotic wrestling.  The most recent match in the Secretarial Pool (“Global Cooperation”) is a flat-out collaboration between Metellus and me, with Metellus scouting and recruiting all of the primary characters (models David Gandy, Noah Mills, Mateus Verdelho and Tyler McPeak). He and I also worked together on one of my fondest pieces of BG East fiction in the Sidelineland group, featuring randy wrestling rookie and fashion model Cobus Jonker pulling off a stunning debut against one of BG East’s resident masters of destruction, Enforcer. I love Metellus’ passion for collaboration, for putting his own ideas on the table and then being thrilled with the exercise of molding them, shaping them, tossing them out and starting all over again, in the very provocative enterprise of co-authoring a work of homoerotic wrestling fiction. Watch for more collaborations from us in the future, and in the mean time, enjoy Metellus’ take on the topic of Diverse Tastes, in which he explores some key examples of both who it is and what it is that they do to rise to the top of his wrestling kink favorites.

“Muscles at Work”
by Metellus
TNA’s Brutus Magnus – Handsome, lean muscles, versatile

I have always been a fan of wrestling. I like them from all angles, pro, indie or underground video companies like BG East. I am not quite sure what exactly is it that I like about wrestling, so I am hoping to take this opportunity to talk about some of my favorite wrestlers.

Fight Club Finland’s Valentine can give and take punishment

To me, the perfect wrestler has a nice body, not bad to look at and preferably wearing some short wrestling trunks. Like many other readers, I usually enjoy seeing these type of wrestlers in the roles of jobbers. Some of my favorites wrestlers in the pro and indie circuits include Brutus Magnus (TNA wrestling), Valentine (Fight Club Finland) and Hiroshi Yamato (All Japan Pro Wrestling). Their handsome face and lean muscles made them ideal baby faces. These wrestlers can both job for heels but can also be competitive if needed. On top of that, they can suffer really well, and it is a real pleasure to see their muscles at work in the ring. When it comes to wrestlers in companies like BG East and Can-Am wrestling, there may be too many to name. It may take me ages to narrow down my favorites.

Babyface Hiroshi Yamoto works his muscle for Japan Pro Wrestling

I am also a big fan of wrestling stories. They allow me to use my imagination as I try to picture up a slightly different scenario each time I’m reading the same story. I first started reading these type of stories in Bard’s Producer’s Ring, where he threw in a bunch of male models into a mat room while they tried to beat the crap out of each other. To me, male models are the perfect fictional wrestler. I am not a big fan of twinks so I usually prefer those handsome and muscular ones than the high fashion models. But there are always exceptions. Take Noah Mills and David Gandy for example. I wouldn’t call them twinks by any means but they are successful high end fashion models. After a day of modeling work it is not hard to picture them stripping down to their gears and fight one another in a long, hard wrestling battle.

Models David Gandy and Noah Mills –
Starring in the homoerotic wrestling imaginations of Metellus & Bard
—————
Thanks, Metellus! Your collection of favorites is a fantastic combination of familiar faces as well as entirely new discoveries (at least, new to me!). I’d write a little more about my admiration of Metellus’ impeccable tastes and creativity here, but he’s already sent me an email with an idea for a new piece of homoerotic wrestling fiction. “What if……..”

The Rain Clouds Open Up

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Whew! The long drought in my wrestling fiction has broken. It wasn’t writer’s block or melancholy interrupting the creative flow. It was brutal, exhausting, largely unpaid “real” work stealing my best creative juices. Thankfully, the juices are spilling again into my preferred past-time of writing homoerotic wrestling fiction.

David Gandy

A co-author helped me sketch this match out months ago. In it, we meet some of the executive assistants from rival titans around the globe, including big British brute, David Gandy, who, it turns out, seems to me to be seriously lacking a sense of humor.

Noah Mills

It also introduces Toronto-based executive assistant Noah Mills. Noah is one of those guys who has a little too much testosterone for his own good. No imagined slight or social faux pas can go unchallenged with unbridled physical confrontation for Noah. Clearly, he’s in the right man’s homoerotic wrestling imagination.

Mateus Verdelho

The boys are out at a club when Noah spills some of his drink as a result of getting bumped by buzzed skater hunk, Mateus Verdelho. Push comes to shove, quite literally. Shirts are ripped off, and that inevitable crowd of enablers spills out into the back alley behind the two of them to watch the sport.
Turns out, not only is Noah hyped up on testosterone. He also fights dirty. While in some crowds this would earn him major points, the club crowd this night turns on Noah for his underhanded, below-the-belt tactics. Big, beautiful blond hunk Tyler McPeak can’t stand it any longer, and he rushes into the fray to even the score and teach Noah the consequences of taking shortcuts.

Tyler McPeak

The details are over at Producer’s Ring, but things turn cocks-out and brutal, with two pretty boys shelved in the dumpsters with the rotting club food, and two others licking each others wounds with enthusiasm. My thanks to Metellus for carrying the water farther than he really should have had to, and for being infinitely patient with my “I’m just about to get down to writing again!” excuses.

Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good

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Model David Gandy says that male models are “the lowest of the low.” He bemoans the portrayal of male models from the perspective of Zoolander, as narcissistic, dull, vapid and expandable bottom dwellers. To be a male model is inherently damaging to one’s pride and dignity, because in a world in which men are supposed to be active, conquerors, doers and producers of tangible goods, to be a model is presumed to be the last refuge of the profoundly incompetent, emasculated, and impotent of men.

I’m tempted to be bitterly catty, but frankly, I’m just not going to be. I will say that I enjoyed Zoolander on multiple levels, including the introduction of Alexander Skarsgård into my life, and I still don’t actually assume that male models all borderline profoundly retarded (in the diagnostic sense).

But I’m totally willing to allow that a 6’2″ tall, blue-eyed, granite-chinned pretty boy with a 32″ waist and 38″ chest can suffer. Life may not be effortless even for a genetic megamillions lottery winner like David. To be so abundantly blessed with physical perfection certainly does not suggest that one will be taken seriously, respected, listened to or loved.

David may not appreciate exactly how I imagine male models, but in my own homoerotic wrestling alternate universe, I actually conceptualize them as highly skilled students of human nature and non-verbal communication. In some sense, male models rule the post-apocalyptic world I paint, as insightful, level-headed, brutally calculating masterminds. They are both figuratively and literally “producers,” highly masculine and interventive. They are distinctly not Derek Zoolander.

To have a male model-quality appearance likely does not equate to eternal happiness and adoration, just like to have something other than a male model-quality appearance does not equate with misery and failure. I, for one, am entirely ready to give David Gandy a second look, to conceive of him in terms other than silent, dull-eyed beauty. So perhaps there’s a slight whining twinge to his recent comments (I suspect I live for a year on what he’s paid for a single photo shoot… at best…). But for his troubles, I’m going to make it a priority to write him a highly respected, powerful role in my own fictional universe.

There’s a lesson here for us all, though, not just the world class male models among us. We are more than any one dimension of ourselves. We are more complex than anyone else ever recognizes. We are more beautiful in more ways than we are ever appreciated for by any one person. We are more thoughtful, more insightful, more potent than we are likely to ever be seen as. The trick is not to believe in the simplified versions of ourselves that are constructed around us all the time. Our task is to continue to break down those constricting mirages that are foisted on us, and to continue to live as authentic selves with sincerity and humility.

They’re All Men

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The New York Times is noting an evolution of the it-boy male model from waif-ish twink skate-rat into someone “who feels like he’s a man.” I’m fully on board with this trend, though not, I believe, for the reasons that the NYT author supposes is behind the circle-of-life return to square-jawed handsomeness. I seriously am not longing for a mythical past when “men were men.” I just tend to like my hunks in the barrel long enough to soak up some oaky tannins. A fresh off the vine, cork-and-uncork-it youth is like a Rosé: sweet, innocent, and always trending on the way in or on the way out.  More maturity, a fuller body, and deeper complexity is a lot more tasty, year-after-year.

I’m not an all or nothing kind of guy, though. The skate-rat brawler can tell a sweet story that a big pec muscleboy can’t tell (and vice versa, of course). And a skate-rat slamfest with a big muscle boy can be pure ecstasy, particularly if the muscleboy is seriously taken by surprise by the skate-rat’s ferocity, skill, and determination to bash a hunk.
Of course, talking about a mature body on a male model requires putting pencil to paper to make some counter-intuitive calculations. Counting years on a male model is a little like figuring up “dog years.” The ridiculous pressure to be superhumanly and eternally beautiful (by commercial standards, at least) can skew the numbers, making 30 year old model David Gandy, above, seem grandfatherly next to 18 year old fence rail, Jordan Coulter. For the record, David would bring me to my knees with a come-hither look in an instant, whereas Jordan would require evidence of a sense of humor, cocky self-assurance, and last but not least, a valid driver’s license as proof of age. David facing off with Jordan, with Jordan managing to jump onto “grandpa’s” back and bring the muscle man to his knees with a vicious rear choke, however, would be a delight to suit me in most any mood.
So whether the skate-rats are on their way out, or already returning as chic retro days after being pronounced so-last-year (as seems usually the pace of trendiness), I’m a supporter of diverse bodies, as long as they’re sweaty, locked in combat, and ready to order. But when pressed (squeezed, pounded, or slammed), I’m a sucker for beefy, thoughtful maturity over impulsive, waif-ish twinkiness, nine times out of ten.