Tag: Kevin Lee

Wednesday’s Woes

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I’m entirely on board with the erotic power of a tree of woe. The ToW is an example of how some homoerotic wrestling gems simply require a professional wrestling ring.  Hang a hammered hunk upside down in the corner, his knees draped over the top ropes and his feet locked in place beneath the cable connecting the turnbuckle to the post, and there’s all sorts of a hot wrestling gold that’s suddenly ripe for picking. It’s a maneuver that signals total control over a mastered man. The subject of woe is laid out so vulnerably, his body not just on display, but trussed up beautifully for easy access to innovative methods of torture.  There’s a little crossover here between bondage kink and wrestling kink, with enough of both to show due respect to all parties involved, as far as I’m concerned.  In honor of those of you who harbor a special place in your hearts and crotches for an agonizing, dominating, body manipulating tree of woe (and I hear from you often), this post is for you.  Here are 10 ideas for what to do with an opponent once you’ve trapped him in a tree of woe.

jpwoe
Climb on top, knee crushing his balls, and celebrate like Brooklyn Bodywrecker.
coltonwoe
When finding yourself out-boxed, hang the fucker upside down and peel off his gloves to make this all about homoerotic wrestling, like Brodie Fisher.
diegowoe
Grab a dumbbell and bash your opponent’s six-pack abs, like Eli Black.
bobbywoe
Duck outside the ring and wrench the trapped fucker’s head backward, like Cameron Matthews.
lonwoe
Stop on his flowing locks and dare the muscleboy to squirm, like Ethan Andrews.
kylewoe
Stand outside the ring and threaten to rip his arms out at the shoulder, like Alex Waters.
austinwoe
Make sure his trunks are hooked on the turnbuckle and slipping off, then land a soaring drop kick to the helpless stud’s gut, like Jonny Firestorm.
shanewoe
Sit on his face, like the Brooklyn Bodywrecker.
jonnywoe
Pause and appreciate the view – and feel – like Jarret Cole.
kevinwoe
That’s right, a Tree of Woe/Bearhug/Headscissors combination, nice and snug in the crushing embrace of Cole Cassidy!

Coincidences

wrestlebard2 Comments
Have you noticed how in Hollywood movies it’s a moral imperative to believe in the supernatural? I keep hearing the words, “I don’t believe in coincidences” in movies and on television lately. The implication seems to always be that there’s some divine hand moving the universe, lining up otherwise random events into non-coincidental patterns. Well, frankly, I do believe in coincidences. That army of monkeys will, indeed, one day hammer out the complete works of Shakespeare by sheer chance. I’m okay with that.  That’s not to suggest, however, that I don’t like musing on a notable coincidence when it falls in my lap.
Kid Leopard planting a Tree of Woe for Sean Cannon
in BG East’s Superbouts 2
Take, for instance, the third time in as many days that the “tree of woe” has come up in three entirely unrelated conversations I’ve been part of.  Three different homoerotic wrestling fans raised the topic of how hot the tree of woe scenario is. The only reason I really know much about it, as such, is from a series of comments on Rants, Roids & Rasslin’ a while back, in which folks were dissecting a panel from one of RR&R’s wrestling comics. “Tree of woe” is apparently the moniker for that precarious situation when a wrestler discovers himself hanging upside down from the corner turnbuckle, completely vulnerable to a humiliating and devastating attack.
BG East’s Brooklyn Bodywrecker exploiting an opponent’s vulnerability.
It seems to me that there’s more than just a little element of bondage, with the poor catcher’s ankles locked and laced underneath the supports tying the turnbuckle to the ring post. A knee to the gut, a boot to the face… the options appear to be endless. Yes, and hot…
Rock Hard Wrestling’s Lucas Payne lives up to his name in Austin Cooper’s
Tree of Woe

The position also offers an opportunity to see a hot muscle boy stretched out and in jeopardy. Hot strong bodies are the best subjects with which to construct a tree of woe, it seems to me. The mechanics probably work best with a strong, compact, relatively limber body. The aesthetics also work best that way, too, I think.

Cole Cassidy goes to work on Kevin Lee in BG’s Bad Boys

Accomplished master in the fine arts of sadistic ring punishment, Cole Cassidy made the most of bewildered Kevin Lee trapped in his tree of woe.

Cole uses those gorgeous muscles to crush Kevin’s head and midsection.

A bearhug and headscissors combination on Kevin illustrates some of the more creative opportunities that a tree of woe offers to an innovative heel.

Cole leans in real good, adding every ounce of leverage to crush Kevin’s balls.

Of course, any tree of woe that fails to include crotch torture is a waste. Cole is never, ever one to waste anything. A long, slow elbow driven crushing into Kevin’s balls softens him up.

Cole claws Kevin’s crotch and enjoys watching the agony.
Cole latching on a ball claw, with his freakishly fantastic forearms bulging like a cartoon superhero is incredibly erotic.
Cole’s boots and knees tenderize his suspended opponent.

And of course some nasty stomps to Kevin’s… well, to Kevin’s everything, shows why a tree of woe is a blank canvas in the hands of a true artist, at least when Cole is working his magic.

BG East’s Dante Rosetti (I think) uses his head.

I’m on the record many times over as completely partial to ring wrestling, and the tree of woe illustrates just one of the many reasons why ring wrestling cranks my kink harder than just about any other context. The opportunities to use the architecture, to capitalize on the structure, to exploit the parts of the ring that stretch as well as those that don’t, all contribute to making ring wrestling my wrestling kink of choice.

At long, long last, Rio Garza pays it back against Jobe Zander in
Can-Am’s Rio’s Revenge

So I completely believe that three different people raising the topic of the tree of woe in as many days is 100% coincidence. I’m sure it’s randomness, and I don’t feel the need to read into the coincidence some guiding, invisible hand that wants me to appreciate deeper the erotic potential of corner abuse. That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t enjoy riding the tide and getting a kinked kick out of where it takes me.

Rock Hard Wrestling’s Trent Novak treats Austin Cooper to a Tree of Woe beatdown

The Spice of Life

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Pyschology Today (via Towleroad, to me) has an interesting piece on the racial diversification of gay male porn over the past 3 to 5 years. Psychology Today is sort of like light beer… all packaging and marketing without much really satisfying inside. But I like the connections that the article draws between identifying what gay men find attractive and broader socio-demographic trends in racial politics.

As for me, I’m 100% in favor of more diversity. As a born-and-bred middle class suburban white boy, I was raised with deeply engrained, implicit lessons that chisel-chinned white boys are the physical ideal. Happily, just like other sexual tastes and attentions, I’ve since discovered that beautiful boys of all sorts of complexions offer treasures of objectified lusts.
I don’t really spend much of my time or money in the gay porn world, sans wrestling. It’s one long yawn for me. But even in the wrestling kink corner of homoerotica and porn, I think that we’re seeing more racial diversity and less a need to fetishize racial diversity, at the same time, which I think is a good combination.
Whereas it wasn’t long ago that products were prominently marketed that specifically catered to the tastes of those looking for cross-racial wrestling, these days when opponents reflect different racial-ethnic backgrounds, it most frequently goes uncommented on. In most cases, I think that’s progress. My homoerotic wrestler of the month, Bobby Horton, is a white guy who came into possession of that title on the merits of his smokin’ hot, edge-of-insanity dismantling of bodybeautiful muscle god, Tyrell Tomsen. I’m sure for many people still, a battle like that continues to be first and foremost a morality play in contemporary racial politics. And, true enough, the white boy delivers a beat down and humiliating defeat of the physically dominant black hunk, which stands in a long tradition of white fantasy about subduing and possessing the physical threat from men of color. But as far as I read the text (and I’ve been happy to read and reread that text over and over again to enjoy Bobby’s delightful performance) the story that’s primarily told is really about the battle between the beauty of brawn and the cunning of ring savvy. If anything, Tyrell plays the role of the refined, sculpted, entitled muscle god to Bobby’s crazy-ass, brutish, uncivilized short-cutter. I realize that this doesn’t eliminate the racial politics that play out in the homoerotic wrestling ring, but it screws with expectations and long-held prejudices enough to be at least resistant toward white privilege, if not entirely dismantling of it.
BG East has been promoting a lot of Latinos lately, and that’s 110% just fine with me. If white Eurocentric privilege managed to keep the likes of Rafe Sanchez (mmmm…. Rafe….), Rio Garza and Lobolito off of my shelf, my life would be much less entertaining.
Can-Am has been tossing the likes of Michael Vineland, Max Munoz, and yes, Rio Garza onto the mats, making their typically-happy-ending wrestling formula much more diverse than it may have been at one time.
Naked Kombat frequently puts up men of color, like recent battlers Jack Hammer, Derek Reynolds and Race Cooper. It’s not all one formula for fetishing the racial composition of the match, by any means. Depending on the fighters on any given day, Naked Kombat’s wrestlers of color end up battling each other or white guys, and they end up on top or on bottom with seemingly similar frequencies.
I’m intentionally taking a look at Thunder’s Arena with fresh eyes lately, particularly after reading the very enjoyable interview that Joe did with Mr. Mike and Ace Hanson at Ringside at Skull Island recently. Young stunner rookie AJ looks like another case in point of the expanding pool of skill and beauty to which homoerotically-inclined wrestling is turning.
More is better… variety is the spice of life… the pithy sayings go on and on to explain why it is that all of this is a very good thing. Still, I think we need to keep an eye on the way that racial politics play out even in (especially in) our erotic fantasies. I know, I know. It’s a buzz kill. But it also reveals something about what we believe down deep, how we live, and underneath any socialization or commitments to political correctness, how we picture ourselves in relation to racial difference. I like where things seem to be heading, and I think that we would all do well to remember where we’ve been, and the ways that racism have long played a major role in dominant homo-culture, much less hetero-culture, in the past forty years.