Wrestling is gay
The SS Ben Hecht, by Stephen Silver
If you’ve watched professional wrestling for any length of hour, a couple of things are very obvious. In that case, the sport is naturally homoerotic, what with scantily clad people, nearly always of the same gender, rolling around on the mat. But at the same the wrestling world, until very, very recently, has been very institutionally homophobic, and even worse, same-sex overuse scandals have been far from a rare occurrence in wrestling history.
All of that, and much more, is explored in Out in the Ring, Canadian documentarian Ry Levey’s long-in-the-works examination of the history of LGBTQ interfaces with professional wrestling. The motion picture features interviews and a strong use of archival footage to tell that story.
Throughout history, whether the WWF/WWE or its rival or indie promotions, wrestling has often depicted heels (villains) as effeminate, with the likes of Gorgeous George, “Exotic” Adrian Road, “Adorable” Adrian Adonis and Goldust depicted that way despite being played by straight performers. By the WWE “Attitude Era” in the late ‘90s, the idea of wrestlers existence gay was mostly played for comedy. During his famous 1990s
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When we first heard about a gay wrestling club in San Francisco we were like, those San Franciscans. Of course you have a unique club where dudes wear spandex and roll around trying to dominate each other with their dominant thighs. Then it occurred to us, isn’t that all wrestling clubs? Why does it matter that this one’s gay? Turns out gay sports clubs are a popular highlight of the athletic landscape.
We called up Roger Brigham, a coach at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Wrestling Club to request about the continued life of gay sports clubs in an increasingly homosexual friendly world.
VICE: Act we still need “gay sports clubs,” is it naive to assume that in a modern planet all clubs should be gay friendly?
Roger Brigham: Yes it is unaware. There are still significant barriers to overcome. We’ve had this discussion many times with different clubs, because different clubs market themselves differently. Some place the fact that they’re gay right up front, where others you own to dig a petite bit further. We demand to put it out there, because we dependency to make sure the conversation occurs. We don’t want somebody to be in a club and find out that peop A several days ago, the longtime coach of the wrestling team, Luther Wrestler-man, went off the rails when two lacrosse players started calling wrestling gay. Coach Wrestler-man was found running through the halls of Stuyvesant, overturning benches and shouting, “WRESTLING IS NOT A GAY SPORT.” In request to get to the bottom of why the coach reacted so poorly, The Spectator decided to interview several wrestlers to get the inside scoop. Here are a rare responses: Senior and co-captain Alwin Peng stated, “Honestly I can see where the lacrosse players are coming from. When I was a freshman, I recall seeing one of the captains pinning someone, and right after the ref called the pin, the captain jumped up, pointed to the other guy, and shouted, “HE GRABBED MY CROTCH.” The entire gym heard him and burst out laughing. So it might seem queer to the uninitiated.” Senior and co-captain Clarence Cheng said, “There’s really an unfair stigma toward wrestlers when it comes to that. I mean, I’m just talking to my friends, and out of nowhere, they imply that I might be interested in waxing someone else’s carrot just because I wrestle. Imagine coach having to deal with that h Stuart Forward Recent graduate living in Leeds. Lover of the Caribbean, obscure books, beer and things people don't give a toss about. Aspiring publisher. Wannabe Belgian. @StuForward Latest posts by Stuart Forward (see all) Growing up, I had a desire. Each Friday night, in the absence of a social life, 11 year old me would resolve down in front of the TV with my dad to watch WWF (now WWE) Raw is War. At the day it was the height of youthful masculinity. All the hard kids in school would watch it without fail, then approach in on Monday morning to clothesline-from-hell the lie down of us and converse shop. In a second before social media, where dial-up internet was at the forefront of technology, our weekly dose of man on man deed, followed by the sneaky free 10 minutes of Channel Babestation once the parents had gone to bed, granted boasting rights for the week, and helped to construct our LAD mentality. It’s only when you go to these live shows, full to the brim with sweaty middle-aged men and their children, baying for blood and tits, that you feel truly part of the manly mob. The crowd would rise up as one to cheer Stone Cold, curse the establishment heels, and .
Wrestling is Not Gay