Wrestling: Recreation, Rousing Gay Fun or Both

On Saturday, January 6th I went with Tony Sawicki to video tape a Gay Wrestling Tournament for Under the Pink Carpet. Metro Wrestling NYC is a recreational athletic team that fosters the sport of Wrestling to Gay Men, building community through sportsmanship and fun and they held the tournament at NYC’s LGBT Community Center. Metro Wrestling NYC responsibly promotes, coordinates and provides opportunities for Gay amateur wrestlers to achieve their full human and athletic potential. It was different covering a Gay event that wasn’t Arts related. There were no actual or aspiring Stars who have records or tickets to sell that Tony had to interview. And it was a refreshing change! It is also great to be able to show Gay men finding potential through athletics as well as the arts. The participants weighed in, and were paired off with a competitor to have a match with. It was an absolute delight to see those men, dressed in those tight, revealing singlets, grabbing each other and rolling around. Which brings us to the question of do Gays view wrestling as a competitive sport or an erotic turn-on, or a combination of both? Of course Wrestling is an actual competitive sport with rules, regulations and skills to develop. It’s practiced by Straight, Gay and Bi Men for recreation and fitness. The guys in the tournament, and some take it seriously, came to compete, enjoy the sport and the camaraderie. And there are many places in NYC where Gay men can find sexual thrills, you don’t need to join a Wrestling team for that! But seeing all those gorgeous, scantily clad, masculine men thrashing on the mats makes it hard to ignore the erotic aspect. The guys we met and interviewed were the greatest and very enjoyable and some of them did comment on the arousing facets of the sport. It should make an interesting news segment.