One of my first-ever trips to a lesbian bar was for jello-wrestling night at Washington, D.C.’s Phase 1, a beloved monthly event that sometimes seemed to keep the bar open on its own.
Wrestling evokes such strong associations with actual sex that there’s even a third option between the sport in the Olympics and the stuff of subscription porn sites: wrestling in mud, jello, and lube. In a seeming nod to the audience’s sexual voyeurism, clothing was eventually done away with and experts have argued that the events were “ all about watching naked men.” The Olympics of Greek antiquity prominently featured wrestling, boxing and pankration (a sort of latter day MMA).
That combat sports readily lend themselves to eroticization is hardly news.
