Not Alone

Edgar Allen Poe wrote a poem called “Alone” describing how his odd interests and morbid fascinations made him feel like a misfit.  It starts off like this:

“From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were — I have not seen
As others saw — I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow — I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone —
And all I lov’d — I lov’d alone.”

Any life-long lover of pro wrestling can sympathize with Mr. Poe.  We know how it feels when you “have not been as others were” — when you’re the only kid on the block irresistibly drawn to this bizarre, campy, fake sport.

If you love pro wrestling, your addiction probably began at a young age.  You were probably hooked when you saw your very first match. Soon, you began craving that weekly broadcast of violence, aggression, and spectacular male physiques.  Other kids would ask you to come out and play, but you knew when wrestling was coming on TV and never failed to stay glued to the tube for every minute it was on.

But you soon noticed that pro wrestling did not have quite the same powerful, profound effect on other boys as it did on you.  You’d be watching some hot trunks ‘n boots match unfolding on Big Time Rasslin’, utterly stimulated by the on-screen violence and homo-erotic body positions, and your idiot brother would walk in and flip the channel to baseball.  Really??  BASEball??

You feel like Roddy Piper in the movie They Live, when he was the only guy who could see the aliens (thanks to his magic sunglasses.)  But it’s not aliens you’re able to see, it’s the raw sexuality and erotic power of the hot wrestlers’ finishing holds, their bodies, and their tight gear.  Nobody else seems to notice.

Ashamed about being the only wrestling lover in the world, the young fan feels like a freak and questions his sexuality because men — nearly naked men — are the performers in the sport he is getting off on.  He begins to define himself as “gay” — not that there is anything wrong with that today (but there was a lot wrong with that years ago.)

So the wrestling lover learns to hide his obsession with the sport, furtively watching the weekly broadcast when nobody else is home, sneaking wrestling magazines into his bedroom like other boys sneak a Playboy, pretending to want to date girls when boasting with his buddies while secretly fantasizing about those Von Erich brothers and their long, muscular legs scissoring some vicious Heel.

Before the invention of the Internet and the World Wide Web, you couldn’t just enjoy whatever turned you on.  With only one television in the house and only a handful of channels,  you had few opportunities to indulge your pro wrestling fetish.  You could watch wrestling if you remembered to laugh at the ridiculous characters and to scoff at how fake it all seemed, but if anybody suspected that you were becoming aroused by it, you can bet you would quickly be banned from watching it ever again for fear that it could turn you into some kind of a fairy.

Everybody in that by-gone dystopia was expected to be straight, married, and to only watch sports to see who wins (certainly not to satisfy a sexual craving.)

So the wrestling addict tried to quit cold turkey — to keep himself on the straight and narrow by not watching his beloved sport.  He throws out the graphically violent magazines stashed under the mattress, erases his trusty VHS tapes of classic matches recorded on the old VCR, and resolves to think about baseball and girls with big breasts rather than Sleeperholds, tall boots, flexed biceps, and the endless agony inflicted on the cutest of jobbers. It’s a painful thing, to deny yourself the greatest pleasure of your life, but you are determined to be more like other “normal” guys — to not stand alone.

But pro wrestling maintains a tight Headlock on the wrestling addict, and soon his craving for images of suffering, masculinity, and those sweet holds returns.  He is soon back to enjoying his beloved sport every chance he gets, now fully aware that he loves wrestling and that is never going to change.

It is a happy day for the wrestling lover when he first learns he is not alone — that other guys are just as excited about pro wrestling as he has always been.  As stated in a recent article on the Inner Jobber blog: “It gets downright emotional, to realize that there are people who think like you think, like what you like.”

Nowadays, a wrestling fan can easily find blogs, on-line videos, photo websites, personals, and video distributors to satisfy all of his cravings.  If only Poe had this sort of access to his favorite beat-off material!  The best thing about the internet is that it enables people to connect and to share their love of whatever hobby, fetish, sport, or behavior presses their buttons.  It is easy to hook up with other people who love what you love.  You can even find people who are more into it than you are (the weirdos!)

Today we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web.  Over the past quarter century, wrestling lovers have finally begun to shake off their feelings of shame and isolation, to indulge themselves and never look back, to enjoy the sport and share their enjoyment in the light of day with others who also understand the appeal.  Thanks to the Web, it is no longer necessary for anyone to feel, as Edgar Allen Poe felt, and as many wrestling lovers of a certain age felt,  that “all I lov’d, I lov’d alone.”