Gender Benders

One way pro wrestlers cross boundaries and titillate the audience is to play with gender roles. Wrestlers traditionally adopt either the masculine (dominant) or feminine (submissive) persona, and may trade roles during the match.

Justin Gabriel, for example, is as beautiful as any girl, his body utterly hairless.  He dances and floats around the ring, inviting the male gaze.  He wears flashy, minimal trunks — as small as a woman’s panties — in effeminate colors of lavender and turquoise.  But his muscles and dark beard (as well as his undeniable trunk bulge) re-assert his masculinity.  In this match with Curt Hawkins, he dominates the early moments to further avert his femininity.

Curt Hawkins emits a hyper-masculine vibe as he struts confidently to the ring, clutching a big stick in his hands.  He wears black leather pants, the uniform of a biker, warrior, or rebel (or, ironically, of a gay dude.)

His uber-butch costume, however, is softened by his long, flowing hair, a feminine symbol.  He wears a choker necklace — not an accessory one sees often on men.  He is submissive to Gabriel at the start of the match, laying on his back while Gabriel assumes the on-top position.

Hawkins soon “mans-up” and assumes the dominant role, standing upright while Gabriel is forced into the laying-down (female) position. The “message” of the middle part of the match is that the Manly-Man will ultimately seize control. The wrestlers tell this story through numerous contrasts in their appearances and their personalities– and in pro wrestling, contrasts are what make a match visually interesting:

• Hawkins vs. Gabriel
• Masculine vs. Feminine
• Stoic/serious vs. smiling/flirting
• Black gear vs. bright (flamboyant) colors
• Legs exposed vs. legs covered
• “Giving” (inflicting) pain vs. “receiving” (absorbing) pain
• Standing upright vs. laying down on the mat

More men are growing bored or feeling imprisoned by traditional male sex roles.  I believe the Internet is what opened minds and blurred gender roles in the past 10 to 15 years. More men, even straight men, are buying their own clothes, exploring beauty products and plastic surgery, and experimenting with sex toys, thanks in part to the easy (and in-private) availability of information on these topics.  New terms such as “Metro-Sexual” and “Straight-Queer” have been coined to attempt to define or categorize this expansion of the traditional male role by some dudes.

Pro wrestling, as always, takes the social phenomenon and exaggerates it — presenting the viewer with ambiguous gender benders like Justin Gabriel (who proved to be the dominant male by winning the match) and Curt Hawkins.  The message to male viewers is that you can be pretty and flamboyant if you like that (the products are readily available on-line) and you can still also be a tough fighter and win a wrestling match — or you can adopt a butch, tough appearance, and still play a submissive role if that’s what you prefer.