Boots to Hair

When I was a young wrestling fan, I would often question the logic behind a wrestler growing his hair long.  With a flowing mane, the fool was just offering his opponent a handle to pull, another weapon to use against him, another way to torture and control him by yanking and pulling those extra-long locks.

When I saw some pretty-boy with hair halfway down to his ass, his face twisted in a grimace as his hair is being jerked to and fro, I felt like yelling at the television: “You idiot!  Why grow that long hair if you know pro wrestling is a vicious sport and your opponents are just gonna pull your hair?!?  DUH!”

My frustration was even greater if the nasty Heel was bald or had very short hair in contrast to his effeminate victim.

I think my favorite form of long-haired Hippie abuse is when the Heel stands with both feet on his hair, then grips his wrists and pulls up.  I’ve seen this dirty move many times and always felt there was something sexy, devious, and sadistic about it.

The Heel stands fully erect, all his weight on the laying man’s long hair.  Unsatisfied with merely standing on his hair (which is painful enough), he ramps up the pressure by pulling him up by the arms. So evil!

The impotent ref, meanwhile, can only count to Five and then ask the baddie to stop it.  (But after stepping off for a moment, the baddie can step right back on his hair and do it again for Five seconds.)

And long hair is always very common among pro wrestlers.  Why is that?  Some say it allows another wrestler to whisper in his ear, to announce the next move, with the hair covering up this conversation.  It also makes the slams and punches appear more impactful, the victim whipping his long mane around as he absorbs the strike.  I believe the hair length, just like the gear, allows the wrestlers to establish masculine and feminine roles and then to play around with those roles.

Pro wrestling is meant to demonstrate the rivalry between  Masculinity and Femininity — with the Masculine dominating by brute force and owning the Feminine.

Long, flowing, pretty hair is a symbol of feminine beauty.  Tall, laced up, black leather boots are a masculine image.  Therefore, the sight of the dominant Heel in tall black boots stepping on the victim’s long hair is the very image, the icon, of masculine power over the feminine.  Perhaps more than any other wrestling hold, the Hair Stand tells the story of masculine dominance.

Pro wrestling likes to play around with the traditional masculine and feminine roles as well, bending the genders and dancing around in the gray area between Male and Female.  For example, the dominant Heel may be dressed in pink gear or wearing pink nail-polish, which code him as feminine.

When the sissified Heel stands  on the Hero’s long (girlish) hair, the message is: “I may be a girly man, but I’m still more powerful than you.”  The long-haired Baby-Face is further emasculated by being dominated and punished by a sissified Heel.  It can be very exciting for the (male) viewer to observe this role reversal, to see the Bitch take control, to watch the hero revealing his vulnerability and weakness by suffering under the more powerful sissy.

Seeing the Hair Stand in play, I often got the feeling that the long-haired Baby-Face who allowed himself to be placed in this humiliating position wanted to be punished.  It seemed as if he knew his beautiful long hair and pretty tights were an affront to masculinity, that he wanted to atone for his vanity.

So he placed himself on his back, waiting for the Heel to step on his hair.  Then he offered his arms up to be pulled, sometimes even gripping the attacker’s wrists to increase the pressure. Why was he actually helping to inflict his own punishment??

Did the victim want to be tortured in this way, realizing the pain is justified punishment for the way he struts around like a sissy?  Does he want to have his hair ripped out to masculinize himself, so he won’t look like such a long-haired girly-man, so he can transform into the more desirable Real Man?   It sure looks that way to this wrestling fan…