Of course, the wrestling in these sequences always looks staged - an excuse to put two men in an erotically charged situation. In recent years - with the explosion of adult male films - it has become a popular meme with scenes that begin with wrestlers on the mat and end with sweaty sex. While some commentators may want to debate the sport's homosocial appeal, to gay men it has always been apparent. But wrestling remains one of the most intense and widely practiced contact sports around the world, as popular in Iran as it is in the United States. In modern times, it has been sensationalized on a professional level with the comic antics of WWE wrestlers, making it more like populist performance art than a serious sport. Why the appeal? Wrestling has, of course, been with us from the Greeks, making it one of the oldest of competitive sports.
Just the nature of the sport - one man attempting to dominate another - implies a sexual subtext. Wrestling remains the most homoerotic of sports. The muscled bodies the tight uniforms and the intense body contact.
EDGE National Arts & Entertainment Editor
