Kink and Pro Wrestling: Complementary Performance Artistry

You walk into a crowded room for a performance. The performers themselves are clad in anything from speedos to over-the-top leather outfits. Sometimes they have spikes, chains, and sometimes even makeup. Others might have the appearance of parodying your favorite (or least favorite) civil servant jobs. You might see people dressed as police officers, mounties, or even bizarre depictions of androgynous humans.

What sort of event are you attending? If you pictured in your mind a packed arena with a ring announcer and a world title match, you would be correct. You would be attending a pro wrestling match. You’d also be correct if you said you were at a kink event. You might not know it, but kink and pro wrestling go hand in hand and you’d be remiss if you didn’t explore one because of your dedication to the other.

Right now you may be asking “What is this mother fucker on?” The answer would be over three decades of autistic fury and massive amounts of caffeine. But I can tell you without any uncertainty that my love of one of these things led me to appreciate the other, and then go back to the original love. So it’s a full-circle type of thing.

Way back in 1987 at the Pontiac Silver Dome, Macho Man Randy Savage would lose the Intercontinental Championship to his opponent Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat in what is to this day, 35 years later, regarded as one of the greatest wrestling matches of all time. So great was this particular match that it stole the show from the main event, which featured Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, two of the literal and figurative biggest stars at the time.

Before Randy and Ricky became macho men and dragons, they were Randy Poffo and Richard Blood (a cool fucking name in and of itself) and they were perfecting their performance art since they got into the business. Yes, pro wrestling aka “sports entertainment” is performance art. Done well, pro wrestling is a wonderful and stunning way to tell stories using physicality, often done over the course of time. It’s the ability to wow an audience. Done poorly, and it can reach levels of cringy embarrassment that borderline the absurd, nonsensical, or sometimes inappropriate. I’d like to start with the “done well” part for now.

Years ago, when kayfabe started to erode, detractors of professional wrestling would say that it’s “fake” or “choreographed.” In shoot interviews, wrestlers and other members of WWE, WCW, and anywhere else Macho Man Randy Savage wrestled would describe the meticulous process by which he would construct his matches. So the detractors had some parts correct but were missing the bigger picture. Wrestling wasn’t always choreographed, but the outcome was predetermined. Sort of like Calvinism, but without the weird Christian stuff. But Savage did like to choreograph his matches to the highest degree possible. He also was one of the few who would choreograph his matches move by move to that level of detail. Even Ricky Steamboat wasn’t quite used to that level of detail.

The more common approach in wrestling was a broad-stroke type of approach. In this type of approach, the wrestlers always knew how the finish of the match would look, at the very least, and they would communicate with each other while they were in the ring regarding what they would do. If you watch some matches and look with intense scrutiny, you might see some wrestlers calling the moves in real-time. Scrutinize a match with a keen eye and you can see the referee telling the wrestlers to move it along or stall to buy time. And in these performances, these wrestlers might injure themselves or work under duress, and if they have to work, they have to do it within a set of parameters or “limits.” They discuss that portion of the match, too.

So, that’s a crash course in some wrestling basics. What (potentially) makes wrestling great? There’s a combination of a few things, and some of those things overlap, though they don’t always have to. In the case of Savage and Steamboat, you had two athletic guys in their prime, or close to it, battling it out on a big stage. Not only were they in their prime, but they were also excellent in the ring. The moves looked good, and they played well off of each other. At the time, both Savage and Steamboat were breaking new ground in the wrestling world with their aerial athleticism, which you didn’t see as often back then as you do if you currently watch anything by AEW or WWE. They also had charisma; Steamboat was a babyface (good guy) and Savage was a heel (bad guy) and the crowd loved to love Steamboat and loved to hate Savage. Combine their charisma and their physical aptitude with a story they’d been telling for several months which led to the climax at Wrestlemania III, and you have greatness. Even if you weren’t aware of the ongoing feud, you can see them tell the physical story by watching the match and find yourself entertained. Plus, you had announcers to help fill in the gaps of what you may have missed. In the match itself, their abilities make us, the audience, gasp and tense up when they go for a move that may or may not miss. Throw in 22 false finishes, we’re on the edge of our seats. What does all of this come down to, at its core? Communicating with your partner(s). There you have wrestling done well.

In my recent past, I was discussing with a kink partner some kink related things. We agreed to a CNC (consensual non-consent) scene, and some aspects of that type of scene would have us both pushing and expanding our limits in ways that we both agreed to. Since it was my first time engaging with CNC and doing so with that person, I wanted no room for error. Therefore, in a shared google document, I scripted the scene, all the way to the end, and included aftercare, safe words, and reminders of hard limits. We read the script several times, discussed it over text, and decided it was showtime. And we performed it well. The only thing I wasn’t anticipating was how much aftercare I needed afterward. As an aside, those who play a dominant role sometimes in their kink scenes might also need aftercare depending on how heavy things get, so think about that sometimes.

Kink done well is contingent upon several things. First, and foremost, is respecting the agency of your partner(s), and their consent. You’re only acting like a subhuman cumslut, on your own terms, in the instances you prefer. You’re only acting like you’re a daddy, a sir, or a master. Granted, some of these dynamics can be ongoing so the performances can be constant. But regarding the agency, that’s contingent on the participants. With agency comes consent. You can revoke or give it at your leisure and you shouldn’t coerce it from anyone. If you do coerce it, it’s not consent. Along these lines, a discussion of limits, both hard and soft, and respect for those limits. If someone says they don’t want you to put a fist in an orifice, and you keep badgering them about getting fisted, that’s disrespectful and not an acknowledgment of any of the aforementioned enumerated items. With kink, all of the sequences and spots involved in a scene are based on a level of care involved. Even if the action of a performed spot during a scene appears to be malicious and hurtful, that point stands. Done well, the person asked for it and is fine with the outcome based on their agency.

By now you’ve no doubt noticed some similarities between these two art forms. Don’t worry, I’m going to spell it out for you. Done well, wrestling and kink have varying degrees of theatrical elements to them. For instance, you’re playing a role. The victor, the defeated. The top, the bottom. The dominant, the submissive. In wrestling, you may not get to choose whether you get to play certain positions, since there are more levels involved because of the nature of the business, as well as the crowd response, but you still get to choose whether you want to play at all. In wrestling, you have varying degrees of characters that are different to the person you are outside of the ring. Jacques Rougeau wasn’t actually a Canadian mountie. Ray Trailor aka The Big Bossman, however, was a prison guard, and he did carry that aspect over into his character when he was in WWE in the late 80s and early 90s. Ricky Steamboat wasn’t an actual dragon. The difference is you augment certain attributes and traits to become a character that you might not ordinarily be outside of the ring. And when the performance is done, you go on with your life, until the next performance.

So we have now, in both, a list of similarities ranging from colorful costuming, concise consent, clear boundaries, and discussions of limits ranging from preference to body type, and these apply to kink and wrestling on a whole. One of the most important similarities, however, is that in wrestling and in kink you want to work with partners who are safe and take care of you. Any of the hurt and pain involved is intentional, but not malicious. Do wrestlers land on their backs and take hits? Of course they do. Are they trying to end their lives prematurely? No. So it goes for kink. People are consenting to it, so they want it, and they want it at levels. Does this mean unfortunate things cease to happen? No, they do. And they likely will. In wrestling there are ways to communicate that. If you’ve ever seen a referee cross their arms in a pattern reminiscent of the X-Force symbol, then you’ve seen a signal that a wrestler might be injured. In kink, there are safewords that signify anything from stopping, to slowing down, or changing something. Above all else, in both communities, you can gain a reputation by how well or how poor you work with others. Like The Macho Man said, “The cream rises to the top.”