Wrestling: The Brutal, Beautiful Art

"The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali - classic art

Fair warning, this post will be a bit more personal than my other wrestling posts.

A month ago, I wrote about LuFisto's 15 years in wrestling and how much I admired her. I also wrote about how she helped change my way of viewing female wrestlers who choose to pose nude. (The link to that entry is here: http://thedangerousqueen.blogspot.com/2012/06/fifteen-years-of-super-hardcore-anime.html )

On the most recent Women of Wrestling podcast on Ringbellesonline.com (which you can find here: http://ringbellesonline.com/2012/07/15/wow-podcast-43-with-saraya-knight/ ), "Sweet" Saraya Knight revealed that some of the women of her promotion, World Assocation of Women's Wrestling, would be posing nude for a calendar. All the proceeds are going towards the family of a local footballer (soccer player for us Americans) who passed away recently. Nothing will be showing, so it will be in the vein of something like this:http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/13/article119161605439e5a0.jpg/

However, because I had not listened to the podcast, and instead asked a friend who had what Saraya's announcement was, I only got a slice of the story, that women from WAWW were posing nude for a calendar. As I tend to do, I spoke out rashly, without the aforementioned facts. I worried that some of the women had been pressured or forced into posing against their wishes, worried about how this would be perceived by fans of female wrestling, and said that my opinion of Saraya herself had gone down.

I was quickly informed of the facts and roundly bollocked - deservedly so. One person informed me that if I was going to think less of her, then I needed to think less of the women who do custom matches which, I was told, are done mostly for people to "get off" to. Seeing as how I thought customs were more for "dream match" scenarios for those who can afford them, that was a bit of a shock. But it made me stop and think about it all. I went back and looked at what I wrote for LuFisto's appreciation post and how she had supposedly made me change my point of view. But if she truly had, then it hadn't been a permanent change. Or a real change.

Over the past weekend, I received a few items from Leslie (aka JohnHyperion on Twitter) that I had bought. Items such as mini Joshi figurines, an Ice Ribbon poster, two programs from previous Joshi events and two photobooks, one featuring Manami Toyota and the other Ayako Hamada. When I purchased them, I did not realise they contained the nude photos I'd been told about previously. A friend told me this so when I received the books and started to flip through them, I had mentally braced myself.

"The Birth of Venus" - also art.

To my surprise, the photos were not only tasteful, but beautiful. I found myself drawn to the textures, the vibrant colours in Hamada's book and the contrast of shadow and light in Toyota's. Not every picture was of them sans clothes, and the ones that were had them posing just right to hide what they needed to. In other words, I didn't see the pictures as female wrestlers posing nude. I saw them as art. Beautiful, vivid artwork that could be ranked alongside classical artwork. And it clicked.


For most of my adult life, thanks partly to society, partly to low self esteem and partly to the five years of going to a private Baptist school, I viewed anything to do with nudity and sexuality with a sense of shame. I hated my own body, rarely looking at myself without clothes, and backed up with the fundamental Christian viewpoint of sex as a shameful thing, I saw anything celebrating the male or female form as exploitative and disgusting. This view only started to shift when I began broadening my mind around 2006-2007, but even as much as my political viewpoint started to shift from conservative Republican to progressive Liberal, nudity and sex remained taboo.

When I got into the WWF in 1999, I dismissed the women that posed for Playboy as eye candy and nothing more. The only one that earned my respect was Candice Michelle, as she seemed to really dig in and want to learn how to properly wrestle. However, the odd dichotomy was that I enjoyed looking at the photo shoots the women did. The scenery was varied, the shots were amazing and of course, the ladies themselves were lovely. But posing nude was one way to make me think less of them. So when I found out that Mickie James had done some tasteless photographs and Candice had done softcore porn, I lost respect for them - and I was a huge Mickie fan.

In the past two years, as I've gotten into independent female wrestling, and also started learning about feminism, the two interests coincided. I saw a lot of sexism in wrestling, but there were also some bright points, such as all-female promotions that gave their female talent a chance to show they were more than pretty faces; and promotions that treated men and women equally. Most of these had women who were determined to make it clear they were serious athletes and deserved to be treated as such. As I've fallen in love with wrestling all over again, I've become fiercely protective of it and the reputation female wrestling has. It has a better one, thanks to promotions such as SHIMMER, WSU, CHIKARA, ACW and others, but your average wrestling fan has been conditioned by WWE programming to see females as T&A, nothing more. Posing nude didn't help that reputation - or so I thought.

Wrestling as Art: Manami v Madison Eagles.

Fast forward to now. I can hardly think less of women such as Toyota, Hamada and LuFisto, who are honourable, wonderful women who  have done much for wrestling and been such great examples. No one but a fool would think that they aren't in the upper echelons as far as wrestling skill. Having met Saraya Knight in person, I know what a sweet, lovely person she is. All the women of WAWW are hard working and dedicated to wrestling. On Twitter, Ringbelles confirmed that no one was pressured into posing for the calendar and that one person declined with no problems.

All of this has made me realise that I seriously need to stop and think before reacting, get all of the facts, but most importantly accept and encourage the choices women make for themselves. Feminism is about equality between the genders, empowerment, celebration of women and the right to decide what is good for ourselves (so long as no one else is hurt). Women that choose to pose nude should be applauded that they are secure enough in themselves to do so. Their bodies - our bodies - are nothing to be ashamed of. That is a lie that is still prevalent in America, whereas elsewhere people are more relaxed about sexuality and nudity. If no one in Japan thought less of Toyota or Hamada for doing photo shoots, why should anyone else, including myself?

It was only last year, thanks to my former boyfriend, that I started loving my body and having a healthier self image. This may seem backwards, for all my posturing about being independent and what not, but it's true. He got me to see how lovely I am, physically and mentally. And despite our break up, I have kept that healthy self image, that boost of self esteem. Now, I can look at myself unashamedly and smile.

This is my apology, to Saraya for judging without knowing the facts and for thinking that she would do something as low as to pressure those that work for her into doing something they disagreed with. This is my apology, to Mickie James for disregarding her skill because of a personal choice she made. This is my apology, to every hard working woman I've ever thought less of because of the personal choices they made regarding their bodies. They made their decision and as long as it was made freely, I should have supported them and not thought less of them, as wrestlers or people.

I am sorry. I was wrong. I am going to do my best to change my gut reaction, to get the facts before speaking, and above all to support every woman in their freely-made decisions to empower themselves. I am way too judgmental, reactionary and hypocritical - I will change this.

Wrestler as Work of Art: Ayako Hamada.

At the same time, I would like to thank those people who had a hand in changing my point of view, not least LuFisto, Hamada, and Toyota; Leslie, for selling me the artbooks; Chris, Lee, Rovert, and Matt for challenging my point of view. Ironic that it has been mostly men who have helped change my view.

Wrestling is art. I've long thought that. Now, I consider wrestlers as artists - and sometimes, works of art themselves. Who knows - if I attend SHIMMER and there's any calendars left, I may pick one up for myself.


*Edit: A friend commented on how it looked like I was being too hard on myself, and that it was more a matter of me growing comfortable with new boundaries. Which is true, but at the same time, I reacted poorly and without all the facts concerning Saraya. That led me to thinking about my reactions over the years to women such as Mickie James and the like. I have been very narrow minded and judgmental, and this incident has made me see that I need to change how I react to things and also broaden my point of view.

While I grow more comfortable with sexuality in art, it's important to not jump to conclusions or condemn the free choices women make. They have it hard enough in wrestling - I have condemned others who make things difficult for women in wrestling, now it's time I stop adding to their difficulty by shaming and condemning them.