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Juliana Protásio writes: "Saturday night, I arrived home feeling tired. I took a bath, and decided to distract my overtaxed neurons with some television. It was 1:30 a.m. - porno hour on many self-proclaimed 'family' channels. I started to search for some action (don't look so shocked; girls like sex too, you know!). I zapped through channel after channel. One station was showing adolescent nonsense: the sexual relations between characters looked unreal and antiseptic, deserving of ridicule. On another channel, a silicone stuffed body took off its clothes, pouting.

I turned it off, and continued my navigation with the remote control.

Moments later, they appeared to me - two men with beautiful bodies, covered with sweat and gasping like rent boys, positioned so that the face of the one lay in the groin of the other! Clearly I had to stop right there, feeling both impressed and happy.

Mine for the night: two Apollos groping one another! Few things could more be sexy!

Having enjoyed this initial burst of mindless feminine pleasure, it took only moments for me to process the scene and its meaning: this was a sports channel's coverage of vale tudo, the wrestling style of 'anything goes' which glorifies male aggression. I couldn't contain my amusement at this revelation, and started to laugh. It was impossible not to, for from whatever angle the camera caught the scene, it looked just like pornography! As if to enhance the eroticism of the image, the floor of ring was colored red, the color of passion!

When the action was shown from above, with the two fighters now in what is called the 'guard' position, their faces pressed against each other as they struggled on the ground, it seemed as if they were kissing. A close up then showed one fighter brushing his lips against the other's hairless chest, as if to venerate the perfection of his opponent's form…

The man lying on his back tried to escape this apparently amorous attack - but did so by driving his right hand between his enemy's legs, his fingers closing firmly around the package contained in the other fighter's shiny jiu-jitsu shorts. His left hand pulled forwards on the other Apollo's muscular shoulder, bringing the body of his rival closer still, before turning him into the hold known as 'the mount'. But this entanglement looked even more intimate than before! I almost blushed to see such powerful images of male sensuality. It is clear to me that, with all the heavy blows and painful holds, vale tudo is a violent sport, and that nothing romantic took place between those two beautiful fighters.

But the interplay between them still gives rise to fantasy, for the positions that they reached as they struggled, body-to-body, were scandalous. It is impossible that their genitals did not rub together like sticks for a fire, creating friction. Such robust stimulation during vale tudo combat must cause the occasional erection in those who practice it - but no doubt such a reaction is called 'involuntary', and is soon forgotten by all concerned.

Except me.

I finished staring at the fight, disconnected the television, and went to bed. But I couldn't sleep at first, thinking the same thought over and over: in their anxiety to prove their masculinity through aggression, the heterosexual vale tudo fighter publicly gropes other men, day after day, night after night -

And with more intensity than any gay man ever would."

There's a lot to be said for the homoerotic chutzpa of no-gi grappling. Not as much as there is for fighting in loose-fitting kimonos or gi pants alone (if that's your fetish, as it is for me), but more than enough to justify its position among the upper echelons of activities marked 'sure to provoke a gigantic boner in gay (and sometimes even straight) men'.

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The most memorable proof of this viewpoint came, for me, during an after-hours sparring session with a certain Brazilian black belt who visited my local martial arts centre in San Antonio, Texas during the summer of 2002, shortly before this site was launched. He was there to conduct a seminar in advanced finishing moves. Which included - as I was soon to discover - hand jobs, humping, and rear mount masturbation. We began the bout in full uniform, under the watchful gaze of both my instructor and fellow students, but stripped down to fight shorts as soon as they'd left the gymnasium.

What followed was nothing short of astonishing. The complete details of that encounter are too exhaustive to chronicle here (they'll provide the basis for a future article, though - promise!), but if there's one thing I learned from it, it's this: vale tudo, with its emphasis on bare skin and naked muscle, brings a whole new dimension to erotic art of jiu-jitsu.

An emphasis I'm delighted to endorse.

Web Links:

MatBattle.com Article: All About the Ground - Diami Virgilio on BJJ's Homoerotic Nature

MatBattle.com Article: BJJ - the New Gay Judo

Author Info:

E-mail Mike

Read Mike's Biography

Visit Juliana Protásio at Claque.com.br (Opens in a separate window.)

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