Genderalisations

Something else I've missed during my time out in the big bad world of no internets is the blog over at RoughKut. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks too hard about fedding. Of the blogs I missed while I was away, one jumped out at me on the grounds of it being on a subject near and dear to my heart: women's wrestling. People think of me as a big fan of women's wrestling; really, I'm just a wrestling fan, but unlike many wrestling fans - so it seems - I consider women's wrestling equal to men's. Even though Kut's blog on playing female characters is a few months old now, I can't not respond to it. Go read his excellent blog, as well as Sky's equally excellent reply in the comments field, then come back and read the rest of this, biznitches :p

To clarify, first off, I am a man. I have played a number of characters over the years, both male and female, but far and away my most successful was female. I don't think this is weird at all - what I'm interested in is a character's personality, and gender is just another small part of the myriad things which make up one's personality. Playing someone of a different gender to oneself needn't be any more of a problem than playing someone of a different age, nationality or socioeconomic background. In fact most fedders of my acquaintance, male or female, have played characters of both genders. It's not just in fedding; I have two current characters for pen-and-paper roleplay games, one of whom is male and the other of whom is female, and again, I'm in games with both women who play men and men who play women.

Kut's blog focuses on the question of intergender combat - and lawdy, is this a contentious subject. The first point which always comes up is the physical mechanics - the question of whether or not men are physically capable of fighting women. Kut and Sky weigh up the two sides pretty effectively in the linked blog. I have to say, I agree with Sky over Kut. To my mind, the idea that women can't fight is ridiculous. In a lot of martial arts, intergender combat is an accepted part of the sport, and IRL I've fought women and won, and I've fought women and lost. Neither gives me any shame at all, and I don't care who thinks it should.

However, it's a clouded issue in wrestling somewhat, because wrestling - as a martial art - is based around weight and upper body strength, where men have the undeniable advantage. The average woman isn't going to be able to take on Kurt Angle on his terms. The answer to that is, naturally, to not go on his terms. Size is one thing which can be used as a physical advantage. So, if you know how to use it, is being small. In general smaller people are harder to hit, faster, and have better conditioning and thus more stamina. Remember, fights are won in the mind, and it's how you use your own strengths and your opponent's weaknesses that matter.

All that is only one part of the debate, however. From those who don't know combat well, there are some darker stock responses to intergender combat. First, it's some kind of dirty sexual thing. It's for people who want to see someone dominate another person. And sadly, while I know that I don't have any sexual interest in intergender combat, and nor do most of the handlers I know, I can't deny that a handful do. All I can say to those people is: please respect that some of us just like to portray two fighters competing, and don't care about their genders.

The other is that it's sexist, or that it's promoting violence against women. Here, I disagree entirely. People too often confuse 'violence against women' with domestic violence. Domestic violence is abhorrent, no matter what the genders of the respective parties. But two adults competing in a fair fight is not domestic violence. What's sexist, to my mind, is telling women that because of their gender, they shouldn't be allowed to compete if they want to. But of course, there are certain branches of feminism which aren't actually interested in equality - just in making a stink about any vaguely related issue they can find. Same as anything, really.

The other big area Kut touches on is allowing women to compete for men's titles. Those who know me personally will know that I have always, always opposed gender-based titles in fedding, as well as titles segregated by weight category and nationality. This is as much about practicality as anything else; it's often hard enough getting enough people interested in chasing titles as it is without imposing restrictions which are based along fundamentally arbitrary lines. I understand the realism question - WWE and TNA keep things separated, so feds should too - but you know something? As far as I'm concerned, it's WWE and TNA who need to catch up there.

But then we're getting into the question of 'wrestling logic' where what happens in the world of pro wrestling, no matter how unrealistic, is accepted as the correct reality for fedding. I've been thinking about that one for some time, and there will be a post coming about it. For now, if you want to test 'wrestling logic' for yourself, here's an experiment: Try doing a front suplex on someone, then try doing a fisherman's suplex on someone, and decide which was easier.*


*Don't actually do that :p. Y'know - don't try this at blah blah blah whatever.

I'm back, and I'm better than ever! Got a knack for making things better.

Actually, I'm not better at all, medically speaking. If anything I'm worse. But on the plus side: I HAS INTERNET NAO. Again. So whooo! *does Flair Flop* Ow, my chest.

Thanks to my tricky internet situation I've been out of the fedding loop since early autumn last year, meaning I've missed some developments. I've also realised how much I've not missed all-nighters working on results, unreadable contract apps, and wrangling people's match ideas into a workable card without relieving oneself on anyone's dreams too much. But that's fedding for you! We do it because we love it, and not because we're all hopeless addicts. No sir.

While I was away, a number of interesting feds have sprung up. Prime among them is True Glory Wrestling, which made RoughKut's top ten e-feds a couple of months ago and is recommended by my buddy James, former owner of the much-missed Phoenix Wrestling Enterprise, which is good enough for me. TGW runs a weekly show and monthly PPVs and the front end is incredibly slick, with an easy-on-the-eyes colour scheme, simple and effective graphics and a great, easily navigable layout. There looks to be a decent range of talent there, and results are fairly well written, although the matches are a little on the short side. Overall it's a very stylish promotion and while it's not doing anything especially new, it does what it does well.

In the spirit of the aforementioned late Phoenix Wrestling Enterprise as well as the short-lived, Chikara-influenced New Revolution Wrestling Association, comes the excellently monickered Death Company Wrestling. It's still building to its first show, and already has a great OOC community going. Fedhead Boomtax is never short of inspired, unique ideas, and DCW promises to be crazy, anarchic and very funny. Not everybody will 'get' DCW, but those who do should have a blast. Also hosted on the DCW board is another promotion, Nic Cage Championship Wrestling. Mere words can't be employed in the expression of how much PURE CONCENTRATED AWESOME is in NCCW but suffice to say, it supplies over 250% of your RDA of Nic Cage.

One very intriguing fed which both opened and closed during my time away was Virtue, brainchild of noted hyperweirdo Ripplemagne (I mean that in a loving way, Ripp) which is every bit as unique as its progenitor. It's set in 1985 which already makes it genius, with all of the trappings that entails - small arenas, no Tron or pyro, terrible mullets and sweet electronic entrance music. It's currently out of commission as Ripplemagne has computer issues, but if it comes back (as is threatened), it has the potential to be truly radical to the max, as I believe was the vernacular in the mid eighties.

Another fed with a great gimmick is Unleashed. It's all based around underground, unsanctioned fighting with more influence from MMA than wrestling, with win/loss records kept on display and match cards presented like a genuine company. It has a tremendous sense of style and professionalism and is also possibly the fed with the highest overall level of writing talent within its membership I've ever seen - it seems to be a magnet for the most scarily awesome roleplayers I've ever had the fortune to get my ass handed to me by.

Femme Fatale Wrestling shares a lot of the same handlers as Unleashed, meaning the overall quality should be high. As the name implies, this one is all about the ladies, and while I've never exactly been noted as a fan of character segregation in e-fedding, I thoroughly applaud any fed which encourages people to break out of the 'white 20-something American male' default character in any regard. They're currently seeking tag teams, so those of you with any all-female teams should very definitely check it out. If I had the time, I'd be signing up for sure.

Finally, a real wrestler fed to close us out. ECW Hardcore Revolution has a pretty unique approach for a real wrestler fed, in that it's indy - specifically, a modern update of the pre-Invasion ECW of old, with a roster featuring some true hardcore legends (including Iron Shiek, Terry Funk, New Jack, Mayumi Ozaki, Steve Corino and... er... Colin Delaney). Shows are wild, free and untamed, much like the hair of current ECW Champion Brian Kendrick. God he's sexy.

The Size Advantage

A big barometer of success in running an e-fedding seems to be the size of your fed - the number of weekly shows you produce, the number of members you have. The larger the better. RoughKut definitely works on this principle. Something occurred to me about that recently - it's bullshit. I've been on feds with 200+ members and you know something? I hated them. They're impersonal and cliquey. More members means you're less likely to go under but it also means that newer or less active members are more likely to be marginalised.

I can see the counter-argument to that; newer and less active members ought to have an incentive to become an active part of the community and get further up the card. The larger a roster is, the tougher the field is, the harder the glass ceiling is to break, and that stimulates members to work harder. Those who aren't interested in pushing themselves that hard shouldn't have joined in the first place.

This makes the mistake of assuming everyone wants the same thing, that everyone wants to be the most successful wrestler, and every fed ought to want to be the most successful - what about those who just want to hang out and have fun? It's a chicken/egg situation - on large feds, very often, only established veterans become big players - but only big players become established veterans. Furthermore, I for one have always found storytelling less involved in any fed of about 100+ members; there's so much going on you're expected to keep track of and so few people are interested in anyone else's storylines.

Now, I'm not saying that all large feds ought to keel over and die. Promotions like Pro Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. have their place, no doubt, and there's nothing wrong with being competitive. But there's also nothing wrong with NOT being so competitive. But personally when I want to get to know a bunch of people, kick back and have a laugh, and more than anything really roleplay with others rather than just compete for championships, I'm going to go to a smaller and more intimate place.

I'm stopping now before this devolves into ludology versus narratology - don't worry, I'm sure that one will come too at some point. :P