The Submission Specialist

Last Friday my night-cap was stiffer than usual. After a hard night’s work serving house-red-drinking ten-percent-tipping suburbanites, I stopped at one of my favourite drinking holes on the way home from work. Southern-themed, the bar is furnished entirely in bourbon-stained wood and the house cocktail is a classic mint julep. Strolling in the door just before last call, I was pleased to see the place was filled to the brim with inebriated straight men. Squeezing past the latest in Zeller’s fashion, I took the only stool available at the centre of the bar and ordered a double-gin on the rocks. 

Looking left and right, I remarked upon how just like gay men, straight men come in every shape, colour and size. To my left were two scrawny men who were half-in-the-bag after too many amaretto-cokes. Their Best Buy shirts unbuttoned to reveal their hairless pale chests, the two of them sat cheers-ing the latest release of Halo and discussing how their lives would be different if they were able to gain thirty pounds and grow facial hair.

To my right were three men who appeared to have no problem with muscle or hair. With dirt underneath their finger nails, they chased each pint with a double shot of Maker’s Mark and talked in a dialect of ‘slur’ that I had never heard before. Tattooed, tanned and some other adjective that starts with T, these hets looked as if they just wrapped construction on a condo they could never afford.

Having successfully acquainted myself with the surroundings, I looked up at the television screen and laid eyes upon a sport that I had never seen before: UFC. As the match began, I felt my interest began to fade as I watched the two fighters endlessly circle each other. Stifling a yawn with another sip from my drink, I got ready to pull out my book when I noticed one of the fighter’s get pinned.

Suddenly wide awake, my eyes bulged at the sight of the two men completely horizontal on top of each other. Checking to see if anyone was looking, which everyone was, I could not believe what was happening. Did these men not see what I was seeing? Wearing nothing but really short spandex short shorts, the two fighters engaged in what could only be described best as gay foreplay. Feeling my jeans tighten, I heard cheers and cat-calls fly out from the crowd and thought to myself for the first time that night, I fit right in. 

In order to best describe what happened in the fight after that, I shall refer to the fighter who was pinned to the ground as “The Bottom” and the one who was doing the pinning as “The Top.” Well, tossing and turning The Bottom tried everything he could to flip over The Top, but it appeared he was not versatile enough. And so, harnessing his bottom-power (a.k.a lower back muscle) he thrusted his pelvis into the air, and interlocked his two legs around The Top’s neck in some kind of steamy strangle hold. Sweating and breathing, The Bottom suffocated The Top with his crotch until the two men finally gave way and collapsed on to each other once again. Needless to say by the time the match was over I had ordered another drink and stepped outside for a cigarette.

The next day at work, I asked one of my male co-workers for a little Mixed Martial Arts tutorial. If I was going to be the sport’s next biggest fan, I wanted to know everything about it. Taking me aside in the server’s station, he first began by correcting some of my terminology. Apparently, The Bottom is not called The Bottom at all, but rather ‘The Submission Specialist.’ What I would give for that title. And instead of The Top, the other fighter is referred to as ‘The Ground and Pound.’ Can somebody get me a towel?

Ignoring the fact that table ten’s pasta had not been cheesed yet, I listened on intently as he began to explain some of the moves.

“Well Fox, you see, The Ground and Pound guys are looking for a position called 'full mount.' This is where you have the other person flat on their back and you are sitting on their chest, leaving them completely exposed.”

Feeling as if he was reading straight from a page of the Gay Man’s Kama Sutra, I took out my notepad and started taking notes.

From boy scouts to first communions, it never ceases to amaze me how gay straight men can be. The best part is, after all this time, they still don’t even realize it.