It is 7:42pm on Valentine’s Day and as I climb the stairs to the exposed brick concrete loft event space, I feel like I’m walking into a high school dance, but freakier. Techno plays as cold magenta light washes over small pods of trapper hats, mod-derivative cuts, bandanas, Taobao corsets, black and red fishnets, and pigtails clustered in the left third of the room, closest to the bar. Someone in a 67 jersey is posing wildly for a photoshoot in the far corner. Everyone, it seems, is only talking to people they know.
Only it’s not a high school dance, or anything much like it. I’m at “WRESTLING SPEED DATING” in Greenpoint, what has been billed as sensual wrestling for singles. With permission participants are encouraged to scratch, sniff, and grope—within reason—whomever they choose that night. According to Gael Aitor, the semi-mulleted 22-year-old co-founder of GrownKid, the host organization, the scene folding out before us is in service of the mental well-being of Brooklyn’s 18 to 24 year olds. “Mental health,” Aitor says smoothly, “is my passion. Americans need permission to connect again.” Sounds reasonable. “In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General rang the alarm about the loneliness epidemic. It’s essentially just as dangerous as smoking a ton of cigarettes a day.” Thus, sensual wrestling.
“WRESTLING SPEED DATING” is GrownKid’s attempt to bring the romance vibe from dating apps back to real life, and to push back against mainstream media’s portrayal of Gen Z sexuality as frigid and stunted. The event’s popularity—it went viral on social media and netted GrownKid some 15,000 followers on Instagram—signals clearly young people’s exhaustion with ‘playing it cool’ and the endless choice of online dating. Wrestling promised to be different, a refuge for the failed Tinder user from everpresent decision-making. “Pheremones [sic] are a powerful thing, so don’t try to argue against biology,” the a post advertising the event reads. “Love their touch? Love their scent? That’s your lover.”
The event is part of GrownKid’s two-pronged “community and play”-oriented approach to midwifing this 18 to 24 micro-generation into the world. First came their podcast, billed “for everyone that feels like a grownkid, no matter how old you are,” then their event series, which includes things like the “fight your evil situationship boxing rave” and the “‘are you bisexual?’ house party.” Hearing Kayla Suarez, the other 22-year-old co-founder, rattling off the past events makes me, at 23, feel suddenly very ancient. This, it turns out, is to be one of the reigning feelings of the night.
Before students from Bard or Parsons start tangling their bodies in search of scent-based connection, a freshly-minted 21-year-old is left staring at a row of shots in front of him at the bar after the bartender dismisses the excitable but underage gaggle he’s bought the round for. Posters on the wall tell partygoers to “SAY YES INDULGENTLY,” to “be one who gives others permission,” and lay out directives for the night: “FLIRT W/ EVERYONE,” “WRESTLE ONE,” and “LEAVE IN LOVE.”
For all the insistent event copy, the flyers, the media-trained sound bites from the organizers, there is, at this point, remarkably little “play” in the air. What is there instead is the nervous darting eye contact of a first freshman year function. “I’m a weirdly intense person,” a squirrelly young man mumbles over the hiked up collar of a knee-length silver parka puffer—he’s kept it on for the past hour—when asked what’s brought him out tonight. (The hood of a second puffer peeks out from underneath.) “I have zero physical contact, ZERO, with anyone besides with my parents, so I wanted to do a little bit of exposure…catch up with the rest.” When “you feel like you’re in a more niche category,” he says, something like Tinder that “pander[s] to the majority” is “unusable.” And most everyone who weighs in agrees that they’re trying to move away from Tinder, shed their anxiety, and find connection.
The wrestling is pushed back half an hour, then half an hour again. Surveying the room, the overhead lights, the vertical videographers thronging the ring ropes, the tubes of disinfectant wipes at the ready, it’s hard to not think of the winking, dart-ripping spectacle of the Twinks v. Dolls Olympics, the extant, sexy filthiness of the gone-national queer mud wrestling events. Here, sincerity reigns supreme. From the “SOCIAL MANIFESTO” we’re asked to sign to the constant extolments to “CARE BOLDLY,” “protect your boundaries,” and “live with intention.”
Part of this is because post-Me Too questions of harm, consent, and power dynamics loom large. (A cursory scan suggests the crowd leans 18-21, heterosexual, and male.) The event, in fact, was rightly marketed in part toward finding someone who respects your boundaries. Before two people pair up, they must fill out hot pink, Valentine’s Day-themed consent cards: “HOW TO WRESTLE ME NICE,” they’re titled, with fill-in-the-blank options for “I LOVE:,” “SAFEWORD:,” “PLEASE DONT [sic]:,” and “AGGRESION [sic] SCALE:.” A reference chart on the back of the card details the age-appropriate wrestling ranges: As a 23-year-old, I could not wrestle a 20-year-old. “If you’re on the older end of that bracket,” the event invite warns, “be mindful of the power dynamics at play. If you’re approaching with healthy connection in mind, not predatory behavior, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“When you’re involving physicality, lust, even, it can be very easy for…a 24-year-old to unintentionally demonstrate some kind of power dynamic with an 18-year-old,” Suarez explains in a cramped side room lined with wood pallets and assembly-line salads. But with this newfound post-Me Too awareness of harm and power differentials, “a lot of us started to feel very paranoid about saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing,” remarks Aitor. The difficulty of squaring this circle, of balancing forwardness with “boundary violations,” comes up in every conversation with men that night. Bobby, 24, goes to the bars seeking connection but doesn’t want to approach women. “The last thing I want to do is to make a woman feel uncomfortable,” he sighs, shaking his head, but Will, another 24-year-old chatting with us, shrugs. “Every single one of [my woman friends] is like, ‘I want a guy to talk to me at the bar’…Ultimately what it is is just anxiety.”
But, surely, part of this is also because there are cameras everywhere. Videographers slither referee-like across mats to capture the most dramatic, low angle shots of mid-match pinning for the next viral Instagram reel; an auxiliary photoshoot hums away near the bar, replete with backdrop and tripods to scratch attendees’ yearbook photo itches; and high-angle selfies and off-camera flashes deploy across the room every few seconds like stun grenades. The event is a tightrope act. Go crazy, but here are the rules. Get all up in it, get intimate, get groping, but here’s a camcorder 15 inches from your face. And when, for that matter, is sensuality or play less sensual or less playful than when it is chaperoned and basically commissioned from the get-go? It makes for a strange combination, the rules, the cameras, the wide-eyed 18-year-olds, the experience somewhere between two-week-long summer camp with soon-to-be strangers, Covid-era dorm party, and panopticon. Rather than open, or erotic, or free, I feel wrapped in an impenetrable layer of cling film.
The feeling lingers for the rest of the night. As the clock ticks towards 10, Amir, one of the referees, who wears a beanie like a tree-topper and says he doesn’t have housing because he “do[es]n’t trust the government,” announces to the crowd that there’s only time for two more rounds. The reaction is immediate: would-be wrestlers shove against the ring ropes, brandishing their pink consent forms at him and demanding to be let onto the mats. It’s like the photos of Great Depression-era bank runs, customers shaking their scrips furiously at the hapless tellers.
One of the only things that penetrates the cling film is something Lucy, a 22-year-old Parsons student who’s hit the mat more than anyone else, says in passing. “People don’t want to hurt me,” she divulges, “but I don’t care if they hurt me, and I don’t care if I hurt them.” She’s explaining how she keeps winning her matches, but something about it is striking. Maybe if the event had felt less like a chaperoned foam pit, maybe if people had really felt open to explore with consent in mind, but without cameras pointed from every which angle, it would’ve felt much more like a true attempt at “intimacy and play.” Instead, the event felt about as real as the packs of SmartSweets lined up by the bar at the end of the night.
At 10, the wrestling comes to a close, and referees start waving attendees away from the ring. A few organizers are still tussling on the mats as people trickle toward their coats and down the stairs to the exit. Aside from the few stragglers, most people leave the way they had come: faces bent down toward their phones.