Focus on wrestling: the real deal
Theo Ehret interviewed by Cameron Jamie
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C.J.: "The photos are obviously over-dramatized, and to me part of the attraction is that the gestures are overdone. Was this your intention?"
T.E.: "One of my biggest problems in shooting that stuff was capturing the right expressions. I had a hell of a time trying to get them not to laugh, and to make it look natural."
C.J.: "There were definitely some star apartment wrestlers."
T.E.: "Oh definitely, there were some great models who could really act, but the magazine always wanted new girls all the time."
C.J.: "I always loved reading the letters column in the wrestling magazines written by the fans, or editors posing as fans. Did you read them, and did you find it funny that some people believed that this was real?"
T.E.: "If somebody likes to believe it, it's fine. I sometimes look at my work and think, 'How can I do this? This is ridiculous.'"
C.J.: "What about the more sexually explicit apartment wrestling photos?"
T.E.: "The wrestling magazines could never publish those."
C.J.: "I'm curious, how did you get Seka and Candy Samples to model for you? They were well-known first-generation hard-core porno superstars."
T.E.: "They were hired by the magazines back East. I could never afford to use them myself."
C.J.: "Do you find your apartment wrestling work sexy, erotic?"
T.E.: "No. I don't think it's sexy at all. It's posed and make-believe, that's what it is."
C.J.: "Don't you think that 'make-believe' can be sexy? Wasn't the point to make a sexual fantasy?"
T.E.: "I was completely impartial to it. I guess there was an interest, or people wouldn't have bought it. Something about it made people want to see it. I was shooting it for years and years. It was a job, that was it."
C.J.: "This was before the age of the hard-core sex video, it was pre-porno industry ..."
T.E.: "Back then, I thought that this stuff, in Europe, could not go over well because they are more used to nudity. It's no big deal there. You see a butt, you see a breast, they show it on TV and in magazines. They have nudity in better magazines, not only cheap ones. You see good nude photography and nobody has a second thought about it. But here, it's all hush-hush."
C.J.: "Where do you think this repression in America comes from?"
T.E.: "I think religion has a lot to do with it. The more you deprive people of something, the more they want it. You put a nude magazine on the table in Europe, they glance at it and walk out of the house. Here, they grab it and go into the closet to read it. I could never see what all the fuss was about."
C.J.: "Were you aware that apartment wrestling, or cat fighting, was a fetish?"
T.E.: "That's what it is. Those are all strange worlds to me, but if you want to see a couple of girls wrestling, what's the big deal? Let them wrestle."
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Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
C.J.: "The photos are obviously over-dramatized, and to me part of the attraction is that the gestures are overdone. Was this your intention?"
T.E.: "One of my biggest problems in shooting that stuff was capturing the right expressions. I had a hell of a time trying to get them not to laugh, and to make it look natural."
C.J.: "There were definitely some star apartment wrestlers."
T.E.: "Oh definitely, there were some great models who could really act, but the magazine always wanted new girls all the time."
C.J.: "I always loved reading the letters column in the wrestling magazines written by the fans, or editors posing as fans. Did you read them, and did you find it funny that some people believed that this was real?"
T.E.: "If somebody likes to believe it, it's fine. I sometimes look at my work and think, 'How can I do this? This is ridiculous.'"
C.J.: "What about the more sexually explicit apartment wrestling photos?"
T.E.: "The wrestling magazines could never publish those."
C.J.: "I'm curious, how did you get Seka and Candy Samples to model for you? They were well-known first-generation hard-core porno superstars."
T.E.: "They were hired by the magazines back East. I could never afford to use them myself."
C.J.: "Do you find your apartment wrestling work sexy, erotic?"
T.E.: "No. I don't think it's sexy at all. It's posed and make-believe, that's what it is."
C.J.: "Don't you think that 'make-believe' can be sexy? Wasn't the point to make a sexual fantasy?"
T.E.: "I was completely impartial to it. I guess there was an interest, or people wouldn't have bought it. Something about it made people want to see it. I was shooting it for years and years. It was a job, that was it."
C.J.: "This was before the age of the hard-core sex video, it was pre-porno industry ..."
T.E.: "Back then, I thought that this stuff, in Europe, could not go over well because they are more used to nudity. It's no big deal there. You see a butt, you see a breast, they show it on TV and in magazines. They have nudity in better magazines, not only cheap ones. You see good nude photography and nobody has a second thought about it. But here, it's all hush-hush."
C.J.: "Where do you think this repression in America comes from?"
T.E.: "I think religion has a lot to do with it. The more you deprive people of something, the more they want it. You put a nude magazine on the table in Europe, they glance at it and walk out of the house. Here, they grab it and go into the closet to read it. I could never see what all the fuss was about."
C.J.: "Were you aware that apartment wrestling, or cat fighting, was a fetish?"
T.E.: "That's what it is. Those are all strange worlds to me, but if you want to see a couple of girls wrestling, what's the big deal? Let them wrestle."
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Exquisite Mayhem - The Spectacular and Erotic World of Wrestling
Hardcover, 29 x 36.2 cm (11.4 x 14.3 in.), 488 pages
Down and dirty. Sexy, subversive, and sensational wrestling
