If you didn't like wrestling before, then it's time to get on board. In Switzerland, wrestler Curdin Orlick has come out as gay in a new feature for The Magazine. The announcement makes him the first openly gay professional male athelete, in history, to do so.
Though the feature is behind a paywall, Outsports has pulled a few of the important points in a story.
“For far too long I have pushed out who I really am,” Orlick said in the story. “I am not someone who kisses in front of people, but I want to lie down with a man and be able to touch him. ... I always knew that I was gay, for sure since I was 12. But I thought: this is wrong, it cannot be. I heard things on the school building square [like] ‘you gay pig,’ ‘you faggot.’ Or in soccer, ‘such a gay pass!’ Even when swinging [wrestling]. Sure, nobody really meant that, but if you’re like that yourself, you think, ‘Shit, that’s not a good thing.’ I thought: I don’t want to be gay. But it’s me. Now it’s out.”
Orlick is a bit of a champion of Swiss "swing" wrestling. That genre of the sport is a little different than wrestling elsewhere. Basically, the atheletes get dressed up (as opposed to stripping down to a singlet) and throw each other around in sawdust.
Outside of his career, Orlick had tried to meet up with guys off of dating apps, but didn't enjoy the experience. As a result, he went back to dating women, and eventually got married and had a child. He's since seperated from his wife but still maintains a relationship with his son.
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