Column:

It's my childhood, and I'll cry if I want to

By Dan Friesen

Published Sept. 25, 2007

By the time you read this, I will have made good for all the deprivation I suffered as a child.

People are interesting creatures. When you prohibit people from doing something, it usually makes them want to do the said thing all the more. For instance, I can imagine what it would be like if Brother Jed told his daughters not to have anal sex with black men. It's bizarre that just the very fact that we're told we cannot do or have something creates a rebellious need in our very core to lash out against whatever authority tries to hold us back.

The real curious piece of this phenomenon is that, had such a behavior been openly allowed and discussed, the visceral drive to do and have what is not allowed might dwindle. In my life, there are frequent examples of this. As the product of two rather protective parents, I came out of my childhood hungry.

My parents never really had the "sex talk" with me (hence all these absurd columns about my masturbatory habits), and the only place I got any insight into sex was at church. In adolescence, my hormones were raging, and the answer the church gave was to pray. Don't have sex, just pray. So, I had this one force in my life telling me to abstain.

Then, of course, there was the female population of the school I attended. They seemed to share the opinions of my pastors. I shouldn't be having sex, they told me with their uninterested looks and refusals to talk to me. And that only fueled my drive even more. I knew that the gods had willed that I was not to get my dick wet. I was possessed with an all-consuming drive to flout the gods' will and get laid.

Despite my best efforts, that still didn't happen. It turns out that a god's will is easier to flout than a woman's will. No worries, though; I found porn.

The list goes on and on: R-rated movies, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, food packaged in single servings and sugary cereals.

But, as much as it pained me to be deprived of these things, they aren't the issues for which I most resented my parents. That honor goes to their not allowing me to watch pro wrestling. I was 12 or 13, and all my friends had their Stone Cold Steve Austin shirts. They would walk around school on Tuesday morning, debating the goings-on of the last night's RAW. And I couldn't join in at all. Every Monday night would produce the same argument.

"Mom, I want to watch wrestling," I would protest.

"It's too violent, Dan. Why don't you watch some F Troop reruns?"

"Wrestling's all fake! I hate you. I have no family," I would wail as I ran to my room.

This scene played out frequently, at least until I wised up and spent the night at friends' houses regularly on Monday nights.

I never really got over this sheltering, and although I don't really like wrestling anymore, I feel it's important for me to recapitulate my youth. In that spirit, I am going to Sunday's ECW- SmackDown Live event at the Hearnes Center.

I'm an adult now, and damnit, I'm going to do things I wanted to do as a child but couldn't.

Hmm, a pro wrestling event — seems like a good place to pick up some white trash tail. Lady with the "You Can't See Me" sign: I'm coming for you.