A crowd of onlookers squealed and cheered as students wrestled in 80 pounds of personal lubricant this Wednesday in the South Park Blocks.
The event, co-sponsored by punk drag troupe Sissyboy, was part of Portland State University’s Queer Awareness Week, a seven-day festival celebrating Pride Week and promoting PSU’s new Queer Resource Center.
The spectacle was Portland State’s first Lube Olympics. Similar events have been held at Oregon State University, and it wasn’t Sissyboy’s first time wrestling in viscous substances, either.
“We wrestled in oatmeal with the lesbians,” said Sissyboy member and emcee Catherine Virginia Beatrice “Kitty” McCoy. “But the lesbians beat us really well. It looks like we have some affirmative action.”
“They were afraid we’d hurt the lawn,” said Killian Kleffner, a freshman working the Queer Resource Center’s information table Monday. “But the lube is water soluble. If it could hurt a lawn, it wouldn’t be used as a lubricant.”
Wednesday’s competitors entered a shark-emblazoned kiddie pool full of lubricant and then twirled, flipped, half-nelsoned and dunked each other in hopes of garnering the most applause from the audience.
Two of Wednesday’s wrestlers were PSU students Laura Pieroni and Madeline Enos, editors of the literary magazine Pathos. Enos wore a T-shirt in the pool that read “Pathos – We Have Big Dicks.” The other wrestlers, clad in mascara and underpants, engaged in lubricated combat while McCoy hollered instructions like “Splendora, you might want to take a moment to reapply your makeup,” and “Don’t forget your pants!”
Sissyboy, who on the web site tribe.net bill themselves as “a monthly drag experience of hairspray, duct tape, eyelash adhesive and stage vomit,” will be hosting a drag workshop before the Queer Prom this Friday.
The lubricant, called J-lube, was purchased through mail order and arrived in powdered form. Volunteers gathered Wednesday to mix the concoction.
The lube wrestling followed an event called “Drag Racing,” where a blond drag queen called Splendora invited passers-by to “race around and compete with people in sequins.” It was won by a man who identified himself only as “Robbie,” who said he was a signature-gatherer for City Council hopeful Chris Iverson’s initiative to decriminalize marijuana.
“I think this and the Grant Wood event have been the highlights of Queer Awareness Week so far,” said Cody Rowan, one of the Queer Resource Center coordinators. “Hopefully the Queer Prom will be a big event as well.”
Queer Awareness Week continues through Sunday, with “Live Acts of Homosexuality” happening today in the South Park Blocks from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and “A Night of Kings and Queens” prom and drag show Friday at 8 p.m. in Hoffman Hall.