An Article on Safety! by Jetta Rae Doublecakes, Big Business

Lube wrestling can be anything you want it to be: sexy, empowering, cathartic. It can even be safe and gentle on your body.
I’m hearing ya: you work hard for the money. So hard for the money. You don’t want to get hurt. And grappling in your garter belt in a pool of liquid slapstick sounds like a pretty sure thing, if that thing is “get myself the fuck hurt”.
My bread was buttered that side too, at first, but I’ve gone four years without anything serious. I’ve wrestled in lube and on mats; I’ve never had anything worse than some soreness going up the stairs.
I think this is, in large part, because I don’t worry about getting hurt. A fear of injury leads to injury. It sounds like a fifth period chain letter, but straight up: if you’re afraid of getting hurt, so afraid you’re not present in what you’re doing, then you can hurt yourself or your opponent. You’ll tense, you’ll back off, you’ll lose the groove of your momentum.
But: if you go into the pool prepared to give and to take, to collaborate with your opponent to mold exciting movement in real time, and awkwardly slither with the punches, as it were, then you’ll be okay.
So how do we actualize all this vivacious verbiage! I’ve made you a list!
1.    Hydration, Hydration, Hydration. Lube, being liquid, conducts body heat. It gets warm. Hydration helps you regulate your body temperature through perspiration (though covered in lube you’d swear you don’t sweat). A muscle in want of water will cramp, lock up. Amateur wrestlers—you know, the singlets, Beats by Dre headgear?—often require their muscles be massaged to prevent cramping from a lack of water, as drinking too much water can put you over weight and disqualify you the night of your match. Until Go Deep’s petition for womens lube wrestling to grace the Olympics, or even maybe just the Goodwill Games, don’t bother with that shit. Drink lots and lots of water.
2.    Know Your Limits. Staying present in the moment is a large part of how I avoid injury. The other factor is that I am a person made of large parts. I’m 6’, 245 pounds. You can hit me full force in the chest or gut and I’ll be fine. I know this, so my opponents know it. From figuring out what I can do, we can move on to what I may do.
3.    It’s The Boundaries! Talk with your opponent before the match. Check in about what’s okay, how they feel, where there might be dragons. Even if you’re being competitive. Even if you’re in it to win it. If you know your opponent has badfeels about their left shoulder, and you work around that left shoulder, you avoid someone getting hurt in a panicked shake-off. Also, Jesus Christ, fight fair! Even Big Business wouldn’t put someone with a neck injury in a headlock. Show some pride.
4.     Hold On (For Queer Life). Hosiery isn’t just a fashion statement—it provides traction in finding your footing in all that glitterfilth and afford your opponent something to grab if they want to pull themselves up or pull you down. The glisten of lube on a bare shaved leg lights my fire but is also super hard to hold onto and you might not like giving your opponent that edge but you might like that scramble to find ample girl to grab onto less.  If you’d rather bear bare legs, you can wear fishnet arm warmers or a fishnet top or I’m sure there are other things to wear I’m sorry I was lost for a minute. You know.
5.    Let The Music (And Your Opponent) Move You. So she’s got her arms around your waist and pulling you from behind. You’re digging your heels in, you’re pushing away—you’re wearing yourself out. You’ve still got two more minutes of this song and the part that everyone claps along with to go. Just go with it. Let her have this. Carpe the comeback! Once you hit the pool floor you can roll backwards and back onto your feet for a body splash. Then hook the leg so she can’t try to bridge out! Or just spank her ass. The important thing here is to have a give and take, to tell a story. It can be a sexy story, a competitive story, or an experimental metafiction short story.
Keeping these in mind will help you prevent injury. It will help you stay present. It will help you and your partner make the most of the space.
It will not help you, however, in the ring against Big Business, the CEO of wrestling’s bad girls, whose fierce fiscal cruelty will price match anything you throw at her.  Auntie Capitalism: it’s time to make right with your accounts payable. The merger spree continues with you.