shadesong reminds us that wrestler Mick Foley is fighting the good fight:I’ve been a fan of Mick Foley and his alter egos Mankind, Cactus Jack, and Dude Love from the very beginning. Foley is one of those wrestlers who is so clearly just having a blast out there, whether he’s playing it straight or whipping out a sock puppet. He’s silly, he’s goofy, he’s willing to do whatever it takes to make the audience laugh or give a great match. Literally. Barbed wire has been involved. The man has ripped his ear off. Foley is committed.Read more.
And one of the things he’s committed to these days is the fight to end sexual violence.
It’s rare enough to see a celebrity taking a stand on this. Rarer still to see an athlete. And a wrestler? When I first saw that Foley was getting involved, I was bouncing around my apartment for hours. Talk about reaching a community no one’s been reaching. Wrestling is male-dominated, very macho, and rape is not a thing I’ve ever seen discussed there. Just by giving half the advance of his next book to RAINN [the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network], Foley is making a statement that will make a lot of people think about sexual violence. He presents it as an issue that men, that wrestlers and wrestling fans, should care about.
But Foley’s going farther: he’s become an online hotline volunteer.
