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Turkish Oil Wrestling
Somehow we overlooked this item
that came across the transom April 7. Our friend Brent had a good take on it:
Let's see-burly oiled musclemen in leather pants get to wrestle each other in
front of audiences, but homo's are banned? Thank goodness someone is keeping
this Turkey morally pure: the way they dealt with the Kurds and now this.
As reported by Reuters:
Turkey's oil wrestlers-burly men who cover themselves in olive oil and grapple
with each other wearing leather trousers-are trying to stop a group of
homosexuals coming to watch.
The group calling themselves Bears of Turkey is advertising on the Internet
(www.ayilar.net) for a tour to watch the 639th Kirkpinar oil wrestling
championships to be held on July 1 and 2 near Turkey's northwestern city of
Edirne.
``It's immoral,'' Anatolian news agency quoted Traditional Sports Federation
Chairman Alper Yazoglu as saying. ``We are trying every way to have this
stopped...We shall pass this matter on to the interior, foreign and other
ministries to ask for this disgusting business to be stopped.''
The sport of oil wrestling dates back to the Turks' exodus from Central Asia
in the middle ages.
The often mustachioed wrestlers, their muscles rippling in olive oil under the
hot sun, try to pin each other to the ground. Putting a hand down the
opponent's trousers to get a better grip is a common tactic.
Homosexuality is not banned in overwhelmingly Moslem Turkey, and several big
cities have thriving gay scenes, but police harassment is frequent and the
issue is generally considered taboo.
OutSports.com, May 2000
http://www.outsports.com/review/review041900.htm
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