Crude Oil

I suppose oil wrestling has its downsides. I can think of a few. Oil in the eyes can sting, denying you the pleasure of watching your opponent squirm in your killer scissors hold. On the other hand, wrestling blind might intensify the sense of touch, and that's a silver lining, right there--or a silvery one. Then again, oil reduces friction, making it hard to hold on to an opponent. I recently read that Turkish oil wrestlers meet this challenge by reaching down each other's leather pants to grab a fold, much as contestants in judo clutch each other's lapels. If the fingers can't hook on a fold, some wrestlers make a fist inside the opponent's pants, thereby lodging their forearms deep inside and facilitating command over the opponent. Problem solved. I imagine that would feel nice, actually, but I could be underestimating the discomfort--sort of like imagining sex in the shower or on a sandy beach as more fun than it really is.

I don't have many regrets, but one of them is not having a go at oil wrestling back when I was young, strong, and lithe enough for it. It seems like a sensuous experience. I like oil wrestling because a gleaming body looks better than a dry one. A bit of shimmer improves even not especially chiseled bodies. The slickness invites touching. And unlike a pro-style ring, an oil pit keeps two bodies continuously up close and in tight. The reduced friction, overcoming the laws of physics, has got to make the experience only a notch or two below wrestling weightlessly in space. Or so I imagine. I enjoyed wrestling underwater in my teens, which would have been almost perfect, wet all over and nearly weightless, but for having to hold my breath for fifteen minutes or else lug around a cumbersome oxygen tank. Mud wrestling looks like kinky, sleazy fun, too, so long as the mud is pudding smooth and not gritty. But oil is more elegant. It carries the cachet of Olympian athletics. It makes the whole body, from head to toe, look like a lubricated cock, ready to erupt. Not everybody's idea of fun, and possibly a mere fantasy, but there you are.

(The pictures are from Can-Am's Canadian Musclehunk Oil Wrestling 7, Match 1: Paul Perris versus Cliff Conlin.)