Wrestling & Sports In General

[Byron]

LOL - to take your penultimate paragraph some of those boners on those fit college wrestlers sure are unhideable (if there is such a word) in their singlets !

[kumu]

Supposedly in the ancient Greek Olympic games competition was only by males and they were naked. Women were barred from viewing the games, as husbands of the community thought the view of superbly toned male athletes might challenge their wive's loyalty. Aah, the old Greek days. When it was just standard practice for males to love. And so it was, too, in pre contact Hawai'i. What absolute paradises those and maybe other cultures must have been.

[Byron]

Such love was well known amongst the ancient Greek soldiery but the elite of the Sacred Band of Thebes all lost in battle in 338BC.

[shaulis]

The Ancient Greeks were kind of lucky, if they lost they didn't kill the losing side. The Ancient Aztec and Inca among other cultures killed the losing side after their games.

[kumu]

That would be a big incentive to stay off the playing field. There is so much to admire about the Aztecs but they did seem to take the value of life really lightly. I guess if you compare that to our modern culture we, too, take life too lightly, but on a less regular basis, with wars every few years, and then everybody gets cancelled, not just the males. For a long time I've wondered if there's some biological basis to killing off surplus ("surplus") males. It happens a lot among our fellow mammals. Maybe us, too. Its pretty obvious not all the males that are born are necessary to breed the species. Killing off the extras with sacrifice like the Aztecs and others did or with wars like we do is one way of dealing with the surplus. Homosexuality seems to me to be preferable for a lot of reasons. Homosexuality fits in because non breeding males can contribute a lot of things to a society that need doing, so societies with homosexuality have a better chance of succeeding.

[SwimTeamSpeedo]

I always enjoyed the swim suit aspect of swimming, almost as much as the sport itself. To the point made above, as I got older, into high school and college, the work required to be competitive was hard. The chance to show it off in a very tiny, tightly fit suit that showed off every aspect of the body was part of the reward. Lots of guys who did not swim would ask how in the world I could wear such a tiny suit in front of people. A naive question for which there was no answer they would understand. The tiny suit was part of the art of the sport. Much like form fitting cycling attire is part of the colorful art of cycling. In swimming, I also always felt the guys had the advantage, our suits were less covering and more interesting than the female attire. It is why I love to run wearing a racing swim when at the beach (and in triathlons).

My second thought is that I think it is much more revealing for wrestlers in the form fitting singlets. At least swimmers had cold water and a pool. I had a freind who wrestled in high school and college. The times he had one of those "guy situations" he would tell me he had no way to hide it and no pool to jump into. He had it happen once while in an actual match and he said it was clearly displayed, even though he tried as much as he could to cover it. Clearly a predictament. It makes no sense, but to me a racing cut swimsuit is actually less showing than some larger form fit clothing.

STS

[Byron]

Yes, it happens: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zzwPCxrzvb...+wrestling.jpg