What follows is an excerpt from an email I wrote to a new wrestling friend--

If we found the opportunity and gathered the nerve to wrestle on the mats where I work out, I'm sure we would dress in more than just the briefs there as well: t-shirts and shorts? full sweats? or maybe singlets? Again, I despair of this ever happening. I doubt we could pass ourselves off as wrestling coaches or even former high school or college wrestlers, not without a good bit of work beforehand. I'm right there with you, Mark: "Why is this such a freaking stigmatic sport?!? Why can't guys our age and size just drop down in the gym and go at it without being judged and questioned?" Again, no valid reason exists to differentiate a friendly wrestling match from a pick-up game of basketball.

Last year, I was riding a bike down the Virginia Creeper Trail, and when I was stopped in Taylor's Valley for one of their wonderful hamburgers and their fabulous chocolate cake, I overheard a conversation some of the locals were having in front of the cafe. They were talking about wrestling at the factory or garage or someplace where they worked. They talked about these two guys in particular who seemed to be the featured match during every lunch break. They laughed at one's dirty tactics such as pulling his opponents shirt up over his head and trapping his arms, leaving him open of a working over.

That brought up another idea. Is wrestling more stigmatized in the white collar world than in the blue? Does the proverbial white collar demand that its wearer remain cool and remote from something as earthy as wrestling? What about education? Does that remove us from that cultural zone in which me might freely enjoy a good wrestle without fearing condemnation or ridicule? I think of being in country stores or even some suburban stores--convenience stores, I mean--and seeing men, mostly young but some older, come in only their jeans and shoes. I laugh to myself, trying to picture me standing in line with my bottle of water or my honey bun and wearing no shirt. But these guys have no problem with it. Not that I want to go into a store without a shirt, but I seem to see some connection between the mindset that could allow a man to do that and the mindset (and culture) that would allow a man to wrestle without social consequence.

A couple of final notes and I'll stop: Also connected to these ideas are the current cultural stigmatizing of the overweight and the untanned. Have you seen the Subway commercials that show people ordering non-Subway meals like this: "Uh, I'll have an order of spare tire and a side of big butt"? These obviously slam the eating habits of the overweight, but they also further ingrain the prejudice against big bodies. Well, to connect this to what I said above, one recent commercial has a guy asking for an order of "Don't take your shirt off." So, big men get the message that they shouldn't take their shirts off in public, not unless it's at the swimming pool. The guys in line at the convenience store haven't gotten that message. As for the untanned, a group of which I definitely am part, I wonder if I could more easily think about being shirtless in public if my big belly and love-handles were tanned to a socially acceptable level. I doubt I could be the fish-belly white big man on the wrestling mat any more readily than I could be the same standing in line at the Circle K.