Sumo Size Me

Nov. 8, 2010— -- I admit to being slightly obsessed with the whole Marie Claire situation that took place a couple of weeks ago. For those of you who didn't follow it as closely as I did, one of their writers wrote a blog post about how fat people disturb her so much, even the mere sight of an obese person walking across the room fills her with disgust.

This is fascinating to me. Not so much that a single person is consumed with these kinds of thoughts but more that what touched off the incident was a group of editors sitting around a table questioning whether or not they should be grossed out by a smooch between the two heavyset leads on the new sitcom, Mike and Molly. I mean seriously. Presumably, like most Americans, more than three quarters of their readers are overweight. Where is the love?

All this got me thinking about how the editors of Marie Claire -- and most other fashion magazines for that matter -- might feel about a potential new Olympic sport. It involves big women. Really, really big women.

I'm talking about Sumo Wrestling. And in order for it to be considered as an official Olympic contender, it must include both a male and female division. A stumbling block for this has been Sumo's long tradition of not just excluding women, but downright shunning them. Because ancient Sumo protocol considers women unclean, they are not allowed to so much as stick a toe into the raised dirt mound of the professional Sumo ring. On this matter the Japanese Sumo Association, which rules the sport, will not budge. And the majority of fans agree.

Despite the sexism and a bawdy past dating back to the 18th century when topless female Sumos wrestled blind men for the titillation of a male audience, amateur women's Sumo has recently caught fire in Europe, Australia and the U.S. Andrew Freund the director of the California Sumo Association says he's rarely held or seen a tournament in the last decade that hasn't included women's matches. "Though it's a different sport than men's professional, for the past twenty years or so it's been a serious sport with good athletes and medals and prizes," he comments.