Dina’s Digital Diner — FROM BOLIVIA TO SHORT-SHORTS

Our LadyLike columist Dina Amberle has filed another edition of her Digital Diner.

In my last post, I had a short piece about a Bolivian beauty pageant for traditionally costumed women. In my search for additional information about the pageant–where the winner was disqualified for wearing un-traditional hair extensions–I came across an even stranger tidbit from Bolivian culture.

I suppose you’re wondering how much Bolivian culture is available that I should inject yet another piece of information into the already-crowded universe of our lives. Well, how about traditionally dressed Bolivian Cholita women as professional wrestlers? See, there is something new under the sun. And it doesn’t need to involve high heels, or electrolysis, or a trip to the mall in drag.

Cholita is the name given to the traditional dress women of Bolivia. The traditional dress involves long flowing skirts, decorated blouses and vests, and those tiny bowler hats above long braided hair that we’ve seen in National Geographic pictorials or PBS specials. Admit it, wouldn’t you like to see those ladies mixing it up in the squared circle?

This is a far cry–a real long far cry–from the pro wrestling hotties we’ve become familar with here in the states. First of all, there are no televised wrestling bouts in Bolivia. It’s a live-action scene and it draws “by the hundreds” according to a report in the El Alto Journal from Bolivia. OK, so it’s not exactly big-time. But we’ve seen drag queens who have spent more time getting dolled up to lip synch in front of a couple dozen club patrons–so who’s big-time and who isn’t?

Ana Polonia Choque uses the ring name Carmen Rosa when she’s kicking butt in the women’s ring. Weighing in at a sprightly 149, she is the most successful of the Cholita wrestlers on the circuit. “I want to do this as long as I can. It’s my life, la lucha libre.”

Another Cholita wrestler, 167 pound Yenny Wilma Maras, who goes by the ring name of Marta, said, “Let me tell you, this looks like play acting, but it hurts.”

Let me kiss it and make it better, my chubby Cholita choke-holder.

Another short item I saw recently that didn’t directly involve drag was in the New York Times back in June when pro football teams were having their early training camps. In the camp of the Washington Redskins, one of the players– Chris Cooley–showed up in the kind of short-shorts that haven’t been seen in sports since the 70’s and 80’s and the Times had a photo to make their brief point.

We’ve become pretty accustomed to long athetic shorts over the past ten years. In fact, now, the shorts on basketball players and boxers are so long they look like baggy knickers. But at one time, the short-short was the thing on all levels of play.

The Times had photos of a cross section of past athletes from Olympian Bruce Jenner, to basketball icon Larry Bird, to the phenomenal Muhammad Ali, to the –what?–jogging President George H.W. Bush all in scandalously short athletic shorts.

What happened to our shorts? Even as rappers made the “Daisy Dukes” re-popular again, men began to wimp out and go long on shorts. Maybe it will become a fashion barometer like mini-skirts, with the trend moving back and forth between short and long.

The question is–can any of us still fit into our old short-shorts? If you can, drop a line.

Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment