Within just a few weeks of the debut of the Turkish oil wrestling episode of cable show "The L Word," a lesbianized version of the sport got its own reality series, and now lesbian Turkish oil wrestling is the hot new fad, at least according to the culture watchers at BuzzFeed. But Turkish oil wrestling had already been appropriated by gay American men in a big way, so much so that it caused a big ruckus in the many homophobic pockets of Turkey a while back. First the "Bears of Turkey" planned and canceled a pilgrimage to a big oil wrestling championship, then a cruise ship full of gay European guys was turned away from a Turkish port, then the Times gave the trend a nod and finally in 2005 Turkish gay men fought for oil wrestling inclusion.Now all of a sudden it's a lesbian thing? There's really only one way to settle matters — some sort of LGBT world series of Turkish oil wrestling, naturally — but in the meantime you can just pick your favorite clip (outright lesbians or homoerotic men) after the jump:

Following last year's Fanisode contest comes The L Word's latest foray into the arena of cutting-edge promotion: The series has teamed with cyber community Second Life to create a Virtual Lesbian World, where fans can dress up an avatar (Butch and Lipstick options not yet available), and mingle with other L-Word fans at the virtual The L-Word Club (pictured above, looking not unlike the virtual L-Word Women's Detention Facility), grab a coffee at The Planet café, or catch a lecture at the Amphitheater.

If you need an example of how desperate networks become during awards season, look no further than today's For Your Consideration ad for The L Word (click above for the full version), in which Showtime demonstrates it craves Emmy legitimacy so badly that it's conspicuously de-emphasizing the show's lesbian spirit in a transparent, misguided attempt to increase its appeal to voters. Even worse than the cynicism behind this strike at the program's Sapphic core is that the ploy could easily backfire, driving away viewers who fear that Showtime has suddenly removed all the hot-girl-on-even-hotter-girl action that made the show popular in the first place.