However, in my profession more generally, it’s not an exaggeration to say that masculinity is viewed as the root of all evil. If you were to take a literary theory course, you might think it would be about literature, but it’s really not. It’s about all the various forms of oppression on earth and how we can see them playing out in literary works. And behind all these forms of oppression is a guy.
So in a humanities department, masculinity is associated with everything oafish, violent, and oppressive. I thought that by going to train across the street, I would be seen as embracing all the worst attributes of manhood rather than doing what I should be doing, which is talking about just how awful they are.
Of course, if I were writing a polemic against cage fighting, then I’d get a free pass. But I think that because my feelings about the sport ended up being pretty positive, the book may be controversial in the intellectual world.