The first time I realized I might be wrong about mixed martial arts was a speech I gave in college. I played a clip of a fight: One fighter put another in an arm-triangle choke – a maneuver where you use your own arm and the opponent’s arm to cut off the blood supply to the brain, rendering them unconscious unless they tap out. After the clip aired, I looked out at a wide-eyed audience. “Pretty cool, right?”
“More like pretty deadly,” one girl said.
Later, I shared the story with another MMA-obsessed friend. “Don’t worry about that girl,” he said. “She’s the kind of chick who says shit like that but as soon as her boyfriend can’t win a bar fight, she’d break up with him for being a pussy who can’t fight.”
And just like that, my worries were assuaged. The world retained its familiar shape: The one where the strongest guys won, women were helpless to their charms, and unarmed violence was the ultimate answer to any and all questions. I didn’t know the words “toxic masculinity” yet. I only knew it as my way of life.
I finally stopped believing in raw violence and alpha males, but I can't stop watching the most brutal sport
Source: salon.com