There are mixed reviews of the UFC spectacle that took place on the White House south lawn for the President’s eightieth birthday. And then there are altogether oblivious reviews of the event even if they come from a loving place. Hope Reese’s essay about taking her two youngest sons to UFC Freedom 250 at the White House is the latter of those reviews. 

Reese’s article is meant to be a piece of liberal parental surprise. Her boys, raised by a feminist mother and activist grandparents, are somehow fascinated by UFC. Her fifteen-year-old has gone from watching clips and absorbing the online culture around the sport to witnessing, up close, the thrill and brutality of men kicking the hell out of each other. Her younger son is so overcome by meeting his favorite fighters that he is overjoyed with excitement. Reese notices all of this. She is struck by it and even moved by it. But what surprised me was not that her sons were drawn to the UFC. What surprised me is that she seemed so surprised and also confused.

I say that as a single father raising two teenage boys in the same age bracket as hers. My sons were very much aware of the fight on the White House lawn. Of course they were. Teen boys do not need tickets to the South Lawn to know what is moving through the culture. The clips and the jokes find them anyway. That is why Reese’s essay frustrated me. She is in exactly the parental position many of us are in, but she seems so absorbed by the fact of her sons’ fascination that she misses the deeper question: What are they learning about being men from the experience and culture created by and for them? This is the question Democrats and liberals keep failing to ask.

Too many liberals still treat boys’ interest in UFC, anti-woke comedy, and the manosphere streamers like Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate as some mysterious contamination. As if a feminist household or activist lineage should automatically protect boys from the appeal of strength, dominance, hierarchy, aggression, and male belonging. I come from a feminist upbringing. I........

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