Here I was, a literature professor who'd been raised in the feminized (or at least androgynized) world of left-wing academia and the Unitarian Church. And yet I could have easily fought the guy over... what? I had so much to lose — certainly my job, probably my teeth — and so little to gain. And yet, for a furious moment, I was ready to risk everything just to prove, I suppose, that I'd risk everything.

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