"No sport is more physical, more direct, than boxing. No sport appears more powerfully homoerotic: the confrontation in the ring – the disrobing – the sweaty heated combat that is part dance, courtship, coupling – the frequent urgent pursuit by one boxer of the other in the fight's natural and violent movement toward the “knockout”: surely boxing derives much of its appeal from this mimicry of a species of erotic love in which one man overcomes the other in an exhibition of superior strength and will. The heralded celibacy of the fighter-in-training is very much part of boxing lore: instead of focusing his energies and fantasies upon a woman the boxer focuses them upon an opponent. Where Woman has been, Opponent must be."
From
On Boxing by Joyce Carol Oates
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