"[A]fter more than 20 years of teaching, boys and young men police each other when other guys display overt interest in literature or creative writing assignments."

"Typically, nonfiction reading and writing passes muster because it poses little threat for boys. But literary fiction, and especially poetry, are mediums to fear. Why? They’re the language of emotional exposure, purported feminine 'weakness' — the very thing our scripting has taught them to avoid at best, suppress, at worst... Why do we limit the emotional vocabulary of boys?"

Writes Andrew Reiner, who "teaches at Towson University and is working on a book about masculinity," in a NYT piece called "Talking to Boys the Way We Talk to Girls."

I wondered what Reiner taught that would give him the opportunity to observe his students policing each other. Here's his faculty page. From that, I can see that he teaches writing and honors seminars  that deal with "how and why we are turning away from—losing touch with—our larger communities, with neighbors and (harmless) strangers, with friends and lovers, with ourselves."