I can afford the tickets, and I can afford the time to go to a sporting event in person. But I don't like doing so because being in the crowd frightens me, especially at professional games where alcohol flows and testosterone surges. I love sports, but I hate sports fans, at least the ones who appear threatening, and to me, many of them do ... especially the males.

I have never been attacked or assaulted, although I have been jeered at and challenged because of what I happened to be wearing or because of a muted cheer that slipped out of me in an unguarded moment. I have witnessed fights and arrests and on one occasion, I believe, urination in the arena aisle. I have heard more F-bombs dropped at sporting events than anywhere else I have ever been in my life. That sort of language does not bother me, in and of itself; rather, it is the way that the curses are delivered that puts me on edge. You don't have to be a psychologist to know when you are surrounded by lots of angry guys itching for a confrontation.

The shenanigans of English soccer fans are well known, but men misbehaving at sporting events knows no national barriers. Remember opening day at Dodgers Stadium, March 31, 2011, where a San Francisco Giants fan was beaten nearly to death. Play ball!

This essay is not about violence among sports fans, as interesting as that topic might be, especially the issue of whether violence at sporting events merely mirrors violence in overall society or actually causes it. This essay instead is about a solution to the violence suggested by a recent occurrence in Istanbul, Turkey. Men were banned from a soccer stadium, and only women and children were allowed into the stands.

The participating teams were being punished for a past history of unruly fan behavior. The original plan was to play the match to an empty stadium, but the decision was then made to allow women and children under 12 to attend for free. More than 41,000 of the stadium's 50,000 seats were filled, and the fans saw a 1 to 1 draw between Fenerbahce and Manisaspor. Those in attendance wore the colors of their teams, sang the club songs, and cheered loudly and appropriately for good plays.

But that is not what is notable about the match and those who watched. Rather, a good time was had by all. The opposing team was greeted with applause. No one screamed profanities at the players or the referees. No one ripped out the stadium seats. No one stormed the field. No one had a fight with anyone. The players also enjoyed the very different audience and how they behaved and actually threw flowers into the stands before kickoff.

The ban on men is temporary, but I wonder if the powers that be in Turkish soccer are rethinking this, given the huge success of their experiment. I believe they should, and I further believe that all of us should consider banning men from all sorts of venues where they are known to misbehave, which is to say lots of them, not just sporting events, but also business, government, church, and the highway.

Maybe men can still have a place as hosts on the Cooking Channel, or as stay-at-home fathers, or as writers of blog posts. But suppose men were otherwise banned from public places, unless accompanied by a woman or a child?

It is time to think outside the stadium.