I didn't take Super Goat Man's class, which was full of freshmen and those renegade history and rhetoric majors who'd been seduced by French strains of philosophy and literary theory.
Perry, who made a documentary series on class and taste for Channel 4 and created a series of tapestries on one man's "class journey", told BBC News that people emphasise their "pain and suffering... because it has a high status".
And, he said, women could enroll in the men's class if they wanted.
While teaching a men's class over the summer, he was clearly in his element as he led dancers through a brisk series of jumps.
The writer watched a regular morning men's class, conducted by Brian Shaw, and rehearsals of "La Fille Mal Gardee," "Rituals," and "A Month in the Country".
Steamer has competed long enough that she used to participate in the men's class because there were virtually no other professional women at events during the late 1990s.
The men's class even has its fair share of women, who push themselves, stretching for the jumps, trying to match their male counterparts in vigor and strength.
Para-table tennis rookie Sam Von Einem snapped Australia's 32-year Paralympic medal drought with silver in men's class 11, while the men's wheelchair basketball team won through to the quarter-finals after beating Japan 68-55 in their final pool game.
Packed crowds and brilliant acoustics meant that it was often difficult to hear yourself think at the Aquatics Centre and the Velodrome, while the atmosphere inside Pavilion 3 at Rio Centro was raucous and intimidating when ParalympicsGB's Will Bayley faced Brazil's Israel Pereira Stroh in the final of the men's class 7 table tennis.
Among the contestants were Ann Dodge, who won the women's race her brother Brooks, who came in fourth in the men's class; Nergaard, a Norwegian who won the race, another Norwegian named Holler and Dave Lawrence from Dartmouth, who came in second and third.
Bayley, 27, and Shilton, 16, defeated Jordi Morales and Alvaro Valera 3-1 in the men's class 7 final in Lasko.
