GEOFF BENNETT: Jon Ronson new book, "The Castle," asks a timely question: Why are certain visions of masculinity proving so powerful right now?

The book begins with a strange but true story involving Ronson's own son and a visit to a mysterious castle.

And that story set Ronson on a journey that eventually takes him all the way to the White House, where he attended that UFC cage match on the South Lawn.

Here are two excerpts from our conversation for our podcast "Settle In."

JON RONSON, Author, "The Castle": This was a story that crashed unannounced into my life, so -- in the most extraordinary way.

So I leapt into this without any preconceptions.

But now look -- thinking about what the word unraveling means, I think a lot of it's to do with the death of institutions, deindustrialization, all of these structures the -- everybody, but, in this book, I'm concentrating on men, used to be able to clutch onto to give them self-esteem and purpose and usefulness.

And now they have all gone, and it's having a very interesting deleterious effect on people's inner lives.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, let's talk about "The Castle," because this book grew out of this strange personal experience.

Your son ends up at a stranger's castle party.

How did this one weird night turn into an entire investigation for you?

JON RONSON: Well, it was incredible.

He and three friends had been invited to a party being held by a stranger that one of them had met on Tinder.

(LAUGHTER) JON RONSON: So they went.

And it was like a 3.5-hour drive out of New York into the forests of Connecticut.

And when they turn up to this man's house, it was a -- not only was it a castle.

It was even by Gothic castle standards incredibly ostentatious, huge number of turrets.

They crossed the drawbridge, and to discover that there's no party.

They enter this grand banqueting hall, and it's just a couple of other bewildered-looking young people standing there.

And they're all as confused as my son and his friends are.

And then the castle owner comes out and they say: "Sorry, where's the party?"

And he said: "No, I have invited you here for a different reason.

I would like you to take part in my reality show."

(LAUGHTER) JON RONSON: So, he said: "What's the name of your reality show?"

He said it's "101 Princesses."

They said: "What's the core concept?"

He said: "I'm the lord, I'm looking for my queen, and I have 101 princesses to choose from.

Go downstairs to my basement costume room, put on some princess costumes and come back upstairs."

So they did.

It -- they became -- it became kind of pretty obvious pretty quickly that this wasn't a real reality show.

And so, after a while, they -- the castle owner got more and more annoyed that they weren't participating in "101 Princesses," and he kicked them out.

So that's the end of their story.

But then I went to the castle to try and find out what the hell was going on.

And a very strange cat-and-mouse game unfolds between me and the castle owner.

GEOFF BENNETT: When did you realize that this was the foundation of a great book and not just some crazy family story?

JON RONSON: Well, I have got to say, my first thought was, as soon as they told me the story, this feels like the start of a book.

(LAUGHTER) JON RONSON: And also I had just -- and I write about this.

I'd just come out of hospital.

I had a foot of my colon removed due to diverticulitis.

So I was feeling a little fragile, like life was passing me by.

And I noticed in myself this kind of desperate need to want to investigate the castle was coming from some broken thing inside of me that I can't be purposeless.

I was convalescing by sitting on a bench at my local park.

But after 10 minutes of that, this terrible thought would overwhelm me, which is I'm just a man sitting on a bench.

So I thought that was a kind of thematically interesting too.

But I think the moment that where it really hit me was that what I thought at first was that, OK, this castle owner, he's trying to be Hugh Hefner.

He's trying to have a Playboy Mansion.

And it made me laugh because I thought this is - - he's trying to be Hugh Hefner at the worst moment in human history.

Unless you're the creme de la creme of manosphere influences, you can't lord it over your princesses in your castle like it's the 1970s anymore.

And I thought that was funny.

I thought this is thematically interesting, that there's all these other things that men used to be able to do that they can't do anymore.

So I thought maybe there's a book about that.

GEOFF BENNETT: As part of your research into modern masculinity, you went to the White House and attended the UFC cage match on the South Lawn this past summer.

JON RONSON: Yes.

GEOFF BENNETT: What was that experience like?

JON RONSON: It was wild and fascinating.

This was after I finished the book.

I hope to put this chapter into the paperback.

My American publisher said to me: "You have got to go to the cage fight on the South Lawn at the White House."

So I said: "I will do it if you can get the access to the South Lawn," and it turns out I got access.

It was very interesting, actually, because the book ends with this world of total disinhibition, where all of these men have created -- like my castle owner, like my comedy writer, they have created bubbles for themselves within which they think they can do whatever they like, and my way or the highway, you have to bend to me.

It's partly, I think, response to 10 years of what became known as cancel culture.

People became unashamed, and then they became disinhibited.

And so I was wondering, well, what's going to happen next?

And what I discovered when I went to the cage fight -- well, I will tell you a couple of stories.

So I interviewed Sean O'Malley, a UFC heartthrob cage fighter, who often boasts in podcast interviews about his open marriage.

It's a one-sided open marriage where he's allowed to have sex with other women, but his wife, Danya, isn't allowed to have sex with other men.

And he would explain it on podcasts as well.

Andrew Tate puts it very well: "I have status.

I have status."

So I said to Sean O'Malley: "You have an open marriage.

Surely that doesn't work."

And he -- and he said: "Well, it worked until it didn't."

And he revealed to me that his wife finally put her foot down and said, no more one-sided non -- open marriage.

And he looked so baffled at this change in his fortunes.

And I noticed all week when I was at the White House, things like that happened.

These maverick men who thought that they can do whatever they want, real life was snapping back.

There are consequences.

And I thought, well, maybe -- it's just anecdotal, but maybe that shows that the pendulum's swinging back a little bit.

GEOFF BENNETT: And you can watch that full episode of "Settle In" wherever you get your podcasts.