Body Talk: Male Athletes Reflect on Sport, Injury, and Pain

Abstract

This paper examines how participation in physically demanding sport, with its potential and actual injurious outcomes, both challenges and reinforces dominant notions of masculinity. Data from 16 in-depth interviews with former and current Canadian adult male athletes indicate that sport practices privileging forceful notions of masculinity are highly valued, and that serious injury is framed as a masculinizing experience. It is argued that a generally unreflexive approach to past disablement is an extraordinary domain feature of contemporary sport. The risks associated with violent sport appear to go relatively unquestioned by men who have suffered debilitating injury and whose daily lives are marked by physical constraints and pain.

Gymnastics and child abuse: an analysis of former international Portuguese female artistic gymnasts

“…By doing this, the athletes face the risk of developing longer term injuries and permanent damage to their health. Several studies indicate that it is rare to find an elite athlete who has trained or competed throughout his/her entire career without a single injury (Charlesworth and Young, 2006;Waddington, 2006;Young, McTeer and White, 1994). In our research, all the gymnasts interviewed mentioned that they had, at least once, competed while in pain or injured.…”

“…One of the common criticisms of qualitative research relates to the fact that it is difficult to be completely certain that the interpretations are valid or reliable. However, with one of the research team being a former international gymnast, with experience of the "very limiting, often painful downside" of gymnastics (Messner andSabo, 1990 cited in Young, McTeer andWhite, 1994) we believe that our decoding of the data is relatively accurate. While we cannot claim that this data is representative of gymnasts in Portugal more broadly, its logical consistency and empirical similarity to other studies suggests a relatively high degree of reliability.…”

“He Didn't Go in Doing a Skydive”: Sustaining the Illusion of Control in an Edgework Activity

“…The avenue that has seen the most research activity has been that of risk and injury-how particular ways of participating in sport (those that often place athletes at risk of debilitating injuries and deleterious long-term health consequences) pervade sporting institutions and practices (e.g., Albert 1999;Nixon 1994;Pike and Maguire 2003;White and Young 1999;Young 1993Young , 2004Young et al, 1994). Embedded in many of these works is the idea of sport as a "culture of risk"-that injury, even death, "may have become a way of life that is produced and reproduced in sport" (Donnelly 2004:33).…”

Caged Morality: Moral Worlds, Subculture, and Stratification Among Middle-Class Cage-Fighters

“…Photograph by Corey M. Abramson Photograph 2 Mixed-martial-arts matches in a cage. Photographs by Stefan Tell sport or pastime as more important than allowing the body to heal (Dunning 1999;Pike 2005;Sabo 1986;Smith 2008a, b;Young et al 1994). Being a fighter is essentially an exercise in managing chronic injuries (Wacquant 2004).…”