ABSTRACT
This article considers gymnastics to illustrate how culture, law, and elite youth sports intertwine, focusing on the recent revelations of sexual abuse. It proposes an intervention based in the work of theorist Joseph Fischel that pushes toward a more robust conception of athlete empowerment. This stance, if more fully instantiated in culture, law, and sports regulation, would have two salutary effects: first, it would acknowledge much more fully the autonomy of young athletes, and second, it could help to create a context in which “predatory” behavior of a variety of types is reframed more simply as wrongful behavior that crosses boundaries of dependence and vulnerability that apply to a variety of situations. By making recognition of problematic behavior more routine, this shift would encourage more active and empowered interrogation on the part of the athlete. It also opens up the idea of injury to encompass more than sexual abuse and seeks to reframe consciousness of injury to incorporate athletes’ experiences.
