Young Athletes’ Perceptions of Coach-Athlete Sexual Relationships: Engaging with Competing Ethics

Abstract

In this paper, we use data from focus group interviews with young athletes to explore their thinking about coach-athlete sexual relationships (CASRs). Our aim is to further the understanding of the ambivalence surrounding CASRs in the sports field, which are simultaneously viewed as ethically problematic and acceptable – at least when they involve high-profile adult athletes. Inspired by Swidler’s toolkit approach to culture, we analyse how athletes understand and justify CASRs. We found that three different ethics were activated in the interviews: the safeguarding, love, and athletic-performance ethics. We discuss how these ethics are linked to different underlying ‘imaginaries’, or cultural frames, about the meaning of sport in society and offer thoughts on how the results can inform sporting organisations’ future prevention efforts.