Rewriting the heroic script: Relationship in rockclimbing

Abstract

This article investigates the suggestion that the leisure activity of rockclimbing represents a contemporary manifestation of heroic activity, and that the opportunity to engage with the heroic identity forms part of the attraction of rockclimbing. The traditional nature of the hero is male, in flight from committed relationships and devoted to an ethic of action and conquest. An investigation of a rockclimbing community revealed that the construction of rockclimbing displays both resistance and conformity to this stereotype. Although some male climbers adopted strategic behaviour (based on a dominance/suppression model) with respect to relationships with their climbing partners, other male climbers and all female climbers adopted behaviour that conformed to Jaspers' (1955) understanding of the “loving struggle” with respect to climbing relationships. The notion of conquest has also been transformed, within this climbing community, to a struggle to overcome personal limitations, rather than dominance over some Other.