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When champion skier Lindsey Vonn experienced a terrible crash on what turned out to be her final run in the women’s downhill skiing event at the Winter Olympics in Milan earlier this month, maybe there were a few people out there thinking she shouldn’t have been permitted to take the risk of running the race, given that she already had a torn ACL injury in her left knee. But if a significant number of people felt that way, they seem to have kept it to themselves, for the most part.
Instead, the dominant reaction to Vonn’s knowing acceptance of added risk rightfully has been to praise her bravery, determination and champion spirit. As Madison Chapman wrote for Newsweek, “Winner or not, Vonn is the ideal Olympic champion. Her grit and resilience helped me shed my own fear of risk and learn to see myself as a champion over adversity after my cancer treatment and subsequent knee injury. She may not have clinched gold, but Lindsay Vonn reminded us all how to live.”
I’ve always been fascinated by the way people view the act of taking a physical risk, be it in the context of competitive skiing, climbing a mountain or something as fundamental managing one’s personal health. I’ve long believed that the question of whether something is safe to do is a different question than whether ought to be allowed to do it. As I see it, it’s not complicated; adults should be allowed to take informed risks – including a litany of risks I would never take, myself.
Doubtlessly, one reason Vonn found so much support for her decision is the competitive context. She was attempting to win a gold medal, an achievement for which there’s a very limited window of opportunity, one that only comes around every four years – and only for so many cycles in an athlete’s career.
Make no mistake, though; the reason Vonn’s decision, the Olympic Games themselves and Vonn’s injuries are global news is because sports are popular entertainment – and big business.
In other words, while we support Vonn’s chosen form of risk taking because competition is deemed a worthy enterprise by a significant portion of the human population, we also support it because we accept, at least in the context of sport, that people have a right to risk bodily harm in the process of entertaining other people.
We’re not consistent about this acceptance of risk for entertainment’s sake, of course. The response to people taking risks in the context of porn is less enthusiastic. Sometimes it inspires proposals specifically designed to deter peoplefrom plying their trade in adult entertainment.
I’m not saying I think social media should light up with words of encouragement every time a porn star gets nominated for an award, or when an adult content creator releases a new clip (although that would be nice). But maybe, if society can applaud people for risking grievous bodily harm while competing on the Olympic stage, society can at least also manage to avoid shaming people and subjecting them to paternalistic government regulation when the risks they take involve other, less celebrated forms of entertainment.
