Hook-up Culture in Co-ed Sports, a Boat Club Case Study: Keeping Female Athletes Safe

It’s no secret that co-ed sports commit team incest. When you train six days a week with the same group of people, your teammates become your best friends, your family, and occasionally one (or two or three) become your lover. Team incest is a natural phenomenon that is unstoppable in co-ed sports and is often viewed in a lighthearted context; however, a closer look at hook-up culture begs the question: Do co-ed sports have a responsibility to keep their female athletes safe, and if so, how?

I have been a member of the St Andrews Boat Club for over two years now, which is a time consuming sport comprised of four teams: the Novice Men, Novice Women, Senior Men and Senior Women’s squads. We spend countless hours on the erg, in the gym, and in a boat, every second of which is with our teammates. Your blades must be the same height, your strokes must all be in perfect time, and when you feel like your legs are going to burst, you push even harder for the person sitting in front of you. When you row, your teammates become your brothers and sisters; an unexplainable trust is fostered. But what happens when that trust is irreparably shattered?

“What started as a hook up turned into an on and off relationship for almost a year. It was fun while it was a good relationship, it was honestly so fun to be dating one of my teammates. But as the relationship progressed he became sexually abusive, and when the relationship finally ended, I had to constantly train with my abuser— when he rowed he got so angry, it was the same way he used to look at me—and I just couldn’t train anymore, I couldn’t do it. It felt like that bond with my teammates was broken even though he was the only one who broke it. It was really hard because there was no clear procedure in place to deal with it and nobody really knew how to help. I mean they couldn’t kick him off the team. There was no proof. So, it just felt like I lost my family— I quit.”

This quote is from a former member of Boat Club who was kind enough to sit down and share her story with me. Her and I would like to make it clear that situations such as hers are not confined to Boat Club; female athletes are victims of sexual abuse, harassment, assault, and rape at the hands of their teammates across all kinds of co-ed sports, all around the world. However, it cannot be ignored that this particular case occurred in a St Andrews sports club; so how does the University move forward?

“I’d like to clarify that in my experience at least, I don’t think Boat Club fostered a toxic environment that led the perpetrator to commit these actions— I think this person is a bad person on their own. But I do think that bad people join sports, they join societies, they’re in your classes, they’re everywhere, and that’s not necessarily the University’s fault. But I do think that the University and sports clubs have a responsibility to make sure that there are procedures in place to protect women and specifically their female athletes. I think that co-ed sports necessitate things like consent training, they necessitate a procedure in their individual constitutions that makes reporting misconduct very clear, so that if and when this happens again, that person knows exactly who they need to go to, knows exactly what procedure is in place. They need support from their teammates, from their captains, from their director. I think that’s what was missing and I think it’s something that all co-ed teams, Saints Sport, and the University can do better and need to do better.”

She explained that the reporting process was messy; the captains, president, and director of Boat Club at the time all gave her different, and sometimes incorrect, information on how to report the incident and possibly remove the man from the club. One told her to go straight to Student Conduct, another told her about an internal reporting process via the Boat Club committee, and one said they were not at liberty to discuss the situation with her; what should have been a straightforward process became muddled. Hook-up culture, at least in Boat Club, is not the issue; male and female athletes are bound to hook-up when they spend an immense amount of time together. The issue is the failure of the University to be proactive in their protection of female athletes in light of the fact that hook-up culture can lead to serious consequences. Co-ed sports necessitate, as mentioned in the above quote, mandatory consent training and clear procedures in the constitutions of individual sports to provide not just female, but all athletes, with explicit support. Co-ed sports need to make their expectations of athletes clear and it should not be on the individual, who has already undergone trauma, to figure out how to report their situation.

Team incest is engrained in co-ed sports. It can make for a funny story to tell at morning practice or even foster fulfilling relationships, but it also comes with undeserved repercussions, often for female athletes. A woman should never have to give up her right to play the sport she loves. She should never have to lose her brothers and sisters. That trust formed with each stroke of the oar should never be broken, and if it is, she deserves to feel like her family has her back.