Sex and High Ropes

The physical safety of participants in any program is of utmost importance, and we all know that. Program leaders ask themselves what reasonably needs to be done to protect the wellbeing of their clients, encouraging them to return and hopefully develop a life-long appreciation of the activity. Those who are less concerned about whether the clients love the activity or not may simply be concerned about not being sued.

Emotional safety is another factor to take into consideration, asking ourselves whether or not participants are free to be themselves and make their own decisions, or do they feel forced and uncomfortable, decreasing the likelihood of them returning to the program and possibly causing other long-term distress. When working in the high ropes industry the physical well-being of participants is paramount as courses are inspected, equipment is checked and staff are trained to make sure the experience is safe from the moment the participant’s feet leave the ground until they touch back down. Emotional safety is taken into regard as staff encourage participants to stretch and challenge themselves, but don’t push climber’s beyond what they can handle. Each challenge is celebrated as the new climber who is afraid of heights goes three steps up the ladder and comes back down and the guy who is half monkey tries an element for the first time backwards with his eyes closed.

However there is another aspect of safety which is key to challenge and ropes course programs that is often overlooked and that is sexual safety. With the concern of making sure that participants are physically safe, many staff have inadvertently made participants infinitely uncomfortable by violating the person’s sexual space. What does this mean? The two main pieces of equipment worn by a climber are the seat harness and helmet. Some programs choose to use chest harnesses as well to prevent the climber from flipping upside down if they wish to discourage this. Both the seat harness and chest harness cover what could be referred to as the ‘bathing suit bits’, parts that would covered by swim wear. Areas that reflect our sexuality and are very personal. Even the helmet covers a sexual area, the hair. Don’t think that hair is a sexual organ? How would you feel about a stranger feeling your hair? Our hair is an intimate part of us and touching it is reserved for people who have earned our trust. We can’t rule out the helmet as a ’safe’ piece of equipment to go adjusting without affecting our participant’s level of comfort.

We live in a world where statistics suggest 1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted before the age of 24. And this is based only on REPORTED CASES! How many more go unreported? This statistic also does not take into account the number of abuses that men have suffered in their lifetimes. It is wise to assume that many of the participants who come to your program have been violated in someway and are hyper aware of anyone entering their personal space. So how do we protect our participant’s sexuality and safety?

One, empower your participants to put the equipment on themselves. Can you set up the harnesses in such a way that they are easily stepped into and further instructions can be provided? If someone needs help, can you walk them through it while remaining hands-off? The more the participant can do on their own, the less they will feel threatened by somebody else’s proximity in their personal space.

Two, if a participant requires help, ASK PERMISSION before making any adjustments yourself. Even though they have asked for assistance there is a difference between giving additional instructions to help and all of a sudden reaching for them. By clarifying that the participant is in fact asking for you to make the adjustment you protect the participants who weren’t expecting the sudden invasion of their space. And be sure that it is the participant themselves who has responded to you. A child support worker I came across irritated me to no end because she had developed an incredibly disrespectful habit of answering everything on behalf of the child she was supposed to be empowering. When asking the boy “Is it okay for me to adjust your leg strap” she promptly replied ‘yes’ and I repeated the question again directly to the boy to get his answer. There is NO ONE who can give permission for you to touch a person’s body other than the person to whom it belongs!

Three, explain out loud everything that you are doing as you do it. This eases participant anxiety because they know where your hands are going and exactly why they are going there. It’s good for them to know that you are working on untwisting a leg strap rather than wondering why you have been fiddling around down near their crotch for the last two minutes and becoming suspicious.

These simple changes add only minutes to your gearing up time, and while you may be concerned about losing time in a tight schedule, see the change that it makes to the level of trust your participants have with your staff. It will be well worth it.