Men on the Edge

In the arena of extreme sports, BASE jumping--where the adventurous leap from fixed objects such as bridges, skyscrapers, and cliffs, and freefall for several seconds before parachuting back to earth--is among the most dangerous and this extensive sociological work analyzes the gender and voluntary risk-taking aspects of the unique sport. With personal accounts of involvement in BASE jumping, this work extends into the early attempts to explain the gendered participation in the sport by drawing on wider debates about modernization, individualization, and community formation.