Can Contact Sports and Movie Choices Be Deviant?

There are many ways in which deviant behavior can be expressed through recreational pursuits. Among the common are recreational activities defined under the terms heterosexual deviance, drug use, and deviance in cyberspace. Thio and Calhoun (2006) give examples of all three categories. Heterosexual deviance includes sex tourism, public nudity, exotic dancing, and promiscuity. Most articles offered as examples of drug use are in reference to college campuses and include drinking, smoking, prescription drug use, and illegal drug use. Deviance in cyberspace is depicted as child porn, rapes on the internet, online pedophiles, and deception in online dating. These lists are not nearly as extensive as they get. Wikipedia offers a long list of popularly used drugs for recreation. The most popular of them are "alcohol, caffeine, cannabis, tobacco, betel nut, khat, and kratom" (Wikipedia, 2007). The Bad Boys of Cyber Space (1997) surely do not limit their list of online deviancy to sexual predators, pedophiles, and dating site dwellers. They cover an array of what is considered deviant on the web beginning with annoying behaviors from inexperienced "newbies" to violent depictions, "event crashing", online scams, and hacking (Suler, 1997). These are common and obvious routes to expressing deviance through means of recreation. It is also possible that certain contact sports and movie choices could fit into this category. This can be determined by examining criteria for what makes an event deviant by way of recreation.