True, although I didn't mean to sound judgmental, just passing comment. I've heard weird stories of rugby groups when I was uni actually, although I can't remember any of them off the top of my head. I guess it all comes out of the need to accepted I guess.

If you want to talk about totally unacceptable social behaviour I dont think you need to look as far as the USA.  In short, we're in no position to judge any other country when it comes to "youthful exuberance" in my opinion.

Sounds quite homoerotic. But quite fun anyway.

We just have societies here, although most sports teams, what with their mad initiations, are rather like fraternities at times. Bit different with the housing though, of course. Halls in the first year, and then getting a house with mates for the next two.

Apparently the rugby initiation involves naked scrums and drinking urine...

Although, the society I spend my time with is dedicated to much loud music accompanied by much drinking... long live the "Alternative" crowd of Metalheads, Goths and so forth!

In my humble opinion, fraternity and sorority stands for ‘dumb and dumber’.

I’ve been thinking about his topic for a while now and thought I would ‘put it out there’ to see what other people think. For those that don’t know, a Fraternity and Sororitiy houses, and basically the organizations as a whole, is the practice of creating male and female groups at college. The Frats would live in an all male house and the Sororoty girls would all live in a female house (like they do in the film ‘Legally Blonde’ for anyone that’s seen it). I first came across them a few years ago on a trip to America. I was in a bar that was next door to a huge frat house. We were sat outside, and the bar was a bit scabby and full of what looked like jocks and girls who should have known better. At 10pm there was a huge air siren saying they were closing and we all had to leave (early huh?) so as we finished up – the boys and most girls headed next door to the ‘frat house’ and carried on drinking on their front lawn (these houses are huge by the way, incase you had a vision of the typically ‘british’ small, front garden), playing music and generally acting raucious. Fair enough.

On our way past the house, a bunch of guys started jeering and laughing at a girl, who had ended up in her pants dancing round some pole that was placed to her forehead, as she span round, obviously part of some crazy drinking game. So anyway, this public display of drunkenness was a bit, well, inappropriate and embarrassing, I thought. The girl didn’t really know what she was doing, a load of the girls were laughing at her and the boys were encouraging her. It felt like some desperate attempt for attention and acceptance rather than ‘having fun’.

Having spoken to my American friends about this, they told me more details about the whole thing which shocked me even more. It seems, when you go to uni in America, you can live on campus or get house, as we do in the UK, or you can ‘apply’ to join a Frat or Sorority house…and to do this, you go along to ‘rush week’ where the guys and girls who live in the houses, get to meet you and decide in they like you enough to live with them. Now, does this sound crazy to you? So, you don’t have a choice if you can live there, depending on if you can afford it or like the area etc, it’s about whether or not the mindless young people who already live there, like you!

Ok…how’s this for a story...the same friend was telling me that her friend at university told her that she went to a rush week to try and stay in a sorority house (before she stayed in ‘sensible’ housing) and the girls in the house, as part of their initiation exercise stripped the girl down to her underwear and took permanent markers and circled all the areas of fat on her body!!! Not only is this unbelievable in itself, but the girl who went LET THEM! This would never happen in the UK…would it??? Surely this sort of practice should be illegal, but apparently not. I’ve also heard stories of guys in a frat house, making the potential roomies strip and run around the block as ONE exercise to prove their worth to live in the house with them. I’ve read that some hazing practices have been banned and an element of policing has been enforced…but obviously not that much…!?

Does anyone else think this whole practice of having Frat and Sorority houses absolutely ridiculous and promotes not only low self-esteem of those who get fun made of them, but also allows bullying??? I’d be interested to hear what everyone thinks…

Thanks for reading :)


© MarcoG 2008