Gay fraternity hazing
Why frat boys like hazing, if they live through it
Naked, I stood shivering among my frostbitten pledge brothers on a February night.
"Drink! Drink! Drink!" the fraternity brothers chanted, warm in winter coats, forcing me to consume my 15th beer.
The entire fraternity cheered me on to run in bare, bloodied feet on snow and ice and then climb into a trash can filled with vomit and other bodily fluids.
Some call this hazing. We called it fun.
Need a break? Perform the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.Each year, when another pledge is killed in a hazing incident, everyone asks: "How could this happen?" The question is coming up again after a Pennsylvania district attorney charged eight fraternity brothers with involuntary manslaughter in the hazing death of Timothy Piazza, 19, at Pennsylvania State University on Feb. 2. The fraternity he was pledging, Beta Theta Pi, is also being criminally charged.
Having been through my have torturous hazing, I think that is the wrong question. I'd ask why it doesn’t arise more often. As a pledge, I endured grizzly, military-style lineups, d
On a cold, stormy September night in , my 14 fraternity pledge brothers and I received this ambiguous text from one of our pledge masters:
“Tonight’s education meeting is canceled. At 11pm, you will all load into three of your cars and drive to the destination I send you. Carry a first aid kit, five jugs of rain, three shovels, and a triangular-shaped candle. Dress in all black.”
My mind raced with questions. What could this mean?
An hour later, my palms choked the steering wheel of my Ford pickup truck as I drove from our fraternity house at the University of Southern California toward an unnamed mention in Manhattan Beach. In the car with me were four of my pledge brothers.
“It’s got to be beach-related,” said a brother from the assist seat, his voice barely audible over the rain pounding on my windshield.
“Maybe it’s a property party,” another suggested.
“It’s definitely not a house party,” the one in the passenger seat countered. “We’re getting hazed tonight, boys!”
A knot of anxiety tightened in my stomach. This moment, shrouded in uncertainty, mirrored the
Homosexual hazing rituals in a heteromasculine context
Tuesday night, Jane Ward of the University of California, Riverside had over people close their eyes to imagine sorority sisters pouring chocolate syrup on one another and demanding the new pledges to lick it off everyone else. At her chat, “Haze Him! Light Heteromasculinity, Anal Resilience and The Erotic Spectacle of Repulsion&#;, Ward juxtaposed this image with the same scene only with males to demonstrate how sexual fluidity is much more naturalized among women.
Ward’s book “Not Gay: Sex between Straight White Men” was published last July, and Tuesday night’s talk was an extension of the topics covered in the work.
At the talk, Ward discussed the queer contact between linear white males as a part of hazing rituals and how it affects their heteromasculinity. Heteromasculinity is the social and cultural pressure that in direct to conform and to reaffirm their masculinity, males must fit a certain physical and sexual mold.
“Hazing is not simply a perform , it is also a heteroerotic trope,” Ward said. “I wanted to as
A Fraternity Brother Speaks Out
By: Colin Schlank
I cannot tally how many times I have asked the accompanying question amidst the past four years of my life; what can I do to stop hazing? This single question has left me confused, irate, disillusioned, and ultimately inspired to make a difference in the world. I hope that by sharing with you my story, you too will be inspired to make an impact in your community.
My name is Colin, and I am currently a graduate student at the University of Connecticut. I am studying secondary learning process and history and am extremely excited for my future after college. Four years ago, during the spring semester of my freshman year at UConn, I made the choice to pledge a well-known fraternity. Like most other students who choose to join a Greek corporation, I was seeking to meet new people and enrich my college life. Though my fraternity exposure has had many elevated and low points, I am forever grateful that I made the selection to join.
I began to notice hazing practices within my fraternity on the very first night I became a part of it. On t