Gay hazing frat
Humiliation, homoeroticism and animal cruelty: inside the frathouse
Last year in the US, four freshman students died as a direct result of hazing rituals during college fraternity initiation ceremonies. All the deaths occurred during or just after drinking bouts in which the victims consumed vast amounts of spirits in a short space of day while older students egged them on. One of the deceased, Maxwell Gruver, 19, a student at Louisiana State University, was found to have had a blood-alcohol level over .49 g/dl at the time of his death – just .31 is considered life-threatening.
“Nobody can physically drink that much ... You have to be forced to drink it,” his mother told ABC news. “It’s senseless. I mean, how is making your brother do all these things, and humiliating somebody, a brotherhood?”
In his book True Gentlemen: The Broken Pledge of America’s Fraternities, John Hechinger notes that around 100,000 immature men choose to be initiated into chapters annually, despite these all-male societies now being associated with what he describes as “the unholy trinity of fraternity life: racism, deadly drinking and misogyny”. Many of the young men they attract will move on to work in
Why frat boys enjoy hazing, if they live through it
The latest death raises question of why these tragedies aren't more frequent.
David Burkman | Opinion contributor
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 dash 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.
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 Declare University on Feb. 2. The fraternity he was pledging, Beta Theta Pi, is also organism criminally charged.
Having been through my hold torturous hazing, I think that is the wrong scrutinize. I'd ask why it doesn’t unfold more often. As a pledge, I endured grizzly, military-style lineups, dangerous levels of starvati
On a cold, stormy September bedtime in 2018, my 14 fraternity pledge brothers and I received this ambiguous text from one of our pledge masters:
“Tonight’s teaching meeting is canceled. At 11pm, you will all load into three of your cars and drive to the destination I send you. Bring a first aid kit, five jugs of water, 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 address in Manhattan Beach. In the ride with me were four of my pledge brothers.
“It’s got to be beach-related,” said a brother from the back seat, his voice barely audible over the rain pounding on my windshield.
“Maybe it’s a house 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 complex feelings I’d been wrestling with since joining the fraternity three weeks earlier. As t
A Fraternity Brother Speaks Out
By: Colin Schlank
I cannot count how many times I have asked the following question amidst the past four years of my life; what can I do to stop hazing? This single question has left me perplexed, angry, disillusioned, and ultimately inspired to make a difference in the earth. 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 education 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. Fond of most other students who choose to join a Greek organization, I was seeking to gather new people and enrich my college experience. Though my fraternity experience has had many elevated and low points, I am forever grateful that I made the decision to join.
I began to notice hazing practices within my fraternity on the very first blackout I became a part of it. On that overnight, brothers from the chapter gathered my pledge class in the parking lot of our on-campus ho