But you guys think of things girls would NEVER EVER think of. Like handcuffing your drunk friend to the front porch overnight.

What I was refering to were things that I had read on other threads on this topic which were similar to things I encountered as a pledge. When I got my big sis I went on a scavenger hunt to find clues at a variety of locations before it was revealed. That was fun and I was not harmed in the least! Now, scavenger hunts are deemed hazing b/c there are individuals that will take things way too far. If I had ever had things poured on me, thrown at me, etc. there is no way I would have joined my group!! That has no purpose and serves no value. But going on my big sis hunt is a whole different story. I bonded with the girls in my group b/c we got to share that fun together while we ran all over town looking for clues and trying to put it all together and see if we were actually right :) It's unfortunate that such fun and harmless activities have to be done away with b/c of a minority of people.

yeah good point :)

but not only that

we only got to wear our pledge buttons once the whole time b/c they said making us dress up to wear them was hazing. That's BS we should have got to wear it more.

That's the kinds of things I'm refering to. It's an honor to wear your pledge pin but since a minority take things to the nth degree, that is now a taboo thing to do. That is the true issue with hazing laws.... they are written so broadly that everything falls under hazing even though the intent of the laws was to stop the beatings and things like that.

Over here wearing your pledge pin while wearing a canadian tuxedo was strictly forbidden.

What is a canadian tuxedo?

Asking people to participate in a dress up day and wear their pin is not necessarily hazing...and someone may be taking the rules too far. The question is this-if someone chose not to participate in the dress up (normal clothing etc.), what would happen to them? If there is no punishment or retribution of any kind, then it is not hazing to ask for their participation. If there is, then you could make an argument that it is.

Scavenger Hunts--this is an FIPG thing. FIPG, which most national groups are a part of, specifically fordbid them and I was told it was because there were too many instances of people travelling long distance, stealing things, make buffoons of themselves etc. I know that's not always the case, but that is where the objections are stemming from.

I do think some of the rules we have are because people cannot always be trusted to not go too far, unfortunately (the whole given an inch, take a mile kind of thing....)

This is so true.......

WOW! They do exist! And they hang out on Greek Chat!

NEW MEMBER/PARENT/PROFESSOR/TYPICAL OFF-TO-COLLEGE KID: "And, since we saw it on TV, I KNOW it has to be true! And, since I read it in a magazine/heard it/saw it on TV that Greeks haze, OF COURSE it has to be true!"

Can't we just be finished with this crap?

Iris

That's exactly it - you ran all over town...
If you had stepped off campus and one person got hit by a car or broke their leg, the lawsuit would cripple the organization. We live in a litigious society and everything we do is to prevent a major lawsuit.

This is why I love you---you never say anything half way. :)

I really don't get the analogy between a car insurance commercial and wanting to eradicate hazing, but ummm whatever.

And many people have been told that it's not only hazing to require someone to participate, it's hazing to even ask, because if an active asks, the pledges will feel pressured.

The "rules" nowadays go insanely too far, and if they keep going down this path we will kill ourselves off in 50 years - not from scavenger hunts or drinking or paddling, but because Greek life will be so lacking in fun that no one will want to join. We'll be groups that do nothing but community service and expect members to pay $500/semester for the privelege.

It's purely about money. Considering every time I go to a convention or panhellenic luncheon everyone is laughing uproariously about the "terrible" things they had to do when they pledged, I think a lot of this is lip service. I don't mean things like beating the crap out of someone - I am hoping most groups have wised up where that's concerned, although I'm sure there's some national officers out there who still believe "wood is good" - I mean silly things like getting your pledge book stolen and such.

Someone wah wahed because they had to ask the big bad fraternity man for a signature, so we can't do that anymore. Someone in one chapter was bitchy about giving out interviews, so we can't do that anymore. It all has to do with the complete abdication of personal responsibility that's overtaken this country. On my campus, there were groups that everyone knew hazed, and hazed hard. The general consensus was that the pledges were stupid to stick around and put up with it.

...in the commercial, there's a guy talking on the phone about how easy the Geico website is to navigate....so easy that "even a caveman could do it."

Then, flash-ahead, he's sittiing at lunch in a fancy restaurant with two cavemen who have called him out on his statement. One, with an attitude and in very plain English, orders a fancy meal; the other has lost his appetite. Both cavemen LOOK like what comes to mind when thinking of a caveman, yet both are obviously intellingent and articulate.

Analogy to Greek Life and hazing.......young men and women in our Greek orgs are intelligent and articulate, yet in the clouded secrecy behind their new member "rituals", they aren't what they appear to be far too often. They haze.

They need to stop.

Iris

I've seen the commercial. I still don't think there is a connection.

.....Hmmmm....takes too many Greeks too long to get the "don't haze" thing, also.

If "hazing" is getting sorority signatures, having to interview at least 25 actives, and participating in team building exercises with my pledge class, I'm glad I was "hazed". These simple, non-damaging tasks brought me a lot closer to the actives/pledge brothers and was a very easy why to introduce myself to the sorority girls on campus. I'll say it again that I believe some people are taking this no hazing policy way too far.

I don't get the connection between the commercial and hazing. It's not the best analogy. I do get the don't haze thing.

As I see it, hazing really doesn't create a sense of unity within a fraternity or sorority. It might create unity within a new member class, but it creates resentment between the new members and the brothers or sisters. It becomes an us against them dynamic which is ultimately unhealthy in any org.

And I knew pledges (yes, they were called pledges) who were hazed in the way that KillarneyRose described including the chocolate syrup. This was in the late 80s and early 90s when GLOs were beginning to focus their efforts on eliminating hazing. That type of behavior didn't build brotherhood or sisterhood and only hurt and humiliated people.

We didn't have the chocolate syrup thing, but we did have the 'match test'. Basically we had to learn to say the greek alphabet before a match burnt out - and we are talking the paper matches found in match books not wooden matches.

Ahh the match test. I could do that.

I just want to add that it was a fraternity that turned the pledges into human ice cream sundaes. One of my freshman dorm neighbors walked in covered in chocolate and whipped cream. It was pretty gross.

You have no idea ;) :)

Have to agree with you on this one.

Ok! Jeeeeeez! Nobody likes the analogy!

I was only using it to state that cavemen (hazing) should be extinct/evolved. However, the sophisticated cavemen in the commercial are NOT a reality even though they talk like they are. Point is.... the cavemen are still there on the TV AND so are the hazers on our campuses. Yet today, it's being done by modern cavepeople who walk and talk like intelligent young men and women on our campuses leading too many of our GLOs! DONE with the analogy!

Where's Earp.....the analogy KING?

The analogy isn't the point, stopping hazing---in any form---is. We shouldn't be sitting here analyzing what is/isn't, should/shouldn't be acceptable, legal, moral, or purposeful.

In our GLOs, we need to be rid of it........long overdue.

Iris

You don’t have to be an athlete to know that peer pressure is a bitch—though, I guess it may be more severe for those people. No one secular category of peeps are more rooted in their traditions then sports teams, and the pressure to fit in can sometimes lead new members to do some questionable things.

Take the Simon Fraser University swim team, for example. A few weeks ago, almost every member of both the junior and senior teams was suspended from play for conduct that the University considered to be “hazing.” What was this conduct? Well, I’m glad I assumed you asked. The “hazing” included each member describing detailed sexual fantasies about other members and taking suggestive photos wearing team uniforms. You homophobes need not worry—both male and female members took part. The University suspended all but three members of the team because this contravened the swim team’s guidelines for “rookie rituals.”

Now, I have a couple questions. First, how do I join the SFU swim team? Because honestly, I’m pretty down for girls being forced to think of me sexually. Second, was this actually hazing? Don’t get me wrong; I’m a firm believer that hazing is a cruel and unnecessary practice. However, none of the information released by SFU can suggest to me that any of this was involuntary. No one was reportedly hurt, and from what we’ve been told, no one was naked. None of the pictures that were taken were plastered all over campus or anything like that.

So why exactly were these teams suspended one week before defending their North American championships? All it sounds like to me is a pretty bitchin’ party.

I’m not trying to marginalize the gravity of hazing rituals, but quite frankly, there are much worse things that these kids could have done. When I was in ninth grade, my music class spent a week at a band camp that, at the time, was also being used by some high school music classes. About a week in, the tenth-graders convinced some of us youngsters to help participate in a “hazing ritual.” The older kids convinced one of my friends to shave his pubic hair off, and in the middle of the night, tape it to an unsuspecting victims’ face during their slumber. Suffice it to say, the victim was not a happy band-camper when he woke up, and a lot of the older kids got in trouble. It was a degrading stunt, and the poor guy never came back to music class.

However, all this swim team was doing was getting drunk and telling hormone-inducing stories. By reacting so strongly to this, SFU accomplishes nothing. I’m entirely confident that there are much worse things going on within other SFU teams that could be getting much more attention; and even if this was an attempt to prove the University’s stance on hazing to the other teams, it’s made trivial by how minor the swim team’s indiscretions actually were. I mean, it’s not like they behaved like, say, the McGill football team. Though I guess it’s hard to sodomize a swimmer—I hear they do a lot of clenching.

And I (and probably others here as well) see the SFU swim team 'bonding' as degrading!

You say that this was probably all voluntary, but was it really. Your own post talks about peer pressure - which IS a part of hazing. Alcohol induced peer pressure is even worse than sober peer pressure - but it is peer pressure and hazing none the less. This sort of event really does NOT build team unity nor respect for teammates.

I guess this shows the major difference between guys and girls on the topic of hazing. For guys, any form of hazing shows off their masculinity and so they see nothing wrong with it - good, harmless fun. For girls it is just plain old degrading, lowering self-esteem and self-worth (I can promise you that no woman with a health self-esteem would actually WANT to have suggestive photos taken). Even if a woman WERE to tell a sexual fantasy of you, could you truly say that you would look at her with respect or just as a sexual object?

I'm glad to hear that SFU did what it did - especially a week before defending a title. It proves that the school takes hazing seriously and does not let athletic programs determine school policy. Hazing is hazing (someone had to have thought up this event and it sure wasn't with the thought of building teammate respect!)

Sarah

Hahaha. Are you just post-stalking 33girl today so you can post, "I have to agree with you on this one"?

It's OK. We can all be a happy post stalking kum bah yah circle! :p Feel the love!!

And PiKA2001, I agree with you completely.

I totally agree with you on this one.

Our definition of hazing is different from a sanitized sorority's version.

-Rudey

Very true. When I pledged it was like, " we're not going to make you eat anything, drink anything, hit you, or dress you up in a stupid outfit".

And why is this wrong?

Heather, I don't think that he's saying there's anything wrong with that. It's just that his rules stated are a far cry from the NPC rules which seem to forbid you asking the pledges/new members to do anything.

I am getting the impression that he feels that because he didn't have to do those things he some how missed out or didn't earn his initiation?

I think it's the opposite...I think he thinks NPC sororities don't "earn their letters". The stuff he did that he considers "earning letters" are things that NPC has called hazing such as getting signatures, etc. I don't think he thinks HE didn't earn his letters.

That's putting words in his mouth. He pledged. He wasn't hazed is the point. Because none of what he talked about is hazing. Its pledging. But you need pledging standards, to live up to the objectives of your fraternity. At least that is how its put in writing in Theta Chi.

I didn't think it was possible, but this thread just got BUMPin weirder.

Analogy King, Good to Be The King, well of something!;)

If it takes degraded to become a Member of a GLO or anthing else, Count Me out.:mad:

The inanity just blows by Me.

The discussion of what is and what is doesnt really make a difference does it it Your (Our) GLOs so deem it to be and is not allowed. That is why We see so many Chapters from Different GLOs losing thier Charters. Losing The Charter Means only one thing, They Are Gone!:confused:

So, who does that help?

You're not following me here. What I posted were the guidlines (in a nutshell ) that I was told when I rushed. They were simple and straightforward. I don't know how you got the impression that I feel depraved because I didnt get to eat the oogie cookie.

Hazing is good
 

I got the hell hazed out of me. I enjoyed it. I do not haze my pledges, becasue there are other guys to do that. I am the guy that goes afterwards and talks to them about why we did it and what they need to gain from it. that is what needs to happen after hazing events. I believe that i would not feel like a real fraternity member if i just waltzed in and became a brother. I felt that I had earned my right to walk into the house as a brother. I believe the only thing that gets out of control is the alcohol. That can be dangerous. Physical and mental things are great for hazing. Degradation is the best. Make sure the pledges feel like shit, so that way they can build themslves back up together. If you feel as if you grew apart from your fraternity then that means the people hazing you didnt give a shit about you. If they did they would have cared to help you out afterwards.

.....you have got to be kidding......