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.