USC (CA) Alleged "Rooftop" Photos (Kappa Sigma)
 

About the USC (CA) photos (allegedly of sex on a rooftop, apparently). The LA Times reports::

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...4e8710dd4d970d

Excerpt:

. . . The Daily Trojan quoted a statement released by the president of USC Kappa Sigma acknowledging that the man in the photos was a fraternity member.

"While the actions that were taken did involve a member of our chapter we, in no way, support this kind of behavior, nor do we promote any such actions," Zach Timm was quoted as saying.

Timm said inquiries into the incident had been launched and that the fraternity member seen in the photos had been suspended "for conduct unbecoming of a Kappa Sigma and a gentleman."

Edited to add:

This is making "news" outside Greater Los Angeles; the London (UK) Daily Mail's site is carrying a report:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml

The pic was on tfm, but I don't see it now. It was quite obvious... they weren't exactly laying down...

Two things:

1. The guy is the same guy who wrote that "cocksman" e-mail that was on every other blog a couple weeks ago. Huge PR disaster for him (although I'm betting he enjoys it) and USC Kappa Sigma.

2. The event unfortunately took place directly after a sorority's philanthropy event on the quad. Although nobody has been able to identify the girl after the photos have passed around (there are some clear shots of her face and this first leaked Saturday night/Sunday morning), and the fact that she was wearing a different shirt than every girl at the philanthropy, the coincidence has of course been noted and the rumors have blown up that it is a sorority member. They have released a statement saying it wasn't one of their members, and frankly I'm not going to mention which house because I think it's clear she would have been found out by now if it's only limited to 200ish girls, so I don't think she was in that house. For what it's worth, the guy was correctly identified within minutes and it's been over three days and nobody has been able to identify her.

Absolute PR disaster for the SC Greek system, I'm sad to say.

Um, am I the only one that thinks this isn't such a big deal?

LOL. Pardon my Beavis moment.

I think the real issue is one of PR. This is just an example of how fast something can spread in today's online world. It may be a minor violation on behalf of the individual, but things like this get blown up quite quickly.

Furthermore, he managed to damage both the image of his fraternity and those of all USC fraternities through an action that can most likely be attributed to only himself. Not to mention, the sororities took some of the collateral damage.

That said, LOL, and I'm scouring the internet for the photo right now!

No, I read the OP and thought "so what?". Of all of the sex that goes on in a fraternity house, they're going to make a big deal of this?

was the guy wearing letters? why/how did they know he was a fraternity member?

i agree, stupid,gross, but really nbd.

In my head, I'm imagining letters on his buttocks.

I don't think the issue is fraternity man and possible sorority women having sex so much. But that it happened in public and just a little over two weeks after this. The Rules According to a Fraternity "Cocksman"

When this was going around earlier (weekend and yesterday), some of the pictures I saw were not only more graphic than what is linked above, but included both of their faces full on. There was also a picture that included some of the event happening below that kind of showed the sponsoring sororities’ letters. Perhaps not a big deal to some - especially if you are not familiar with the Greek letters. But it took me maybe a few seconds to figure them out. Also, my understanding is that some of the new sites confirmed which sorority was having the event and it was worded such that the girl that was fiddling on the roof was perhaps a member of said sorority.

I work in PR. And yet I think this is no big deal. When I saw this, I said, "Eh, college kids being college kids." Or, "Adults being adults." They just got caught. Secretly, his fraternity is probably getting a lot of fist bumps from others.

Latest update:

This is what I understand is the latest news about the unfortunate incident.

The national office has rescinded the membership of the fraternity member.

The female involved is NOT a student at USC. The sorority had the misfortune to have this occur right after their charitable fund raising event. The female was NOT a member of the sorority.

Who took the pictures?

But really, this was sex between two consenting adults. For the man to have his fraternity membership revoked because of it is ridiculous. Fraternities wouldn't have ANY members (or maybe just a few of those super-Christian ones that we discussed a few weeks ago) left if they terminated the membership of members who had sex. Or who had sex in semi-public places.

Now if he was terminated for writing that Cocksman piece of drivel, then that I can understand.

Other than that they were photographed, was this any worse than the Miami University sorority member caught having sex with her date in the closet at her formal last spring while the rest of the party trashed the lodge?

Was I the only one who wondered if they used Trojan brand condoms? ;)

I thought the guy had already been terminated after the email was uh exposed?

I guess that little email didn't hurt his game.

I was under the understanding that while it was the same chapter, it was not the same person.

Nope. Its horrible PR for Kappa Sigma, but overall not such a big deal to me. College kids getting off on doing the do other than the bedroom, far from breaking news.

I do think its very convenient that there was someone on the roof of a building close enough, and of similar height to catch the pair in the act.

FYP

"Doing the do" sounds like a drinking game.

Ok, after looking at the pictures, here are my thoughts:

1) That's a really freaking high roof and they're so close to the edge!! I would be terrified if I were that girl.

2) When it said "rooftop photos" I thought it would be more like in the center of the roof where only maybe a couple neighboring buildings had sight of it....not all out there intentionally showing the world the goods..


Pre-photos I was like :rolleyes:... Post photos: :eek:



ETA: Anyone have a picture of the whole house (with no naked people on top, preferably)? I tried google and the USC IFC site and neither had the whole house.

If this is the kid's only violation, I would say expulsion is too harsh. What are they going to do now--expel every member who is doing something stupid in a photo? I tend to think this isn't his only misdeed.

BTW, I couldn't believe how some of the local TV and radio stations were reporting this in So. Cal. yesterday--SEX SCANDAL ON CAMPUS! :rolleyes: I also liked how they referred to quotes from the IFC e-board members as quotes from "USC officials."

I don't think it is a big deal because I don't believe the girl was in the sorority, but as an alumnus of USC let me spell out why it is such a PR disaster.

The sorority in question is one of the three houses whose philanthropy event is unanimously loved by the fraternity community, and of the three it is arguably the most famous. All three take place during the day in a very public area of the campus, involve competition of some sort and raise absurdly large amounts of money. All three are officially "no alcohol allowed" events, and those in charge (exec board, advisers, president, event chair, etc) make it very clear that nobody should be drinking.

However, each fraternity gets assigned a group of captains from the sorority, and usually these captains are close friends, girlfriends, etc. These captains are in charge of making sure the membership goes to the event, donates money and has fun, and it is not uncommon at all for them to get a ton of alcohol and come over early in the morning to get the fraternity brothers drunk before going to philanthropy. Not surprisingly, some of these captains also get very drunk.

So the pictures, in which the fraternity member is wearing the philanthropy t-shirt, ignited a firestorm of criticism because the implication was that the girl was so blackout drunk during her PHILANTHROPY event that she agreed to have very, very public sex. In reality, the girl is not in the sorority, she is not wearing the t-shirt that every other member was wearing at the time and nobody has been able to identify her from a limited pool of (frankly, very high profile) students in the last 5 days, while the guy was identified within minutes. But this is a sorority that many would want to do poorly because they are arguably considered the "best" sorority on campus in several different ways (reputation, recruitment, philanthropy events, physical house, grades are always at least top 2 or 3, if not flat out #1).

So to sum it up: public sex is kinky but whatever. Drunken public sex during the philanthropy event of one of the most admired houses on campus is what is causing the controversy, on campus at least.

How I heard about this was from a friend of mine in Los Angeles who received an email about it last Saturday night or maybe Sunday morning. He works for one of the local media so it is not unusual for him to receive emails about local events from various sources.

What was unusual was the subject line of the email that said “Public Sex at “XY” Event.” Not much else was included in the message other than links to the pictures.

Add to this, my L.A. friend did not attend USC and has no connection with USC other than some friends who are alumni. So him getting the email rather quickly means it was being sent around outside of the USC community fairly soon after the event.

Which gets to part of the controversy. As DTD Alum noted, the “XY” chapter is well respected. Heck I may only know little about the USC Greek community, but when I saw the sorority’s letters, I knew enough to think “this is big.”

In any case, what I have now heard from GLO friends here is that there was (may still be) speculation that one of the other sororities - or a member of one of the other sororities - may have been involved with taking and posting of the pictures and / or sending out the emails.

Which now gets us back to the potential PR issues. Right or wrong, not only does the “XY” chapter have to be on the defensive about this, but so might the rest of the SC sororities.

Wowww.

I hate to think girls would stoop that low to try and tarnish another sorority's reputation.

I am an alumna member of another Greek letter chapter at SC. The female in the photo has been identified as a UCLA student.

Birnkrant Hall is a dormitory near the building where the incident occurred. The top of the building is plainly visible from the windows on that side of Birnkrant.

Another news article commented Birnkrant students noticed what was happening and some of them took photos with cameras or camera phones. Apparently the photos were sent to friends within minutes. It did not take long for the photos to reach internet photo sites.

To be honest, and I know we're not supposed to talk about things like this, but SC's sorority row is not the most Panhellenic place at the moment. It is in a turbulent phase where the sorority "hierarchy" (which has barely budged since the 40s) is suddenly completely changing. If you want details (I'm not giving out sorority names though) you can PM me but I don't want to go further on here. The point of the matter is that the sorority in question has been the only one (up until now) to remain unscathed from reputation changes, and so it's an easy target for people trying to further advance their reputation, or those who are trying to delay the inevitable fall of theirs.

And frankly, that doesn't even begin to touch how turbulent the fraternities have been, which is a whole other story.

I'm sorry but this just made me laugh. Next stop, Pitt and West Virginia will put an East Coast spin on this shit.

I agree with everyone else; college kids having sex. Whuptidoo! Yipee! Who cares? Like we have not heard this happen before.

Having sex in broad day light on a roof top. Come on! I mean that is just asking for attention. Think about it. At least crawl. The pictures look so staged. Standing up walking naked in broad daylight? Really? Get real! They must have been drunk to do this. Drunker and more stupid than usual to do this. I could understand at night standing up when no one is around and can't see. But, during the day standing up? They asked for it.

After all that I laud them for providing such entertainment. Sick, soft-porn almost Charlie Sheen-trainwreck entertainment.

Go to Google Maps, type in the address of the house, and look at the house at STREET LEVEL. You should be able to see the entire front of the house.

Would you prefer to go Babs (a la Animal House) "Doing the dirty deed?"

I'm so waiting for these people to be charged as sex offenders in California by some eager prosecutors, maybe even go after the photographers for disseminating porn. Let's hope the unidentified woman was over 18! I'm also quite surprised that there is access to the roof that isn't attached to an alarm door. On most campuses you wouldn't want people able to access a roof for safety reasons, suicide, or a sniper.

My campus newspaper recently had an article where people discussed having sex in public with their full government names attached to their quotes. I wish the article would have mentioned the student conduct and city/state/federal sanctions that would come with being caught. I'm sure the world knowing they want to bang on the roof of the Kibbie Dome, since Ludacris has already taken dibs on the 50 yard line while Vandals make fun of Boise, is going to put them right at the top of any job applicant pool. It isn't that they talked about it, it is that they used their real names and the student reporter didn't change it to a pseudonym either.

Of course journalism is what's on Sarah Palin's degree from the University of Idaho, so take that as you will.

I just think its "college kids, being college kids" and unfortunately they got caught in the act. I think pulling his membership is harsh, but i suppose after the "Cocksmen" e-mail, the Kappa Sigs needed to show they were not going to put up with this kind of conduct (well in public anyway).
Kind of like Vandalsquirrel above me, i'm waiting for the photographer to be charged with distributing porn...

I've heard rumors of this, but do you know where it has been confirmed?

Sorry to hear that. :(

Speaking as an outsider, of course, I am hoping that the qualities that make this sorority the top chapter can be the same qualities that get them through the situation.

You shut your mouth. Pitt students would never dream of fraternizing with the enemy.

Also, Pitt's semester ends so early, and it's hard to have sex in snowsuits.

I'm not American so I don't know the "ins and outs" of the laws, but why would someone be "charged" for circulating porn around if the photographed subjects are 'of age' adults?

Also...having sex out in the open of a rooftop in broad daylight....there's not exactly an "expectation of privacy" there.

Depends on the law, there can be local, state or federal issues; especially since a telephone was used and could have been sent to people in other jurisdictions with stricter laws, or minors.

No, no expectation of privacy, but I do wonder about the person(s) who felt compelled to document it and share it.

If anyone's interested, looks like it definitely wasn't a girl from "XY" sorority at USC, but rather a UCLA "ABC" who is dating the guy in the photos.

Naturally, her name has been scrubbed from the UCLA ABC website.

So really, they're just taking crosstown love to new heights.
:D

Wait, wait, I'm just catching up now, but are you telling me that this guy was booted from KS, but the Cocksman guy wasn't?

That really disgusts me.

What the alleged cocksman fella did was in bad taste. This is something which very well could be charged as a felony, requiring these kids to register as sex criminals.

There is a huge difference between the two activities.