Needing your opinions on this!
 

A little background info:

This sister recently participated in Initiation and was photographed post ceremony in ritual attire. She posted pictures online and it was promptly removed by my fellow community moderator. It's always been my understanding that nothing concerning Ritual should be discussed online.

She was obviously disturbed by her deleted post which prompted this:

http://www.livejournal.com/community...lta/89152.html

While I do believe things Ritual should stay off the Internet, she does make a point. Technically anyone can see us in our Ritual attire (taken straight from the mouth of Deedee in 2001). It's what is said during Ritual that stays secret and symbolic.

Where's the distinction between the real world and the Internet?

If this post steps on too many toes, please PM me and I will promptly remove it.

I don't see it as a problem. I have pictures of people inrobes from my initiation.

I'm pm'ing you.

Personally, I dont see anything wrong with having pictures of the girls in ceremony attire. I know my chapter took pictures of everyone in Initiation gear. As long as your not showing anything that involves the ACTUAL ceremony. I think its fine. If that's the case I have a ton of I- Day pics in my sorority photo album that need to be removed. After all, her posting plain pics of sisters in I-Day attire on the net is no different than you showing your friends your I-Day pics in scrapbooks.

Just my opinion.

When I was initiated, and many semesters thereafter, I was instructed never to be photographed in Ritual attire. It's been that way for years now, and I just don't think it's appropriate to have anything associated with our Ritual to be photographed regardless of whether or not we're allowed to.

I just think our sister had a valid argument on the distinction of IRL and online.

I wholeheartedly agree on the deletion of her post, but one can't help but wonder where we draw the line and how come?

This is an interesting question. While I understand the necessity of the strict rule about no discussion of ritual on the internet, I think its fine to take photos of the sisters in Ritual attire so long as you're not taking photos of the actual ceremony. Like Deedee said, its the words and the symbols of Initiation that are secret, not the Ritual attire.

Its a slippery slope, though. While its permissible to post pictures in Ritual attire, there is a legitimate fear that a sister may have a lapse in judgement and post a picture on the net that is inappropriate. Sometimes its just easier to impose a strict across-the-board rule than to try and figure out the different gradations of what's ok to post and what's not.

I really feel for this sister because I don't think she really did anything wrong and she obviously just wanted to express her pride in her chapter. But I can also certainly understand the moderators' wish to be "better safe than sorry."

Since my chapter's first initiation we have been told no photos of the ceremony or of the ritual attire. I have pictures of pre-initiation and some of post-I with tons of picts from feast of roses... but never any of the attire.

I agree with the references to DeeDee's comments at several conventions. The robes can be seen by anyone, obviously not DURING the Initiation.

There is an NPC group that performs a part of Greek Sing in their robes, and these robes are VERY similar to ours. I can't say that the robes are attractive, but it is okay that they are seen by the public.

I also agree with whoever said it's the degree of "okay" when it comes to posting pictures, so saying "never" and "none" is easier to comply with.

I was the one who deleted the post in the first place, so I'll jump into the ring with my opinion.

I didn't even look at the pictures at first--another member of the community posted a comment in my personal journal asking me to take a look at it because she thought that having a picture of an Initiation robe on the internet was "iffy". I thought it was iffy, too, so I deleted the post (I would have only edited to remove that picture but that wasn't an option) and emailed Gwen to tell her why.

I did it mostly because if made me uncomfortable to have a picture like that on the internet. There had been instances before when I'd been emailed and asked to remove a comment or a post because it mentioned something about Ritual. It's true that a little experience of having been warned by "big squirrels" makes you more cautious, more conservative with what slips by. Furthermore--there's no way that Sandy or I can make sure that everyone in the Alpha Gamma Delta community IS an initiated Alpha Gam, and I wouldn't do it if we could! I've stated specifically that it's for PNMs, NMs AND initiated AGDs to gather.

I know that there are girls in there who are in the process of going through the NM program and that they would see an Initiation robe before their time to go through Initation, to see and hear all of the beautiful things that we are privy too, makes me sad. They deserve it all in the right order to get the full meaning out of it.

I'm even more bummed that Gwen took the deletion as a personal affront and aired that in the community instead of emailing me personally.

That's all from me--thanks for your input, everyone :) If I had it to do over again, I would have done it the same way--except I would have pm'd a few people on here to get their opinions on it first. Live, learn.

- Lauren