GreekChat.com Forums - A new direction

Is this really what we want for our fraternity? Even if your chapter isn't like this, if you meet someone who went to this school and tell them that you're a Sig Ep, they're going to associate you with that chapter and that type of behavior.

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Gayest 'Fraternity' Ever

The Sigma Phi Epsilon 'fraternity' at the University of California, Irvine, is at the forefront of a new effort increase sensitivity and tolerance within the Greek system.

The Vice President of Sig Ep came out to his fraternity brothers around a flaming campfire during a house retreat last fall. His act of courage inspired three more members to out themselves soon after. Sig Ep decided that they needed a faculty advisor who could help them work through their emotions. They enlisted openly homosexual professor Eric Anderson—whom they nicknamed 'Gumby'—to fill the role. He teaches a course that explores the reasons behind homophobia, and how to combat it. Within a week, two more brothers had come out to the house.

With Gumby on board, Sig Ep became so much more sensitive. Pledges were recently rechristened 'new members,' and there is a new 'no humiliation' policy in effect. Similarly, the Sig Ep brothers have renamed themselves 'bois' because, as Mr. Anderson put it, 'boi implies one who is male, yet has cast off all the baggage of being a 'man' and who is certainly not immature as 'boy' implies.' Instead, the Sig 'bois' are 'creating a culture of masculinity that values femininity.'

Sigma Phi Epsilon now offers a 'Drama Queen of the Week Award' at meetings to the 'boi' who has generated the most drama in the past week. Gumby approved. 'To have men expressing drama, opposed to withholding their emotions and letting them out in the form of violence, is certainly one direction I like to see men moving towards.'

One 'boi' commented that while he felt that 'those deep traditions of hazing and all that 'masculine stuff' just aren't going to change soon,' the house was by far the most 'progressive' on campus, and that it was blazing a trail for a more tolerant Greek system. Gumby voiced his enthusiastic approval. While he feels that 'fraternities serve as a pillar of patriarchy and homophobia,' he thought that the new Sig Ep 'suggests that a new kind of masculinity awaits us in America.'

One might think that the interpersonal dynamic at Sig Ep would be disrupted by all the homosexuality, but one would be wrong. One boi-brother enthused, 'Why would straight guys have a problem with guys being gay? It's less competition for me!'