Quote:
Originally posted by FSUblondeAST07
I guess, I spoke to strongly before when I said that the charges were absoulty not true, since I was not involved in the incident. But what I meant was- that from the people I had spoken to about what happened, they said that what was being reported in the paper was not true. I know and trust those people and their word, and thats why I took the stance that it was absoultly not true. I guess it's weird when you know the people involved in the incident, and then trying to relate, the ablility to take their word on it, to other people who don't know them.
Sorry if I came off to strongly before, I was just trying to protect the names of the people accused.
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The position you're taking is perfectly understandable, given the accused are your friends. Before coming to erms with the situation on a personal level, it's natural to try to espouse the view that you see as looking out for yourself and your friends.
A few things to keep in mind:
1) It is often the case that when some lurid hazing incident like this comes to light, everyone wants to cover their own to escape accountability. Families and friendships are destroyed over things like this, not to mention the community reaction of either acceptance or denial.
If the incident can't be marginalized and controlled as well, than you'll find admissions of guilt, because they really have no choice if there's evidence or enough people willing to be forthcoming with testimony, than the charges are to obvious to dodge. However, those involved will naturally claim that "it wasn't as bad as what the victims are saying it is", etc. Confession and remorse are part of the human condition, as is spite and denial.
2)Regarding these sadistic hazing rituals, two things fuel them; if it goes on regularly without intervention, than more and more people are willing to accept it as "just the way it's done".
Also, and this reflects on your friends I'm sure, the "few bad apples" theory definitely comes into play. Often times, the people who rely thrive on social status and 'power' are inherently grounded in that sort of nasty, unconscionable, dog-eat-dog mentality, and unfortunately, as is often the case, these are the ones who are popular and looked up to.
So then you have a hazing situation and there's likely a couple who genuinely enjoy abusing what they see as "lesser" people, and a couple of them are merely perpetuating the cycle - afterall, they were abused and humilated, and the whole point of the "pecking order" is their "reward" of being part of the elite group who down the road is entitled to abuse and humilate the next batch of perceived "lesser" people.
Some of your friends likely fit this pattern. That is, in all likelihood, a few of them knew all along just what would likely occur at the hazing and it didn't bother their conscience, or they were excited by it. A few of them were just along for the ride, and once it started getting ugly, turned off their sense of humanity and conscience and either reluctantly participated, or devolved into that type of awful state of - even if you 'know' them to be good people - becoming excited through the barbaric act of sadistically abusing others.
The psychological dynamics of this cycle are quite bizarre to examine. These people can be "friends" on the social surface, hang out together, share similar values and interests, all the while knowing that there will eventually be this hazing ritual where a systematic split will occur within the friendship, and one of them is going to horribly abuse the other. Happens all the time, and the hazings that females often involve themselves in are realistically not much different than those that males engage in. It's only a stereotypes, ignorance and DENIAL that make people believe otherwise. People would be astonished to discover just how much sexual abuse occurs within these hazings, and people don't want to believe it because the reality contrasts too sharply with the stereotype that "girls would never do that", because sexual abuse is seen in our culture as sort of a common, uniting social ill that is largely defined in terms of female victimhood. So many don't want to believe that young women would require other girls to submit to group sex, or perform oral sex on several guys at a party, submit to embarrassing interrogations, etc, yet that stuff does happen. I wouldn't say it's the norm, but it's more pervasive than most would care to believe. Of course you can delve into the sociocultural approximations of why this happens, but I believe women and men are equal, and that encompasses good and bad tendencies