The season of admission to various colleges is starting and if you are one of those people who are looking to get into a college, then your head must be filled with a bucket of questions like what subject should you major in, which college to take admission in, how to cope up with new roommates and loads of books to study. There is one question that must have passed through your mind whenever you have thought about going to college and that question is should you join a fraternity. There are a lot of rituals that fraternity members are made to go through with or without their consent. Some people say that this even includes having sex with other members. Is it true? Before answering it, we will tell you about some other things that are done by fraternities.
1. Promotes alcoholism
Getting drunk so much that you black out completely is not an uncommon thing in a fraternity. It might not be a common thing in your high school, but once you get into a college and join a fraternity, having a complete blackout due to excessive drinking is a common affair. Many times this leads to dangerous and even lethal results. Unconscious fraternity members have met terrible accidents on many occasions. Fraternities promote alcoholism a big time. The other members of the fraternity might not force you into drinking large amounts of alcohol, but they will definitely praise you and encourage you to do the same.
2. Promotes misogyny
Girls are allowed to come to the parties hosted by the fraternities and drink to their heart’s content without having to pay a single penny. The money spent on this is arranged by the fraternity members. This money is called ‘social tax’ or in a more derogatory way as ‘pussy tax’. The girls who come in these parties are termed as sluts by the fraternity members. These fraternities are not a place for women and there are various studies which go on to show that sexual assault is more common by fraternity members than any other people in the college. Members of these fraternities view the girls visiting the parties of the fraternity as a potential sex partner and nothing else.
3. Promotes homophobia
A lot of people may claim that they are not homophobic, but at the same time, they will use the term gay as slur or abuse or a possible negative term. They might say that they have used it as a joke, but that only goes on to imply that they think that there is something wrong in being gay. Members of a fraternity are commonly heard using ‘gay’ as a slur on one another. There is always a strong chance that at least one of the members of the fraternity is gay if we go by statistics. Just imagine the amount of trauma he must have felt, every time someone from his own fraternity had used the word gay as a possible slur. He can not even reach out to his fellow fraternity members if he feels the need to talk about his sexuality out of the fear of being ridiculed.
4. Being forced to conform
There are always a set of rules and regulations regarding how each of the members of the fraternity must dress and groom themselves and how should they attend their classes. Some of you must think that these rules and regulations are not as strict and oppressive as compared to the other mentioned things in the list, but these rules are meant to establish control over the other members of the fraternity. Dressing according to one’s will is a very basic right that a normal person has, but not in a fraternity. Here, every other person dresses in more or less the same way. This is the reason why most of the fraternity members are seen wearing a mixture of pastel and khaki shorts. These rules promote very narrow-minded thinking.
5. Fraternity houses are a mess to live in
These houses are a complete mess and are not worth living for a normal person. These houses are more or less like a shelter home for an alcoholic man’s children. These houses are constantly flooded by a stench of vomit and beer. After a party that happens in these houses most of the fraternity members are heavily drunk and are in no condition to control themselves. The toilets and bathrooms are stuffed with the vomit of these heavy drinkers. There is no particular time when you can be at peace in the house. Drunk people keep coming into the house night after night shouting at the top of their voices while passing through hallways. Many times they carry the music into the house without caring about the time and the work of other people residing there. A few students have reported that they had to sleep in their friend’s places in order to have a sound sleep before an exam or before an important class.
6. Hazing
There is a zero-tolerance policy against hazing in a lot of fraternities, but these are all just for a saying. There is always a person in the fraternity who takes great pleasures in hazing the newly joined members and disregards these zero-tolerance policies. There are not any strict measures against such people in the fraternity. Moreover, there are fraternities where hazing is a very common practice amongst members. These incidents take a serious turn many times as there are a lot of cases of violence and even death of members. These cases are very frequently heard about. People are paddled in order to become a full-time member of a fraternity and these paddling incidents are really brutal and horrific as people are unable to sit for days to come and a lot of them are even hospitalized.
7. Taking pride in problems
It is one thing to have these problems in a fraternity and it’s completely another thing to take points of pride for these problems. Elder fraternity members tell the younger pledges that blacking out after consuming a huge amount of alcohol is something very manly and they should be proud of this deed of theirs. Moreover, if you are viewing a woman as an object of sex then also you are considered a man. Apart from this if you keep tolerating the trauma and abuse of these so-called fraternities then you will be called and considered a real brother of the fraternity. This means that all you need to do, to be a loyal and important member of the fraternity is to take pride and promote all the sick and absolutely disgusting things that the people of your fraternity does and you do along with them.
Now coming back to the main question, do fraternity rituals include having sex with other members?
If we have to answer in one word, then it is a ‘Yes’. Although this does not happen in every fraternity there are a lot of incidents where this has happened. These incidents are not just a few to count. There are a lot of such incidents. Mostly, it is forced upon the younger pledges as a hazing measure. There are various cases in which younger pledges are made to indulge in different forms of sexual acts with or without their consent. There have been cases where younger pledges have been forced to perform oral sex on their senior fraternity brothers or sisters in order to become a permanent member of the fraternity.
There is also a ritual in which the younger pledge has to go to a random girl or boy of the fraternity. Then he or she has to ask her or him three questions, one after another. The last question of these three questions being “Do you want to have sex with me”? If, the person to whom the question has been asked replies in affirmative, then the pledge has no option left but to have sex with her or him. There are constant house parties for fraternity members and sex is often a big part of these parties. There have been incidents where pledges have been told to perform sexual activities in front of the whole party. Apart from these, senior members indulge in sexual activities with newer and younger pledges as a part of fraternity rituals.
We hope that you must have got the answer to your question regarding whether or not you should join fraternity after getting into a college after knowing all that happens in the name of fraternity bonding. We are not telling you that these exact things will happen to you and you will suffer the same ill fate as many others have but this is what the recent news and trends speak. Moreover, the fraternity rituals, including the ones which make the members have sex with other members are completely unjust. Having a fraternity of people in college to mingle and interact with and having fun with them is absolutely ok and at times necessary too, but to what extent this should go is a question for you to ask yourself.
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