Experiences with and opinions on hazing - Part Deux

In My Humble Opinion
1

I raised this topic here two or three years ago, and surprisingly got zero responses. After all, this is a topic which appears in the news from time to time, and it seems to be something which most people who’ve been to college would at least have an opinion on, if not having actually experienced hazing from one side or the other.

Now that it’s fall–prime pledging season–maybe I’ll have better luck this time.

I’d like to hear from anyone who’s hazed or been hazed, and their stories. I’m interested in high school experiences in this regard also. Was the hazing something that happened in a particular club, fraternity, team, or band; or was it something that every student was forced to undergo, as when all freshmen got harrassed by upperclassmen, just for being freshmen?

The last kind of hazing, like where the entire incoming class gets pushed around, is particularly disturbing. Fortunately, it seems to have been more common many years ago, as revealed by the perusal of antique yearbooks. Does this sort of thing happen more at older schools, perhaps more wrapped up in tradition?

I wouldn’t ask without offering. I had two experiences with this. When I got to my junior high school as a 7th grader, all 7th graders were derided as “scrubs” and subject to a hard noogie rub at any time, at the hands of any upperclassman. At least that was the theory, but I think it happened to me only once. My other experience was when joining a quasi-fraternal club at my college. The hazing in this case wasn’t physical in any way, nor was I pressured to drink; instead it was nothing more than things like having to address the active members as “Future Brother, Sir!”. I didn’t mind it too much because when my turn came, I gave as good as I’d gotten.

2

No hazing for me. I went to public school, and ran on the x-country team. I know there was occasional “hazing” going on in various sports, but it was typically directed at select individuals… I’d call it bullying more than hazing. FWIW, we didn’t have a football team, but did have just about every other sport you could think of.

Hazing sucks. We had a fiasco at my college a few years ago regarding hazing on the hockey team. The fact that people will stand up for hazing just baffles me.

3

I’ve never been hazed, particularly. I did join a sorority in college, and they were very strictly anti-hazing (to the point that any chapter which hazed would lose its charter). Several of my guy friends joined fraternities, and were hazed there-- kept awake all night, made to wear stupid clothing, etc. They all went along with it and felt it made their pledge class bond (which is debatable-- several de-activated later on).

I think the closest I’ve come to being hazed was at Junior Activation, which was when the seniors in the sorority officially passed the torch onto the juniors at the end of the year. All the juniors were assigned people/characters to dress up as, and then we were driven around town and forced to do and say embarrassing things and drink a lot. Turned out to be a blast, and I’m not sure it’s hazing if it’s fun.

4

Under the strict legal definition of hazing, I have both been hazed and have hazed others. I was never forced to do anything that was life threatening like some of the things you read about in the papers. We did have pledge uniforms, which might be construed as “made to wear stupid clothing”, but quite frankly I really don’t see anything too awful about that.

I think in most cases hazing is pretty harmless.

Being forced to walk across a tightrope after chugging a liter of Jack Daniel’s is obviously not.

5

My high school included 8th grade, and all 8th graders were theoretically subject to “hazing”–more like outright bullying, sometimes in the form of being beaten–by upperclassmen. They screwed up when they tried it on my class, though–we fought back, and we were vicious about it, too. After a couple of lessons on the equalizing power of a mop handle, that little “tradition” died the ignominious death it deserved.

6

Amen, Balance.
My experiences:
Elementary school (public): It’s a sad state of affairs when students have tennis balls chucked at them, and the teacher laughs. It’s a sadder state of affairs when the teacher is the one throwing the ball. Oh, well, I got revenge, sort of. (read on)

Middle school (private school): one kid in particular, the son of the head of the custodial department. He did enough crap to be expelled twice over. One time, he lead a couple of his friends in throwing rocks at the fat, nerdy, unpopular kid (me). But, being fat just means that I have a lot of mass to work with, and being nerdy means that I knew a bit about physics. I picked up a thumb-sized rock, did a discus-style spin-and-release, and nailed one of his cronies on the hand. They left as I stooped for another rock, and I never got in trouble. Of course, they continued tormenting me verbally, but I built up emotional guards after a while.

High school(public): Nothing physical at all. It was here that I learned that if someone is harrassing you, then harrasment is possible without authority intervening. So, repay them in kind.
My best example of this is giving everybody who called me gay a big hug.

I tried going to authority a couple of times. It only rarely stopped altercations in progress, and never kept them from happening again.

How to stop it? I have no idea. We can’t watch every kid every minute of every day. I suppose that if we encourage kids to respond in a way that the hazer really doesn’t want (hugs, etc.), and place emphasis on the fact that bringing a weapon to school is not an option, some good would come of it.

7

I got teased in elementary and middle school, but I wouldn’t call that hazing. I never joined a sorority, either, so my hazing experience is basically nil.

My boyfriend in college joined a fraternity-like organization called Brothers United and Achieving. Their focus was community service within the black community, and one of their goals was to be unlike the stereotypical fraternity. When he joined, he had to carry a brick everywhere with him for two weeks, and salute the older brothers, and I think they had some late night treks through the woods, but I don’t think he underwent any serious hazing.

8

robertligouri - I wouldn’t call your experience “hazing”, more like bullying. IMHO, hazing is done on a widescale basis, with the people being hazed acknowledging the ritual tradition as a way of being accepted by the whole group. Being bullied is different, because you don’t willingly put yourself through it and because bullies usually choose certain people to torment, rather than tormenting a group simply because that group wishes to join his larger society.

I, too, was bullied; but unlike you, I was very small for my age. It made fighting back more difficult. Eventually I started carrying a knife to school. That certainly wouldn’t be permitted today, but in the '70’s when I attended school, no one said much.

StG

9

Yeah. I felt like bragging, actually.
And why for the life of me people would endure hazing without eeeevil responses, I don’t know. Here at Tech, they have one mofo of an anti-hazing policy. Basically, if I decide to join a fraternity, and anyone tries to haze me, I can go to the school administration, and get them up for breach of contract with the university. Of course, that would not be a good sign for my continued life in the fraternity.

10

When I was in high school we didn’t have any hazing traditions and “initiations” were only done to those who we thought were dumb enough to do stupid shit because we told 'em to.

11

I was never hazed, really.

but a group of nice young men that had tormented me in Jr. High decided that a 2 year break was enough, and came after me my jr. year.

However, a vicous rumor went around that I was packing a gun. They left me alone, when I stood there looking at them, smirking.

Did I have the gun? No.

But I was ready with a knife, and the willingness to die before I would be treated the way I had been in the past.

12

I lived in Michigan for three years ( in a lily-white working class suburb of Detroit ). At the time at least, they had separate Junior High Schools that consisted exclusively of 7th and 8th grade ( which in retrospect I find a bit odd - a whole separate school for just two grades? ). Anyway, the male 7th graders at the Junior High were subjected to a ritual, but slightly open-ended hazing, that involved getting lightly roughed up in one fashion or another. I say lightly, because although I saw it cause a few tears, I don’t recall anybody getting seriously injured. More a case of getting the old “swirly” in a toilet bowl, or having four or five guys run you down, push you around a bit, and maybe take turns punching you in the shoulder or chest ( I never saw anyone take it in the face ).

Oddly enough, this was supposedly a one-time event only. Once you were “gotten” by somebody, anybody, that was it - You were now technically immune to any further “official” harassment ( “unofficial” harassment was another thing altogether, but then it always is ). It was actually quite curious. You’d see guys walk down a line of new-looking kids, asking if they were “freshmen”, and if so, if they had been “gotten yet”. I saw some genuinely disappointed 8th graders who clearly were just dieing to exert a little authoritative punishment, taking at face value the assertions of various freshmen that they had already been “gotten”. I also saw some, IMHO deeply stupid, freshmen admitting that, no, they hadn’t had their turn yet. Amazing :D. A couple poor schlubs did get it more than once ( a source of much bitterness at this betrayal of standards ).

Me? Never touched. I cheerfully lied my ass off :p. “Yeah, they got me yesterday”. Hah. Meanwhile other 7th graders would give me the hairy eyeball for not owning up. Saps.

The one time I did get run down by a posse I charmed my way out of it, by, once brought to bay, turning to one of my pursuers, giving a resigned sigh, and saying, “here, hold this for me”, while holding out my backpack to him. This caused them all to laugh and decide to let me go and take off after some other poor slob instead. Hey, better him than me.

After the first couple of weeks of school, it was assumed that even the most evasive 7th grader had been “gotten” and the whole thing was dropped until a new crop came in next year. I will shamefacedly admit to having fantasies about thrashing this one really annoying kid a year younger than me that lived on my block, when he made it to JH the next year. But thankfully for my karma, I ended up in the California the next year and missed my chance ( and really, I don’t know if I would have been enough of a hard case to do it anyway ).

  • Tamerlane
13

I went to military school, where hazing was a genuine daily cultural reality. (“Noogies”? Spare me.)

Floggings with brooms wrapped in duct tape, 10-25 lashes standard. Swats on the ass & back of the bare legs with the flat side of a saber, a dreaded punishment. Driving new rank insignia into the flesh of the chest or shoulder using the heel of the hand (that’s 2 quarter-inch-deep puncture wounds, for those keeping track).

“Smoke-outs”, where several people blow cig smoke into the wastebasket over an underage smoker’s head. Kicking people in the ribs while they are doing pushups. Pushups and situps in the snow (gym shorts only). “Black Hole of Calcutta” drills, involving prolonged mass calisthenics in a steamed-up bathroom (the tile’s for all the puke - once one guy ralphs, everyone ralphs). The list really does go on and on.

My personal favorite, zip victim in sleeping bag, run him up a flagpole upside down, then leave.

14

A lot of people here seem to be confusing “bullying” and “hazing”. Fraternity hazing, if done right, can be an effective way of training new members.

Of course, it can be taken too far. But, IMHO, for every fraternity that is kicking pledges in the ribs while burning their clothes while getting them drunk, there are many fraternities that use hazing in a postive way. Having the pledges suffer through some hardships together forms a strong bond between them. It’s also an effective form of punishment. It’s also a barrier to entry into the organization, making it worth more.

16

Sick and reported.

18

This.

There is a difference between “hazing” and abusive bullying. My fraternity had strict anti-hazing rules so we tended to err on the side of no hazing. What we found, however, was that the pledge classes (members in training) would feel like they were missing out on a big part of the fraternity experience. So they would do things to provoke a response from the brothers (members).

A lot of our “hazing” was mostly just having to do house chores Sat and Sun morning.

The problem with abusive hazing like beatings, dangerous levels of forced drinking, humiliation (beyond the normal funny goofy stuff), rapings, circle-jerkings, animal fuckings and whatever the hell else some of those weirdos do, is that it is completely counter-productive to the whole point of joining a fraternity. What you end up with is not a group of brothers bonded together, but a fractured house of embittered cliques, typically split by class. And then each class passes it along to the next class , thinking “we had to go through it, so you do to.”

What typically happens at that point (at least at my school) was that house would soon be disbanded by the university. Either they would get caught hazing or their membership would drop to unsustainable levels because no one wants to live in a shithole full of assholes, who probably don’t care enough to keep the house going anyway.

Generally, what you want to go for is a pledging program that pushes your pledges emotionally and physically, gives them an appreciation for their fellow members and the house, but isn’t actually dangerous or emotionally damaging.

I don’t get this new “band hazing” stuff. Back in my day, band kids were the ones who used to get picked on by the jocks and frat guys. Maybe that’s part of it. People who get abused tend to abuse others even worse.

19

We heard you.

20

Is it bullying when it happens to an entire class? Like in a middle school every 6th grader gets beat up because they are a 6th grader and no other reason?

21

I think we’re supposed to post naughty stories too for some sort of internet circle jerk. If this place allowed pictures you just know what his posts would look like, don’t you?

22

I went to high school in the 70’s and I don’t recall any hazing (I was a band nerd).

In college I joined a fraternity and there was hazing of a sort (this was 1977). The majority of it was just a lot of fun. I only recall one point where I was actually yelled at and treated badly (more on that in a sec).

The frat hazing was a series of traditional, named events.

One was called “Lockout”. In this, the entire pledge class was required to place themselves somewhere in the city, with the restrictions they were outside, and within X miles of the frat house. We were required to place one phone call announcing “Lockout:” followed by three one-word clues. The members then spread out in their cars, keeping in touch by radio and attempt to find us. If we were found, we had to give a cookout for the members and do all the kitchen work. If we weren’t found, it was reversed.

Another was called “Hunt” (it meant scavenger hunt). The members produced list of goofy events we had to stage and photograph. We had X weeks to complete (remember, we had to get the film developed in this time frame too). This went on for weeks and had some really difficult tasks. The only problem was occasionally these could lead to minor crimes like trespassing. I was required to climb atop a particular statue for one of the tasks, and got caught by the police. They laughed it off when discovering what we were up to (just warned me not to do it again).

The only “rough” treatment occurred the day I went thru final blackball (and became a full member). This wasn’t physical, just shouting at me as to whether I really wanted to finish (“ARE YOU SURE PLEDGE? CAN YOU HANDLE THIS?”)

When I went to work on an offshore oil vessel (semi-submersible) in 1980, there was a sort of hazing. It just consisted of being called “worm” my first year. The only mean thing done was during the first weeks while I was seasick. The veterans would come down to my bunk as I was heaving and do things like shove a cheeseburger under my nose, while shouting “Want this, Worm?” They thought this was hilarious.

In summary; I’ve never been thru any hazing that involved actual touching. No one’s ever actually tried to hurt me. Also, there were no drinking games or contests in the fraternity hazing.

The stories here are surprising. I though (naively) that physical hazing had been absent from the mainstream for a long time.