# How do you feel about fraternities? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 8, 2022, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601 "2022-11-08T17:51:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601/101 "2022-11-11T02:30:34Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I was going to mention black fraternities, and that many of them brand their members. Yes, with an iron, like some ranchers still do to cattle - inflict a third-degree burn, that in black people often “heals” as a keloid. Not that I didn’t believe you but I googled this activity. Yowsers. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601/102 "2022-11-11T02:38:50Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Presumably you lived with your parents. That would have been a nightmare for me. I would almost rather have lived on a mattress in the alley. Consider yourself fortunate and privileged. I lived in the dorms for two years. One year was great but it I should have stopped there. After that I rented apartments and others with fellow students. I can understand that if you had a bad childhood. Like you I moved out after a year but for different reasons. I got a job that paid the bills so I bought a mobile home and then used that to buy a house 3 years later. But the job meant going to school part time. Not sure that was a good move. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601/103 "2022-11-11T02:55:28Z")
I don’t really feel anything, good or bad, about fraternities. I went to two huge universities, each with a number of clubs, sports, and other activities to get involved in. Against that background, a fraternity was just another club; no more (nor no less) special than one of the many drama clubs, or one of the many school newspapers, or one of the many intramural sports teams. Point is, at my schools, you didn’t need to join a frat to have a life outside of class. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601/104 "2022-11-11T03:06:21Z")
I’m reminded of something that has changed since I was in college. when I was 18 it was legal to drink alcohol. My friends and I would often order a pizza and a pitcher of beer at school and study after class. Now that the drinking age has been raised I wonder if a fraternity is likely to function as a speakeasy. If so, they would be a natural magnate for students who were desperate to get away from their parents. Not that this is the blueprint for all fraternities but it does lend itself to a negative feedback loop for young adults. Particularly if the parents they want to get away from are alcoholics. Now it’s a hereditary time bomb looking for victims. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601/105 "2022-11-11T03:32:59Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Now that the drinking age has been raised I wonder if a fraternity is likely to function as a speakeasy. If so, they would be a natural magnate for students who were desperate to get away from their parents. That was certainly the case in CA 35 years ago when the drinking age was 21. Now maybe not as much after all of the publicized hazing deaths and scrutiny. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601/106 "2022-11-11T13:10:34Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > However…as for campus drinking, my dorm floor could drink any frat under the table (1980; drinking age 18). I couldn’t BELIEVE how much binge drinking their was. Similar to my experience in dorms 78-80. Hard to believe how common it was to have parties with kegs or tubs of ever clear punch in peoples’ dorm rooms - or in the dorm’s common lounges! 😵 (And our RA never did anything about pot either. Never had to put a towel under the door or anything.) Different times. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601/107 "2022-11-11T21:18:36Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > > > I was going to mention black fraternities, and that many of them brand their members. Yes, with an iron, like some ranchers still do to cattle - inflict a third-degree burn, that in black people often “heals” as a keloid. > > Not that I didn’t believe you but I googled this activity. Yowsers. Not just black fraternities. When we were on Spring Break we met a bunch of our fraternity brothers from a chapter down South who had decided to brand themselves with our letters. Definitely not official policy. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601/108 "2022-11-11T23:29:48Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > When we were on Spring Break we met a bunch of our fraternity brothers from a chapter down South who had decided to brand themselves with our letters. Definitely not official policy. OK, now I can’t get this [Family Guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPaNkm_eVss) clip out of my head. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601/109 "2022-11-12T01:25:14Z")
How about this? (Borderline NSFW, but you knew that when you saw it was by the “Jackass” crew.) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/bs8PhRdvVEc/maxresdefault.jpg "Cattle Brand - Jackass Number Two") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs8PhRdvVEc) ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601/110 "2022-11-12T23:01:41Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Now that the drinking age has been raised I wonder if a fraternity is likely to function as a speakeasy. If so, they would be a natural magnate for students who were desperate to get away from their parents. > > Not that this is the blueprint for all fraternities but it does lend itself to a negative feedback loop for young adults. Particularly if the parents they want to get away from are alcoholics. Now it’s a hereditary time bomb looking for victims. Not really. Historically a speakeasy made some pretence of hiding its activities. But in the sense of being a place where underage people could go and drink with little oversight, then yes. At my college, fraternity houses functioned more or less as privately owned non-profit bars where one could show up during a “registered” party and drink for free. Maybe not every single fraternity house every Friday and Saturday, but enough of them. Thursday night “hotel parties” more more “speakeasy”-ish as they technically weren’t allowed. So rather than a hundred people crammed into a big room with a bar and a drain in the floor and blaring dance music, they tended to be more low-key affairs with small pockets of people hanging out in various brother’s rooms. Which I actually found more fun IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2022, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601/111 "2022-11-14T13:20:54Z")
I had no experience with frats as an undergraduate. My college did not permit them. Instead we used a “house” system similar to many British universities. (The houses had individual identities and even competed as intramural teams.) However, one of my best friends was a frat member at UNC. One evening years after he graduated, we went to a concert at a campus venue and our car broke down. He walked us over to the frat house and explained our problem. A current frat brother called a pledge and ordered him to drive us home (a round trip of about 80 miles at 1:00 AM on a school night.) The pledge would not even accept gas money from us. On the way, my friend told me a few stories of his frat experiences that put me firmly in the “no frats needed” group. Unless you need to get home, of course. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2022, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601/112 "2022-12-08T21:08:46Z")
Drinking in a fraternity house? Well, we had kegs every weekend. I remember one night we went through twelve kegs (I wasn’t there- only a date could have pulled me away). Sometimes we had open cash bars on the weekend instead. However, the first big party weekend my second year there, the dean of student affairs took a walk down the row and busted our cash bar. The result? He told us not to do that anymore. Yes, the drinking age was 21, and most of us weren’t that. Basically, Greek Life at Ball State from '78 to '83 was one big underage drinking institution. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-fraternities/974601.md?page=5)