# Teenage dumbasses who volunteer to get hazed
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [May 8, 2003, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818 "2003-05-08T02:38:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/1 "2003-05-08T02:38:06Z")
It’s pathetic what blind conformity and the desire to belong will allow some people to submit themselves to.
> [@](#):
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> The younger girls, who were charged $35 to $40 apiece and were provided with jerseys, said they were expecting some form of mild hazing during the contest but instead were hit and spattered with pig intestines, fish guts, blood and smelly trash, four girls who said they attended the game told the Tribune on condition of anonymity.
> **[MSNBC News - Breaking News and News Today | Latest News](https://www.msnbc.com/)**
>
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Why get hazed merely for passing on to the next grade? Being a senior in high school does not make you part of a fraternity or distinguished society of Special Human Beings; it just means you did all the necessary classwork and passed it with the necessary marks. How many people all over the world have managed to do that Herculean feat?
Million dollar question: Does the person who gets beat upside the head and forced to eat feces encased in putrid pig intestines have any more of a fulfilling experience their senior year than someone who didn’t partake in the abusive festivities? I can’t imagine that they really would. This lack of understanding on my part leads me to wonder why anyone would _pay_ to get treated worst than a POW pre-Geneva convention.
Ohhh, wait a minute. I know why. So they can have free license to torture someone else when they become seniors.
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> “The seniors will haze the juniors, and next year the juniors will be seniors, and they will have a chance to haze the juniors”…
> “The senior girls were worried that they were going to get in trouble for it,” Blum said.
[http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/US/GMA030507powder\_puff\_melee.html](http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/US/GMA030507powder_puff_melee.html)
Poor girls. They’re afraid that they are actually going to get _in trouble_ for cracking other people’s heads open with baseball bats and paint cans. Well, we can’t have that, can we?
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### Author:  [@The\_Grapist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Grapist)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/2 "2003-05-08T03:01:27Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by you with the face \*
> \*\*It’s pathetic what blind conformity and the desire to belong will allow some people to submit themselves to.
> [http://www.msnbc.com/news/910407.asp?cp1=1](http://www.msnbc.com/news/910407.asp?cp1=1)
>
> Why get hazed merely for passing on to the next grade? Being a senior in high school does not make you part of a fraternity or distinguished society of Special Human Beings; it just means you did all the necessary classwork and passed it with the necessary marks. How many people all over the world have managed to do that Herculean feat?
>
> Million dollar question: Does the person who gets beat upside the head and forced to eat feces encased in putrid pig intestines have any more of a fulfilling experience their senior year than someone who didn’t partake in the abusive festivities? I can’t imagine that they really would. This lack of understanding on my part leads me to wonder why anyone would _pay_ to get treated worst than a POW pre-Geneva convention.
>
> Ohhh, wait a minute. I know why. So they can have free license to torture someone else when they become seniors.
> [http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/US/GMA030507powder\_puff\_melee.html](http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/US/GMA030507powder_puff_melee.html)
>
> Poor girls. They’re afraid that they are actually going to get _in trouble_ for cracking other people’s heads open with baseball bats and paint cans. Well, we can’t have that, can we? \*\*
this post has been Graped by the Grapist!
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/3 "2003-05-08T03:46:54Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by you with the face \*
> It’s pathetic what blind conformity and the desire to belong will allow some people to submit themselves to.
There were three monkeys sitting in a tree. One fell out because he died. A few minutes later, another monkey fell out because he died too. Finally, the 3rd monkey fell out of the tree. You ask why the 3rd monkey fell out. Peer pressure.
Succumb to peer pressure = Dead monkey.
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### Author:  [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/4 "2003-05-08T03:47:49Z")
‘Hazing’ builds character and reinforces social bonds, unless someone gets killed. It’s too bad that so many institutions are curbing/banning hazing rituals simply because one or two got of of control.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/5 "2003-05-08T03:49:40Z")
Yeah, nothing builds character like chugging booze to prove how manly you are.
:rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/6 "2003-05-08T03:52:50Z")
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> ‘Hazing’ builds character and reinforces social bonds, unless someone gets killed.
Yep. And if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.
For a fine example of the character building associated with hazing, simply check out the Air Force Academy (where the _hazing_ never got out of hand–just the crappy society it reinforced).
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### Author:  [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/7 "2003-05-08T03:55:07Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \*
> \*\*Yeah, nothing builds character like chugging booze to prove how manly you are.
> :rolleyes: \*\*
More to it then that (To a even vaguely creative hazing). Generally, a good hazing will have some pain/humiliation as a part of it. When you are finished, you share a greater bond with the group, since you shared the same unpleasant experience. From ‘beating in the wings’ for paratroopers, to being beaten with pig guts (as seems to be the case here), the scope varies but the end-result is the same.
If you have never been through a hazing, you won’t understand.
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/8 "2003-05-08T03:55:31Z")
> [@](#):
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> feces encased in putrid pigs intestines
Haven’t you ever heard of shitterlings? They taste good with a mess of collards and hot sauce.
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### Author:  [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/9 "2003-05-08T03:56:09Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by tomndebb \*
> \*\*Yep. And if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.
>
> For a fine example of the character building associated with hazing, simply check out the Air Force Academy (where the _hazing_ never got out of hand–just the crappy society it reinforced). \*\*
That’s fucking stupid. Hazing=Rapists? Holy shit, they also wear a lot of blue at the AFA! Maybe that has something to do with it!
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### Author:  [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/10 "2003-05-08T04:00:32Z")
You have to understand the insanely competitive mentality at that school, and on Chicago’s North Shore in general. I grew up in a suburb a few miles away (close enough that we all played inthe same sports leagues - not me, I’m useless as an athlete, but those of us who did play sports). It’s the kind of school where people look down on you if you don’t get accepted to an Ivy League school, and God forbid you should want to do anything like consider not going to college right away.
The hive mentality up there is sickening. For fun in high school, my friends and I used to pile in with whomever had the oldest, rustiest, and scariest-looking car, drive up to Northbrook or Wilmette or Winnetka, and time how fast the cops would pull us over and ask us to leave town. And we were the “good” kids for the most part; most of my friends were the math team, for chrissakes! But the hypocrisy is equally sickening; the cops will bust you for breaking curfew or being on the beach past closing, but refuse to face issues like the rather serious coke problem some of those filthy rich kids had.
The North Shore is a weird, weird place. This is just visible evidence.
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/11 "2003-05-08T04:07:11Z")
> [@](#):
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> When you are finished, you share a greater bond with the group, since you shared the same unpleasant experience.
Uh…why can’t the “bond with the group” come about more naturally. Like, say, going through the same classes together, studying together, bitching about bad grades and mean teachers, skipping classes, etc. If you’re doing it right, you don’t have to force bonding through hazing.
I wonder if the so-called victims are also going to get in trouble. I think they should, just for being so stupid.
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### Author:  [@Payton\_s\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Payton_s_Servant)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/12 "2003-05-08T04:22:04Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by Brutus \*
> \*\*Generally, a good hazing will have some pain/humiliation as a part of it. When you are finished, you share a greater bond with the group, since you shared the same unpleasant experience. \*\*
And what will a bad hazing have? Guys baking cookies together?
As far as _sharing the same unpleasant experience_ I believe it has been shown that the CrapHattedness/cruelty/pain/humiliation level inflicted on the “newbies” gets jacked up higher and higher for each succeeding class. that isn’t anywhere close to sharing the same experience, it’s a class in how to be a sadist in one easy lesson.
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### Author:  [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/13 "2003-05-08T04:38:26Z")
> [@](#):
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> More to it then that (To a even vaguely creative hazing). Generally, a good hazing will have some pain/humiliation as a part of it. When you are finished, you share a greater bond with the group, since you shared the same unpleasant experience.
This reasoning doesn’t really stick in this particular situation. These were juniors being hazed. A few more months and these guys will be seniors, so it’s not like there’s much in the way of experience that separates these people from the ones abusing them. If they were freshmen and being hazed by seniors (kind of like in _Lords of Discipline_) that would make more sense to me, because it would be like they were being inofficially inducted into The High School Experience by people they look up to a lot. But making it all the way to your third year of high school only to be beaten by someone who is not that much older and wiser than you seems highly foolish. The “bonding experience” that hazing supposedly instills should have been set in place a lot earlier in the game.
I think high school in and of itself is hazing. Why any would add more discomfort to an already excruciating ordeal is beyond my comprehension.
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### Author:  [@Cruktar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cruktar)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/14 "2003-05-08T04:56:02Z")
Oh, Christ.
**Brutus,** obviously we have different mentalities. I am not willing, in any situation on Earth, to give up one iota of my own dignity to join some group.
Hazing in -any- case is primitive and wrong. I fail to understand how ‘bonding with the group’ is really that desirable. I would rather, as another poster noted, bond naturally with a group of people I choose, based on mutual affection and having things in common than being humiliated.
AS far as High School hazing goes, it seems ridiculous to an absolutely amazing degree to me. A Senior who has managed to suck up years’ worth more resources than a Freshman is given no authority over that Freshman.
I don’t follow the logic.
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### Author:  [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/15 "2003-05-08T04:56:46Z")
On The News With Brian Williams they had a sound bite from one of the participants. “I don’t see what the big deal is. So some girl got her head split open. It’s not like anyone died.”
Someone wanna buy this chickie a clue?
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### Author:  [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/16 "2003-05-08T05:05:05Z")
I am of the opinion that if the hazees are not willing to come forward and get it stopped, or even just walk away, that the authorities should not need to involve themsleves. Of course, when I was hazed, I did both, and it worked splendidly, so I am prejudiced.
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### Author:  [@d\_redguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/d_redguy)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/17 "2003-05-08T05:13:37Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by ElwoodCuse \*
> \*\*Someone wanna buy this chickie a clue? \*\*
Not with my money. Blah “bonding experience” blah blah “group” blah blah. Did anyone else see the movie _Dazed and Confused_? There was some vicious hazing in that movie, but it didn’t hold a candle to this. But if you took your beating/massive humilitation like a good boy/girl, you were part of the “in crowd.” Fuck that. This is bloody high school, people!
The only place I can understand some “hazing” is the military. But not just for the sake of hazing. Teams like the Navy Seals must learn to work as a group, and a strong bond between teammates is essential. And it damn well better be under the strict supervision of some sort of CO. Hazing for hazing’s sake is nothing more than sadism (IMHO, shared by several esteemed posters that have already mentioned this viewpoint).
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### Author:  [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/18 "2003-05-08T05:14:01Z")
You’re right, **Brutus**. I’ve never been hazed and clearly don’t understand it.
Why someone would subject themselves to pain/humility to join a group of other people subjected to similar pain/humility is beyond scope of my comprehension.
What would compel these young women to sit passively and be soaked in blood/guts/shat is also beyond my scope of comprehension.
To what purpose, may I ask? To be another victim of peer pressure?
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### Author:  [@Strainger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strainger)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/19 "2003-05-08T06:02:12Z")
> [@](#):
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> **The Grapist**
> BANNED
Thank you, Lynn (or whoever)! That had to have been one of the stupidest goddamn things I’ve seen on this board.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2003, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenage-dumbasses-who-volunteer-to-get-hazed/173818/20 "2003-05-08T06:32:03Z")
> [@](#):
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> That’s fucking stupid. Hazing=Rapists? Holy shit, they also wear a lot of blue at the AFA! Maybe that has something to do with it!
Wearing blue does not encourage sadism, nor does it encourage people who have been abused to accept the abuse silently. Hazing does not equal rape, but the idiotic mentality encouraged by hazing will, if rape is introduced to the organization, permit it to go unchecked.
I will grant the “bonding” claim–but only because that sort of activity binds people to the communal silence of guilt.
I will even acknowledge that there is _some_ hazing that probably does not scar the participants for life. The Navy’s abuse of crew who have never previously crossed the Equator might be one example. However, the claim that any “character” is built is simply unthinking, juvenile posturing.
Character traits encouraged by hazing:
Honesty? nope
Bravery? not really
Individualism? nope
Helpfulness? nope
Friendship? nope
Courtesy? nope
Respect? nope
Intelligence? bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Openness to mob mentality? yep
Servility? yep
Sadism? yep
Omerta? yep
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