Teenage dumbasses who volunteer to get hazed

The BBQ Pit
21

Brutus, you’re an idiot. Do you actually believe what you’re saying? Or did someone just beat that little mantra into you?

Please provide some examples of what you consider to be acceptable hazing practices, complete with proof of the character-building this entails. And remember- being able to withstand torture and still be a fully functional human being doesn’t count. There is virtually no end to the amount of abuse some people can suffer and remain alive/sane. This does not equal “character”.

Please tell us unenlightened why exactly you think it’s important to physically or emotionally abuse someone in order to form a bond with them. Or what right you have as a member of some arbitrary group to inflict pain and humiliation on other group members.

I mean, do you beat your spouse and shower him/her with raw sewage so that the two of you can truly bond? Do you hit your friends with paint cans to strengthen the relationship? Do you force your children to consume huge quantities of alcohol and/or perform dangerous stunts so they’ll grow up to be better human beings and a “real member” of the family?

Hazing, as tomndebb pointed out, is a perfect example of mob mentality and assured silence through mutual guilt. How this can be considered a strength in any situation is beyond me.

22

Hey, while the behavior in the linked article is reprehensible, I’m not actually against certain mild hazing practices, either. And I think they are more to build a bond among the ones hazed at the same time than among the group as a whole.

I’ll give an example - one of the frats at my college used to blindfold the pledge class, drive them out in the sticks somewhere, and drop the group by the side of the road to find their way home (they don’t do it any more due to antihazing laws). The pledges had to wander around an unfamiliar area until they figured out where they were, then walk home. No one was hurt. The pledges had to help one another figure out what to do and cooperate. I would say that this has more in common with the kind of teambuilding exercises that corporations overpay consultants for than with beating and rape. There was no “culture of silence” about it - the frat was perfectly open that this was one of the things they did to their pledges, and most people could and would tell stories about what happened their year with no sign of trauma.

tomndeb, would you class this as the kind of hazing you’re talking about, or something else? Could it be character-building, even if it is hazing?

23

What I consider acceptable is irrelevant, unless I am the one undergoing the hazing. Why do you feel the need to define ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ for other people? That is strictly up to the people undergoing the hazing. If they don’t like it, they can not do it. If it still happens, it is assault, not hazing, and already covered under the law.
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It’s not abuse, per se. Think of it as form of self-flagellation, in that you are showing ‘how much you can take’.

It would be abuse if it was involuntary.

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As the (presumably) leader of some social group, I can set whatever standards I damn please. If you don’t like it, or can’t take it, you are free not to join.

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I treat my friends differently then I treat my girlfriend(s). So no, I don’t fling raw sewage at Allison. But John? Watch out.
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Oh so wrong. Being hazed is a damned individual activity, regardless of how many others are being hazed with you. Hazing? Well, you already payed your dues, so you have a bit of fun. There is no ‘mutual guilt’. The only guilt present is in those who can’t take, who end the hazing prematurely, wussing out.

I’d tell you more, but then you’ll have to join my club. Interested? Bring a section of garden hose, a bottle of tequila, bandages, and bottle of olive oil.

24

It’s true. A painful and humiating experience can result in a bond with the people who were involved.

Just ask Patty Hearst.

You may choose to bond yourself to your fellow human being in this manner if you wish. I choose not to.

25

Brutus: You are aware, are you not, that the hazing you described in the military is a violation of the UCMJ?

26

This would seem to indicate that, having eliminated the character-building fallacy, we may now also discard the bonding falsehood. That pretty much eliminates any value from hazing.

I’m not even sure that I would consider that activity hazing. Certainly, it is an initiation rite, but hazing, at minimum, implies humiliation. I would hold that any action that does not require humiliation as part of the prescribed rite does not qualify as hazing.

27

It sickened me to see that video on the news last night. Right before it there was a story of a couple who starved their newborn baby, next, a story about a teenage girl who got shot in an alley by her boyfriend, a bus driver who cursed at and slapped a boy with down’s syndrome, people dying due to tornados in the midwest, blah blah blah. It’s one of those days when I feel like the whole fucking world is going crazy.

28

Hazing is seen in many different views so generally when hazed or when you are hazing, its kept under wraps.

I was hazed during my years at a certain college by my frat. Yes it was, humiliating and idiotic in a lot of moments but in the overall, I am glad I went through it.

Yes its ‘silly male bonding’. Yes, its immature. But it really is a test of wills. Knowing that the guys who were doing it went through the same thing (there is a iron set of rules and regs on Hell Week so no ‘hey I got a idea’ thats potentially dangerous) made me want to go through with it. And after each test was done and you came through, you were met with cheers (and a lot of bet trading). It made you feel like you went the distance.

No I will not discuss our Hell Week.

I am unsure as to what went on during that time but it definitly degraded further than it should have. Some of those girls were clearly out of control and should have been pulled.

29

I am unsure as to what went on during that time…on the video…

sorry

30

No it doesn’t. You are very skilled, though, at pulling whatever conclusion fits your view out of the points presented.

You obviously do not like the concept. Fine. Nobody is forcing you to undergo a hazing. My concern here is that people like who, getting all nancy over the whole situation, are going to get laws/rules passed, ruining it for future generations.

31

What a fucking loss.

32

Is hazing an american thing? Never even heard of hazing in HS and college. My friends and I got along just fine without it. And we don’t have frats either (at least, again, never heard of any around here).

Seems really backwards to me. “Hey, if you want to join, you need to eat this!” is what a 8 year old might do, not a 20 year old student.

33

Bang-on. Since the hazing rituals aren’t official, the procedures aren’t written down anywhere (as conventional rituals would be). As a result, they tend to spin out of control very easily, with each class upping the stakes until someone is injured or killed.

34

Yes, it does.

As for getting laws passed, thereby ruining it for future generations, you say that like it would be a bad thing.

Being forced to drink grain alcohol until you puke and then being forced to continue doesn’t reinforce any type of bonding or character building. The only thing being reinforced is alcohol poisoning and underage drinking.

35

I think this distinction is a key point (and no shocker at all that it’s brought forward by the esteemed tomndebb.)

There is a great value to initiation rituals. Facing an adversity or challenge together, as a group, promotes a bond within the group, and a bond with others who have faced similar adversities or challenges in their own groups.

When the ritual is merely an exercise in cruelty or humiliation, however, it serves little useful purpose.

36

I found out about all of this crap when I moved to the US at the age of 19. I had a hard enough time grasping the point of frats and sororities then I heard all the stories of doing push ups in the rain, staying up all night, sticking your thumb up another hazee’s ass and sucking it…etc that I decided I’d just give that whole scene a wide berth. I still went to dances with sorority dates (an English accent at Arizona State = money), I just didn’t have to get into fights at certain bars to defend my “brothers” and I didn’t get my bottom paddled red by another guy.

It all looks very strange when you come from England, a supposedly class ridden society, to the US, which is supposedly classless, then you find out about all these voluntary cliques.

I guess it’s similar to “fagging” in the old UK public school (meaning private school in the US) system.

37

My 2 cents.
We have hazing in France, certainly not in high school, but in some colleges and most of all medicine school and military branches (bad hazings there…).
I was hazed in Business school (associate degree), it was fun and harmless. Stupid games rigged by the seniors so they’d win, some bike riding (yes, mountain bike, it was cool!), having to serve them lunch etc…
My sister was hazed in her school… some red paint on the face, having to sing stupid songs in the street, and having to sell dumb things (screws, condoms, toilett paper, etc) to bystanders to raise money for the association. My point is IT WAS FUN!
The hazings involving violence make no sense to me, it is horrifying and wrong. Eating disgusting stuff is also something I don’t get…
The videos and the news reports show anybody in their right mind that those fucking girls were insane and violent… They kicked, punched the shit out of the other girls… I don’t see how that’s got anything to do with bonding.
On top of it all, like some said above, it is HIGH SCHOOL for God’s sakes… you’re not not gonna be a senior because you didn’t get hazed…
Oh it is so stupid… Makes me angry.

38

Brutus, will you knock off the macho act for a second and actually listen to yourself? You sound like a moron.

“Nancy”? “Wuss out”? How old are you? Has your summer vacation started already?

“Ruining it for future generations”? Passing laws to prevent people from beating each other up and forcing one another to do stupid, dangerous things? What a major fucking loss. Damn. I sure hope my as-yet-unborn kids manage to get in under the wire before the whole thing gets ruined. I’d hate to think they missed an opportunity to get alcohol poisoning at the behest of their peer group.

Who are the people who cannot bond with other humans unless some form of pain or humiliation is involved? I submit these people have some serious mental problems. I also submit that anyone who would willingly undergo torture for the “privilege” of belonging to a totally arbitrary and largely pointless group are the actual “wusses” here. People so desperate for acceptance and belonging that they’re willing to allow themselves to be publicly abused are sick, sad individuals.

Fraternities? Sports teams? Please. Whatever social functions they may have, they are at best merely temporal group structures. Are you still hanging out with the people from junior varsity basketball 20 years later? Is your acceptance into a brief coalition of other humans with no more important goal than winning a game or wearing matching sweaters so important to you that you will risk injury or death to “fit in”? Your bonding theory doesn’t hold up here, son. Team spirit is built on practice, helping one another, and the mutual desire to do well, not beating the crap out of some kid in the locker room. Fraternities have even less of an excuse. You all usually live in the same house- what more bonding could you possibly need?

And don’t even tell me about the military. Going through the rigors of basic training, team-based problem-solving skills, and the feeling of “we’re all in this together” is more than sufficient for bonding purposes. You want pain and fear? Try a combat situation. Nothing like getting shot at to find out who your friends are. Soldiers in combat situations naturally form intense and lasting bonds with one another through the sole reason of being in the same situation at the same time, and the knowledge that each is responsible for the safety, nay, the very lives, of every other group member. No intra-group aggression is needed, or even usually tolerated. Don’t cheapen and disrespect the experience of fighting men and women with your ridiculous, juvenile theories of “bonding” and “character building”.

You wanna know what I think? I think there’s a sadist lurking in a lot of us, and hazing is the perfect opportunity to really let it shine. Exerting physical and social dominance over another human through a group-mandated session of pain and humiliation must be the ultimate experience for the budding baboon kings among us. You see fine young people building character and learning to bond. I see a bunch of apes wailing on a social inferior. This is somehow laudable to you?

So to everyone who’s engaged in hazing practices from either end: shame on you. Shame! For supporting a sadistic and primitve practice with no other function but to teach people that it’s perfectly okay to take out your aggression on those weaker than you.

I’m fucking disgusted with this whole topic.

39

You know, I can see little silly rituals-when I was in high school, during Spirit Week, the day before Homecoming, the freshman had to wear something silly, like party hats, or pig noses made out of paper cups.

When I was a freshman, we had to wear trash bags and then we carried some senior’s trays back to the kitchen. That was it.

Although some were hazed pretty severely.

I can see a silly little ritual-but not out right hazing.

40

I don’t see anything in the article(s) that indicate that the girls knew they were in for anything more that a game of touch football and some teasing. It wasn’t “blind confomity”, it was being hit unexpectedly by a whole shitload of horrible, disgusting behavior.

When I was a sunior, we had a Powder Puff game touch football game against the seniors in the last month of school. It was a BLAST. The boys of our class dressed up as cheerleaders and performed really hysterical little cheers as the girls played. And it was a GAME. A game ONLY. Yeah, there was some trash-talking, but it was mostly of the good-spirited kind, nothing mean. And when I was a senior, I played against the juniors. It was a very fun tradition which I think is still happening at my old high school. In no way was I a “teenaged dumbass volunteering to get hazed.” I was a teenaged (possible dumbass) who signed up to play a fun game against older girls one year, youmger girls the next. I think it’s really weird to say that the girls who were hazed were stupid to sign up.