Through my years as an undergrad, I witnessed some fairly brutal hazing from other chapters.

1) How about the pledge next door that was bound and gagged and beat to a bloody state by his brothers and then dropped off on our doorstep.

2) Or, how about the poor guy that suffered three broken ribs and a broken arm following an incident where his brothers found yet another use for duct tape.

3) How about the girls who were blind-folded, forced to drink 13 shots and walk across campus drunk and blind-folded.

4) How about the guy who was thrown naked into the Chi-O fountain only to have his anus ripped apart by one of the spouts.

5) Or how about the girls who were sat down in chairs, all lined up, and then allowed to have their faces painted by a local fraternity as they told the women how ugly and fat they are.

6) Or finally, how about the fella who was tied up by his fraternity brothers, beaten to a pulp - with blood running down his face...and then dropped off on the door of a sorority - whereby the fraternity rang the bell and when the sorority women answered the door, the scum said, "Here you take this sorry son of a b***h...he's not good enough to be a ______, so he might as well become an ugly _______ member."

I witness other pledges having to do sucky things. The new members of XYZ fraternity at my school participate in a drinking game "The Boot", where they drink from this dirty and old boot while everyone chants "Drink motherf***er! Drink motherf***er! Drink motherf***er!"

The worst?

Kneeling on the ground for chest punches (by all members present) was pretty bad, luckily I don't bruise much, but you should have seen some of the other guys.

But the worst was getting chopped by the paddle . . that's when some brain surgeon accidentally (or on purpose) decides to hit you with the edge of the paddle rather than the flat of it.

But I have seen pledges get hit in the head with a tree stump (fire wood), have "fights" with brothers, extreme paddling, olive races, and other things that escape me at the moment. A lot of the more extreme things were facilitated by the a lot of drinking . . .

Oh dying cockroaches are a lot of fun also . . .

lets see...

-stomping out a bon fire as a pledgeclass

-sleep deprivation

-paddled

-ate gold fish

-a march / marching practice

-lineups which took place up in the hills where all the actives and a lot of alumni (who were pretty much usually drunk) came in front of us and basically b***hed at us and yelled at us till they got bored.

-Individual interregation (meetings) by all actives and allumni in a dark room lit with candles.

-brotherhood run where all pledges had to link arms and run from the hills back to the house, and if one of the actives beat us someone got depleged

-morning meetings (basically lineups at 6 in the morning every morning where our squiremasters yell at them for a few minutes and check their work from the night before)

-throw a party for actives, providing everything and cleaning up everything (usually costs the pledges -8000 to put it on)

- and a punishment called thinker, where if you got something wrong you had to basically get in a pushup position but with your hands behind your neck and your elbows on the ground instead of your hands and hold yourself up, longest we had to do that for was about 5 mins or so

-beer march where we basically go to marching practice but while doing it the actives ask us questions and if you get it wrong you pound a beer.

To be honest, at first it was all fun. Then about six weeks into the whole affair, the hazing started. It went from Hey, put a costume on, or drink this, to let all of us hit you, come over to this place a 4:00am, and all kinds of things that made me feel uncomfortable. I got out fast.

as a freshman, i rushed and joined a sorority (which shall remain nameless).. as a pledge i was constantly badgered about not partying enough (i didn't know i HAD to party every night of the week) because i didn't go out in the middle of the week, although i went out with pledge sisters every weekend.. i also began to feel bad about myself because i didn't shack (sleep at frat houses) every other night... it was almost as if my self-respect was standing in the way of my becoming a sister...

At my college there was one sorority that always had rumors that they hazed. I always thought it was a facade they created until first hand I heard the news.

As an R.A. in my small dorm, I found a lounge with corn flakes all over the floor. The rumor was they put them in the pledges bras. All day they wore "Hug Me" signs for their brothers to hug them.

Close to my school, we have a long swinging bridge over a stream. I only have one girl that confirmed this story. The sorority has a song they chant about their brothers f---k--- them until they are blue, (one of their colors). The girl said she was made to put an egg inside her vagina and walk across the bridge making sure the egg did not crack open. Well if they make it across and it does not they are then called sluts because they are not tight.

There are a couple more rumors but I don't have confirmation of them.

It is very sad, and at one point my sorority tried to do something about it to no avail. It is the oldest and has the most giving alumni.

Even after being graduated for two years. It makes me sad to see the new pledges run to them at the Running of the Bulls (Bid Turn-In.)

Why would you take someone seriously who called you at 2 AM to clean her closet or made you run laps around your campus at 11 PM dressed in black? or made you stand in the middle of the street while they threw food at you? or how about brought you to a fraternity house and gave the brothers an option to pay a dollar to make the pledges do ANYTHING (after anything for a buck night- there were lots of girls in turtlenecks....and even some who were ashamed to admit what their "sisters" had made them do for a dollar...and of course the pledges didn't get to object)? Or made you push a car down the street in a bathrobe with a towel on your head while singing sorority songs? (I personally witnessed other people in other sororities on my campus participating in these very activities....as a matter of fact the car incident led to a visit from the POLICE to my sorority's house because the nasty neighbor across the street called to complain about all of the singing in the street. and when they showed up with a PADDY WAGON, they were surprised to find that there were only 5 people in the house and they were all in their pjs!!! The sorority next door that actually had the girls pushing the car down the street, didn't get a visit from the police!)

I don't think hazing is the answer. Being in a sorority is about building relationships, and friendships. How can you look at someone who mistreated you for 5 weeks and then call them a SISTER after a 2 hour initiation ceremony? If you were dating a man who was verbally abusive and told you that you were not worthy of him, and he proposed to you, would you really go through with the wedding? A 20 minute service and a reception won't make this man stop being verbally abusive. How could you trust him? Not to mention that if you started hanging out with a few people and they decided that you had to get your breasts signed by men on campus in order to be friends with them, would you really do it just to make a few friends?

I think that people get all caught up with the idea of being in a sorority/fraternity and think that they need to be hazed in order to gain respect. But seriously think about it, the people you met in middle school and high school who were mean to you or made fun of you.....did you really try to hang out with them on the weekends? Ummm, no. And what about your non-Greek friends, how did you get close to them? Did they require you to do silly things to "earn" their friendship? NO, because you spent time together doing things that you enjoyed and got to know one another.

...I would never hang out with people who treated me like s**t.....why would you join a sorority and pay money to hang out with people who treated you like s**t?

Hazing was alive and well at my school in the mid 80's. We had lineup's (called rally's) every other week, did pushups, situps etc. We also had a weeklong hellweek worst thing I had to do was eat a can of alpo and drink a nasty geritol-like substance called lydia pinkham. Overall hazing was bad, but no one was forced to drink alcohol, I guess there is some advantage to living in the bible belt, 3-4 pledges out of 24 in my pledge class did not drink at all, and there was no paddling or cattle prodding. I fainted at one rally a premed EMT brought me around.

Overall very stupid very dangerous and bad for my chapter.

I thought this was funny...
From http://www.girlcomic.net/aug2k1/aug2k1_askindigo.php




Dear Indigo,

I am a freshman at UCLA and
don't know whether or not to join a fraternity.
Sigma Delta Pie Phi Gamma Ray Gamma Sigma Delta Delta
has been courting me. They don't look
so bad. Maybe it could help me make
some new friends, and the fraternity
does give to charities? What do you think?

Sincerely,

Curious Jeff

Dear Curious Jeff,

You will be sucked in, anally raped, brainwashed,
and turned into a corporate-a**-f**k.
But, hey if that's what you want, go for it!
It's your pathetic life!

Love,

Indigo