The college from which I graduated over 50 years ago did not have fraternities, but we engaged in the hazing of freshman for about the first month of so of the academic year. After graduation, I did some post graduate work at a major university which had fraternities.

At both institutions, I was hazed. To me, it was fun and games. There was no brutality. While an undergraduate, I quickly became aware that a freshman who did not want to be hazed would be left alone. I do not remember how I learned that hazing was optional. I was an athlete and taunted an upperclassmen or two, making it obvious that I was a candidate for hazing.

When a junior, the freshman class was very docile. A fellow upperclassman and I wore ski masks and called ourselves the phantom freshman. We tossed a classmate or two into the pond, a standard form of hazing at that college. This resulted in some of the freshman getting rowdy and encouraging hazing.

In my four undergraduate years, I never heard of anyone being harmed by hazing. Typical hazing consisted of being tossed in the pond or being dumped a few miles from the campus, requiring a hour or so walk back. Other hazing involved such horrors as molasses poured on the head.

The fraternity hazing at the university was not optional for those who wanted to join, but was physically harmless.

In the past 20 years I have read about serious injuries and some brutal hazing.

Is brutal hazing a common occurrence in modern times? Were institutions more benign 50 years ago or was I fortunate in the institutions I attended?

The issue here is one of informed consent. If people are going to be subjected to what is essentially assault, they <b>must</b> be informed in general terms of what they are in for in advance. If they consent, that's fine. If not, hazing which involves physical contact of any sort is illegal.

Call me boring, but the whole idea is pointless and completely idiotic. Especially if you're stupid enough as hell to give consent to let somebody haze you. There are much better ways to have fun.
A person getting tossed in a pond could have a cellphone in their pocket. I can't even begin to point out the tons of more hazards that are associated with this form of socializing. True enough sports and other games can be dangerous, but hazing is completely out of hand and extremely unwise.

what harm can a cell phone cause?:bugeye:

Nothing to the person. Just be careful tossing people into ponds because their cell phones will get screwed.

Any type of physical mistreatment by a fraternity would make me want to quit such a organization for it doesn't make any sense to me why this sort of thing should happen to anyone. I know many frats do this sort of thing but that doesn't make it OK. I never joined any frats when I was attending college so this never happened to me. I was however given an honerary membership in Phi Beta Kappa and am very grateful to be so honored by them.

My friend was telling me that it's a rite of passage to prove one's dedication.:rolleyes:

Can you think of anything more utterly brainless than to want to be dedicated to such a retarded backwards organization that would subject their members to such total complete utter idiodicy?