Ok...This is what I was referring to in my other posta...

I had mentioned that all I personally had heard concerning collage fraternities was partying, and I have heard of quite a bit of sexual abuse that has made the news at different times.......and I was promptly told...that I didn't know what I was talking about...more or less...
Aaaaaanyway.....
another sad example.


www.cnn.com...

Originally posted by LadyV
I have heard of quite a bit of sexual abuse that has made the news at different times.......

What does the above statement have to do with the below link? This unfortunate incident is the result of underage drinking (an illegal activity which leads to approximately 1400 deaths a year in U.S. colleges). The fraternity has been suspended, there may be criminal charges if the individuals responsible for providing the alcohol are identified. There was no mention of sexual assault in the article.

www.cnn.com...

I have seen several times within your posts that you link sexual abuse and fraternities (with the broadest of brushes, lest anyone be missed). I am not a member of a Greek Fraternity (or any other college �fraternity�), I am a member of several Masonic organizations, and I�ve had to chuckle at your inferences to �Blue Lodge Philandering�. Oh, that the vast majority of the Brethren today were interested or capable of such misdeeds ( a point of sarcasm referring to the ever increasing average age of Masons in the U.S., almost 70 in my state), if only the Craft were so youthful. If you have a specific charge, level it. Identify which specific group condones this conduct (officially), and support it with some form of documentation. I have read your posts regarding inferences by others that Wicca is Satanic� I would implore you to take a step back� and see if this is not a similar misrepresentation.

I am not trying to be disrespectful here to something many of you belong to...but throughout my life, I have heard many times, incidences of rape allegations, drinking, etc.....at fraternities. These things end up in the news several times a year. Then when I came to this board and saw all the fraternity and club threads.....I was confused, so I asked. I have always thought of, as many people do, that collage fraternities are party houses, due to what you hear in the news, people I have known in fraternities, and stories you hear.

LadyV, I have read your posts before and consider you to be an intelligent person. However, you may want to be careful about making allagations like that without evidence to back this up. I myself have never belonged to a fraternity as I come from the UK and this is a practise that is not often pursued... however, I would imagine that a number of people may read the post and think you are targetting them and labelling all fraternities with the reputation of the few.

Just because priests have been involved in the past with sexual abuse, that does not mean that all members of religious orders are sexual deviants. That may bit a little extreme of me to state but I think this clarifies the point I am getting at.

Be excellent to one another!

Originally posted by LadyV
I had mentioned that all I personally had heard concerning collage fraternities was partying, and I have heard of quite a bit of sexual abuse that has made the news at different times.......and I was promptly told...that I didn't know what I was talking about...more or less...
Aaaaaanyway.....

So my question is this:

Did you actually start a new thread, based on an old thread, explaining how you really didn't know what you were talking about in the old thread?

But seriously, this horribleness takes place everywhere in society every day. But for some reason right now, the media has chosen to single out the area of colleges and their fraternities and sports programs. It seems lopsided, but it's how its always been.

I don't know why people aren't paying more attention to the overwhelming reporting of sexual abuse in Colorado, though. Air Force Academy, the football recruiting scheme using sex as a tool, Kolby...

What's up with Colorado, and why is it a center of sexual depravity? That should be the question.

[edit on 20-9-2004 by DeltaChaos]

Very sad stuff. It's not just fraternities though...seems to be just more of the "college atmosphere" that does it. Here is a couple that happened at my former University:

www.dodgeglobe.com...

www.ljworld.com...

Very sad stuff indeed. I wonder if it just has more to do with kids that don't know how to control themselves when adreneline is pumping, and alcohol is flowing in their system.

Some of my friends that were in Fraternities basically have said that Fraternity life is, and I quote, "a way for striaght men to act homosexual" in the presence of others. Some of the sickest things anyone has told me has come from Fraternity life (yes, we all know what I'm talking about ).

Nowhere in the article does it even mention any kind of abuse. The case is closed pending toxicology reports.

The girl was apparently in a car accident on Saturday. Perhaps that is somehow related to her death.

Yes, drinking goes on at many fraternity houses. Yes, there is excessive drinking at many parties. Yes, there are often minors getting drunk. Is it the fraternity's responsibility to card everyone who drinks at their parties? perhaps, but a fake id is an easily obtained item.

This girl's death is a tragedy but is the fraternity to blame? If they weren't having a party that night, then should they all be punished? Is it not the people drinking with her who are to shoulder the blame? Not for serving her alcohol but, rather, for not stopping. I've cut off my friends a million times. Hell, when I was saddled with the ugly task of serving that nasty grain alcohol punch (crap stained the skin) at fraternity parties (ages ago), I wouldn't give the juice to anyone that appeared too drunk. Most of the fraternity members I was friends with all had the same thoughts on this. Not only do you not want someone passing out at your house (forget your own members, there's always others there to cause problems), you don't want them puking in your house.

Remember the Pit Bull thread LadyV?

I see it the same way...when do you actually hear anything good about a frat or sorority from the media? It's mostly biased coverage to twist the viewpoint into a conservative mainstream agenda...

Even movies do this for the sake of humor - Animal House, Old School, etc...

I graduated not too long ago, so I'm still friends with a few people who are in frats and sororities...they live wild and exuberant life-styles (and this is FSU I'm talking about here!! Top 5 in party schools!!) but for the most part their social antics are confined to their own rooms and negative press is attributed to those special Darwin Award candidates who would have had it coming had they been living at home with mom and dad...

I really doubt that this woman died on her own, though. From what the story says, she wasn't a particular risk taker, so she probably didn't pickle her liver or choke on her own vomit.

I bet we find out from the toxicology report that someone gave her about 6 roofies and killed her.

And I hope they hang him by his balls!



They won't, but that would be nice...

She was so young and beautiful, soon to be old and ugly. The pain of her parents will never end. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic but the rest of us will never know the pain she might have been spared. For instance, she could have been in a car accident in a month or so from now, that paralysed her from the kneck down for the rest of her life. Or maybe she could have been severely burned and robbed of her beauty. Every time someone young dies like that none of us here in the flesh know what the rest of thier lives would have been like. We always think everything would have been hunkydory but we don't know.

I know such a person who has spent thier last twenty years in a wheel chair paralysed from the kneck down. If he wants to be alive under those conditions thats fine but I don't think I would want to.

That's just sick, TgSoe...

Speculating as to what could have been a horrible life after the death of one whose life was beautiful. If that ain't Monday morning quarterbacking, I don't know what is, and it certainly doesn't help to make anyone consider that it may have been a good thing that she died.

My personal views on death are contrary to the norm i.e. I try not to care too much, which is sometimes viewed by people around me as unsympathetic or callous. But to think of the possiblity that it is a good thing that someone died because their life could have been ruined at some later date is one of the most negative and unproductive pieces of hypothetical-deductive reasoning that I've ever heard.

Oh, and there's no 'k' in 'neck'...

WOW! You guys are something! I heard this on the news and saw it here on the net in the news....compounded with all the stuff you hear, of and on, about fraternities....and the silly teen movies they have made about them....it reinforced my view. I know you can't judge by teen movies....but I think people understand what I'm saying.....I had mentioned this in the past and everyone that supports fraternities acted like I was a nuts and they had no idea what in the world I was talking about.....so I thought I would post. If I am wrong...I'll learn...but you also have to hold responsible those "frat boys" that run around acting like their something special and can do what they want....that sort of "gang" mentality....those are the only types of fraternity people I have ever seen.

The links below are a small sampling of why people have the view they do about fraternities.




tspweb02.tsp.utexas.edu...
ischolarship.bc.edu...
webits3.appstate.edu...
www.dailybruin.ucla.edu...
www.findarticles.com...
www-tech.mit.edu...
www.ifeminists.net...
seattlepi.nwsource.com...

Originally posted by LadyV
WOW! You guys are something! I heard this on the news and saw it here on the net in the news....compounded with all the stuff you hear, of and on, about fraternities....and the silly teen movies they have made about them....it reinforced my view. I know you can't judge by teen movies....but I think people understand what I'm saying.....I had mentioned this in the past and everyone that supports fraternities acted like I was a nuts and they had no idea what in the world I was talking about.....so I thought I would post. If I am wrong...I'll learn...but you also have to hold responsible those "frat boys" that run around acting like their something special and can do what they want....that sort of "gang" mentality....those are the only types of fraternity people I have ever seen.

The links below are a small sampling of why people have the view they do about fraternities.

I will reassert my lack of affiliation with the Greek system or any other "Sideshow to Higher Learning", that being said, there seems to be an agenda� fraternities must be evil (all of them), fraternities are chartered to drink and rape (all of them), fraternities are elitist organizations without any redeeming qualities (all of them). Point of emphasis taken, I hope.

Your generalizations are unfair, fraternal organizations permeate American culture, and contribute time and money to countless charitable causes. Good works are not hard to find, you just have to want to �see� them.

Couple of excerpts that I found interesting from your previously posted links.
(BTW, way to go ifeminists! You go� errr� girl�)


From:
ischolarship.bc.edu...

ischolarship.bc.edu
On most campuses, fraternities are blamed for the abundance of negative sexual attitudes and behaviors. Whether or not this is true has been inadequately tested by empirical research. A great deal of the public evidence cited to support beliefs that fraternal influence is highly negative is anecdotal. Based on the research regarding male attitude and the anecdotal information, it is not illogical to expect that fraternity men hold a greater level of negative attitude than do the non-fraternity males. Proof of this common assertion is unavailable and results in a huge gap in the relevant literature. This study was designed to address this gap by comparing beliefs about rape among male fraternity and non-fraternity undergraduates.

From:
www.ifeminists.net...

ifeminists.net
The news item was on college fraternities -- or "frat boys" -- and their relationship to violence against women. The Frat Boy. He's the drunken party-animal who date rapes when he isn't playing childish pranks or hazing. He's the lowbrow, sports-sated rich kid who is rude to women and minorities. I know this ... even though the fraternity members I've met do not resemble that image.

How do I know this? I've imbibed that image through a flood of TV shows and movies. I know fraternity houses are part of the "rape culture" on campus because feminist studies, such as the much-cited 1996 "Fraternities and Collegiate Rape Culture," reveal that fact. But how much of the image is real, and how much is a caricature based on a rejection of the traditional male?

Scant decades ago, fraternities were among the most prestigious student organizations on campus. Many of today's respected leaders were fraternity brothers, and fraternities can point to a long history of raising funds for charities and of alumni money for universities.

Feminist awareness may have exposed a dark side to fraternities and a need for change. But it is difficult to divorce their critique from their more general attempt to redefine campus politics according to a new feminist vision. Such feminist visions, and their underlying research, are notorious for being politically driven and methodologically flawed.

This is becoming rather "Rather", if you know what I mean...

Originally posted by DeltaChaos
That's just sick, TgSoe

I have always been a little different, its a shame that young men have to go to such extremes to get laid though. You beg and plead with them and there's just no reasoning with them, the answer is usually emphatically no. If she had just been willing to share a little she might still be here. How much of her precious time would it have taken?

Originally posted by TgSoe
I have always been a little different, its a shame that young men have to go to such extremes to get laid though. You beg and plead with them and there's just no reasoning with them, the answer is usually emphatically no. If she had just been willing to share a little she might still be here. How much of her precious time would it have taken?

You have got to be joking, right? If not, well... Nobody wants a beggar. Thats your problem.

Originally posted by TgSoe
I have always been a little different, its a shame that young men have to go to such extremes to get laid though. You beg and plead with them and there's just no reasoning with them, the answer is usually emphatically no. If she had just been willing to share a little she might still be here. How much of her precious time would it have taken?

Ok, now that's even more sick. I see how you are. Hey, there's a lot to be said for consistency.

Still, I agree that it indeed should be much easier to get laid than it is. Indeed...

SO....are you guys Frat boys? "If" so.....this is the image you enjoy displaying to the rest of the community?

To say that there isn't a dangerous culture of sex, drugs, and alcohol that surrounds many fraternities and sororities in absolutely incorrect. I have experienced this firsthand. I have family members and friends that have experienced this. It is not to say that all Greek activities are bad--the point is to provide structure during school and alumni support and outreach afterwards, but the dark underside of the fraternal structure is not just "a few bad apples." Statistics show that fraternity members drink three times as much as non-fraternity members. Since 1970, at least one fraternity member has died each year due to pledging or hazing rituals.
www.findarticles.com...

These rituals are meant to bond the brothers or sisters together--or some are more insidious in nature and are intended to serve as "dirt" to be made public if the person goes against the group. One national fraternity associated with a college in NY required it's new recruits to drop acid and have sex with an animal (killing it in the process) while a "council" of the existing members looked on. How do I know? I worked with the guy who had been the president of the chapter and he showed the videotape at a party. The fraternity banner was proudly displayed in the background and the guys cheered these kids on as they did the unspeakable. It was horrible.

Sororities are just as bad--another girlfriend told stories of a hazing ritual at URI where she joined the "little sister" sorority of a national fraternity and was required to drink until she passed out, only to wake up to find that she had been "passed around" to several of the fraternity guys. It was rape, but she was told that this is what all the girls had to do to join and that she had to keep her mouth shut. She told me this story when I mentioned that my cousin was going to URI and was considering joining the same sorority.

I went to many frat parties when I was younger and it was all about drinking and drugs. Not to say that non-frat parties weren't, but the frat boys & their little sisters were known to be the biggest drinkers on campus--even during the school week. I've watched many people have their academic career go down the drain due to their loyalty to the frat.

I always felt that it was that those who join fraternities are looking for structure because they are not mature enough to be away from home. The fraternity is supposed to be a surrogate for the absence of parents on campus--but the same immaturity that makes them seek out structure is the downfall because what happens when you put a bunch of self-governing immature kids under the same roof? The idea is a good one, and I think it makes sense, but it is obvious that more responsible supervision is needed. You can't have the fox guarding the henhouse.

Some more stuff on hazing and fraternities here:
www.menstuff.org...
www.stophazing.org...

I'm not and never was in a fraternity. I always wanted to be though. I can't decide which one to join. It must have surely been an easier decision in the old days, when there were not so many.

[edit on 5-10-2004 by TgSoe]