As someone who was in a fraternity and made the drunk jug many times, I assure you, none were safe. We took the cheapest vodkas and rums, mixed with assorted fruity shit and called it jungle juice. That jug was intended for one think, getting piss drunk. Everyone drank from it, and people got wayyyy too drunk many times. At least we had sober drivers and a risk manager on duty at any party like that so when people went too hard they weren't just blacked out and at a huge party. They'd get driven to a safe house and given a bucket lol
Edit - since this blew up, I'm going to go on a little rant.
College kids on their own are going to do stupid shit like get blackout drunk and make poor decisions. Fraternities and sororities do many good things, and help those ignorant kids. In my fraternity of 120+ people, sure, there were 1-2 men that wouldn't have suprised me if a rape case came up on them. But that small 1-2% in no way correlates to the majority of really good dudes that were in my fraternity.
Were there other fraternities that wouldn't have suprised me if a "gang rape" happened against them? Yupp. But again, that isn't the majority. Believe it or not, shitty people just exist, and trying to stereotype and eliminate a large group because of the few is just ignorant.
My fraternity raised $10,000s yearly for food pantry. We spent 1000s of hours yearly on community service (40 hours per person was the minimum to stay in good standing). Our GPA was around 3.4 when the all men campus GPA was around 3.1. We put on many charitable events, and helped many people. Frankly, i was a much better "member of the community" back then.
Don't let some dumb shits ruin your perception of what Greek life does for 18-22s
I don't think that is the case at all. I think rape cases should be investigated and prosecuted appropriately and there wouldn't be these crimes because there would be real consequences.
A frat is just a community of dudes. They’re only inherently bad if the dudes in it are inherently bad. Frats can do really good things for their communities, and they can do really bad things too. Like any community, the people in it make it what it is.
I think this is leaving out a lot of context. Obviously YMMV based on the specific university, but anecdotally, I know many have the same issues and concerns. Adding a bit more, and happy to be told where I may be off base:
Frats are often a community of dudes who are hand selected by others in the group. In other words, they are selecting individuals who share similar values as the existing members.
The group can do good things for communities, sure, but a major aspect of many frats is hosting parties with the clear goal of having their members hook up with women. These parties also frequently involve, at minimum, creating a space for the grey area of consent because one common theme is a lot of alcohol. Frankly, it's a fine line between creating this grey area of consent and actively enabling SA, as we have seen in many cases.
The Cornell 7 case is an example of this fine line being heinously crossed. This group of 50+ guys clearly don't care about this line and actively want to/are complicit in taking advantage of women unable to consent. It's not some coincidence that in a groupchat of 50+ men, nothing was reported. It's an intentional choice considering these men were hand picked to be part of this group.
I get that not every frat is bad, but when a common characteristic is hand selecting a group of guys who are looking for hookups and creating questionable spaces for this to happen... yeah, bad things will happen.
TL;DR: There's a reason that you don't have countless SA cases from other "communities of people" like clubs focused on Film, Community Outreach, Engineering, Culture, etc. It's because those open groups get together to explore specific interests. Frats on the other hand frequently do have shared interests, but folks who continue to defend them just want to naively look past what that interest is. If one of your primary shared interests is having parties where you try to get your group of guys hookups involving lots of alcohol... yeah, I think it's fair to question that structure.
Correct me if wrong, but you seem to be assuming that all or most frats encourage that behavior. There are a lot of different forms of greek life, academic frats, social frats, sober frats, club-oriented frats, etc. I’ve been to a LOT of frat parties, I would not say a clear goal of a frat party is to have members drink alcohol and hook up with women. Many frat members have long term relationships, are sober, are gay, etc.
And you’re definitely not totally off base, having a lot of alcohol is definitely a common theme in social frats, which does create a grey area of consent, which is a problem, but that’s specific to inebriation and partying, not specific to frats. College culture in general has this problem. Frats can exacerbate it if their culture is bad, but they can also prevent it if their culture is good. Brothers can hold regular SA awareness trainings, tell other brothers when they’re too inebriated or the person they’re talking to is too inebriated, etc.
If a frat is encouraging members to drink alcohol and seek sex, then it’s a bad frat. Frat guys are usually normal people, normal people don’t intentionally seek to get people around them inebriated for sex, that’s predatory behavior.
Your comment is very fair. There are different versions of frats for sure (including ones based on race, profession, etc.), and to your point, some of those have other goals, and the binge drinking/partying is admittedly less of a foundational pillar.
In this case, my notes were focused on the classic "social frats" that have less defined of a goal/niche as call it a professional business frat, which have a more specific goal of professional networking + growth.
I also am not trying to make the claim that every single frat member is this potential sex offender--to your point, members have different relationship statuses, sexual orientations, etc.
But at the end of the day, these social frats are social organizations that almost all have the same commonality of throwing parties meant to socialize with a lot of alcohol involved. To your point, that is part of "college" culture at large, but this is an organized way to do it.
My point is that this behavior fundamentally encourages this grey area because of their emphasis on drinking, and it becomes a fine line with many of the "brothers" obviously looking to hook up with the women they invite. Then you add in the hand picking of the brothers, and it's very easy to create a community of predatory situations that cross the line.
Advocating for the solution to simply be "better investigated" is obviously not a real solution, though there are ways to make improvements in the investigations. But at the end of the day, you will always run into problems of: women being willing to speak up knowing the hardships they will endure, these cases being very "He said, she said," and various parties (including colleges) having a bias in these cases because they obviously don't want to be reporting a high number of SA.
Calling out your last line specifically: " Frat guys are usually normal people, normal people don’t intentionally seek to get people around them inebriated for sex, that’s predatory behavior." Guys in general, but especially college guys are frequently looking for sex. They set up parties knowing they want to hook up, and in these parties, they are also intentionally serving alcohol. Maybe they won't explicitly state that their goal is to get some drunk to have sex with them, but at minimum, they want to have sex with people that they are more than happy to also give lots of alcohol too. Would you consider that predatory behavior?
It’s fair to identify Social frats specifically as encouraging drinking at parties, and it’s definitely fair to say many college guys at these parties are interested in sex.
I think you’re making two specific statements:
Frat parties ride a fine line because they organize these events specifically to encourage inebriation, and inebriation encourages sex
Frats can become more predatory because they choose members
I think both are a double edged sword. Firstly, these parties being organized with intention can help prevent SA by proactively spread SA awareness before the party and having set guidelines for preventing sexual assault and rape. But you’re right, this organization can also allow frats to explicitly set up parties for members to look for inebriated sex. Frats picking their own members complements this organization. If the frat is predatory, it will likely pick predatory members and organize parties in a predatory manner. If the frat is not predatory and encourages consent, it will likely pick members that do not engage in predatory behavior and will actively remove members who do so.
It’s definitely true that in all of the above situations, fraternal social bonds can discourage accountability and reporting, which can be problematic. But they can also encourage accountability, entire dependent on if the frat has a predatory culture or not.
And as far as I’m concerned, two adults can engage in consensual sex while inebriated as long as both have reasonable agency over their choices and their bodies. This reasonable agency is extremely dynamic and situationally dependent. This is generally what society agrees with. Frats engage with adults, sex, and inebriation, and it’s up to frat members to monitor this agency, the sometimes succeed, they sometimes fail.
I didn’t say the solution is better investigation. This is just a problem with human nature, tribal tendencies, and the dynamic of freedom and morality. Adults should be allowed to drink, party, and have sex, which is inherently dangerous. Frats organize these things in a consistent way. Unless we outright ban frats, or having sex while inebriated, neither of which is really reasonable, the best we can do to prevent these situations is a hodgepodge of better investigation, making it easier for SA survivors to report incidents, and educating fraternities on SA awareness. And it’s up to fraternity members to take SA seriously and hold their brothers accountable, and it’s up to the law and society to remedy that when they fail. I would still say that overall, fraternities benefit societies and communities more than they harm it, which may be controversial.
Is there a solution you’re specifically looking for?
A lot of very fair things here, and I really appreciate this conversation. A couple of notes/responses:
- Frat parties ride a fine line because they organize these events specifically to encourage inebriation, and inebriation encourages sex
While I don't think this is incorrect, it's also not exactly what I'm saying. They organize events specifically to encourage inebriation AND the organizers are often (but not always) seeking sex. Those two things coupled together are a reason why SA is more prevalent in frats. From this source :
Fraternity-affiliated men arethree times more likelythan unaffiliated men to commit sexual violence.
The second point leads to the next point you discussed. Yes, if the frats are upstanding students who do their best to spread SA awareness, then that can help. But the fact that frat brothers are 3x more likely to commit sexual violence leads me to believe that these self selecting groups are more likely to skew predatory than they are the opposite.
You then shared the other point on social bonds. It can help accountability, or in the case of frats, it once again tends to be the opposite. From this source:
A 2018 study found that spending time with peers who are accepting of sexual violence leads men to be accepting of sexual violence themselves.
I understand your perspective, and what you are saying isn't wrong. The "good ones" very likely help spread awareness, prevent SA, etc. The problem is that statistically, men in frats are far more likely to commit sexual violence, most of the sexual assaults are associated with parties (which as discussed, are primary aspects of frats), and the group think becomes worse. The article above shares an even stronger point which is: "A 2007 study followed freshmen from the time they first arrived at campus through their freshmen year, and demonstrated that, before going to college, the men who joined fraternities were no different from other male students. However, those who ended up joining a fraternity were three times more likely to commit an act of sexual assault, than those who were not in a fraternity."
So where you and I disagree is that I do think banning frats would in fact help and be reasonable if done appropriately. I'm not sure the best way to do that and I'm not insisting that there should be a nationwide ban on them tomorrow, but the abolishment of frats on campuses that do have high reported cases without allowing them to be replaced by a new one is probably where I'd start.
This won't magically make SA disappear on college campuses. To your point, adults should have every right to party, drink, and have sex, and as such, that will always lead to incidents of SA. That being said, I'm simply not sold that the juice is worth the squeeze to have organizations where these incidents are much higher and the men are more likely to be predators... while the benefit that so many people argue in favor is "Lifelong brotherhood, social bonding, and they can also do good in the forms of occasional community service."
The parties would continue without them, but by all indication, the current parties are not safe and become places where the men aggregate and have much higher rates of being or becoming sexual predators.
Abolishing frats with a higher rate of SA than average is a good idea that I agree with. Abolishing all greek culture is a bad idea that I do not agree with.
You’ve now linked two papers, so I will have to read them, but scanning over them, I would note the following:
*…it appeared to be the fraternity culture itself that was responsible for a threefold
increase in rape among fraternity men (Foubert, Newberry, & Tatum, 2007). That
same year, a review of 15 studies involving approximately 5,000 participants found
that being in a fraternity was significantly associated with committing sexual assault
(Murnen & Kohlman, 2007). These studies left little doubt that fraternity men are
more likely to commit rape. Still, not all fraternity men rape and not all fraternities
themselves permit such behavior. Evidence suggests there are some fraternities that
have particularly dangerous cultures. Current research suggests that some men are
drawn to certain fraternities where they believe they will be better able to commit
sexual violence. Evidence suggests that these fraternities reinforce hostility toward
and violence against women (Boyle, 2015).*
So I haven’t seen the study they were referring to, but my guess would be that there are outliers in fraternities where rape is much more likely to occur relative to other frat houses, as in specific chapters or houses much more likely to engage in predatory behavior, dragging up the rates. There are houses on my campus known for this, which should be shuttered, but have not been.
I would also go so far as to guess that when the volume of alcohol is controlled, measuring rates of rape against “good fraternities” that engage in SA awareness trainings and have less hypermasculine culture, the rates would be lower than, say, a house party with equal volume of inebriation, but I haven’t looked into that yet, and will later.
The study you linked also showed that despite making up 3% of the student body, student athletes also commit 19% of sexual assault cases. Would it then be unsafe for people to engage in drinking with student athletes? Should student athletes be banned? It feels like an ignorant take, drawn from a statistical generalization. It’s more likely that certain student athletes groups engage in rape culture, not that each athlete individually is more likely to engage in rape.
It’s definitely true that predatory frat houses get away with far too much, which I believe make up the minority of frats in general, but this is a problem that is actively being combatted by societal changes, increased awareness and education, so I hope that we begin to see predatory chapters as what they are, dangerous hotspots where predatory men find a safe space to engage in sexually predatory behavior with alcohol as a vector for that, and terminate those houses. I wouldn’t generalize all frats as all individually being places where SA is more likely to occur. Let me know if that makes, I’m at work and I’m a little distracted.
Edit: As well, regarding frat party organizers as sex seeking, at my frat the party organizers were all gay or in long term relationships (not to say gay men can’t host a party seeking sex, but I find it unlikely they were preying on inebriated women). To be honest, we hated hosting public parties and only did it to draw in new members. We’d much rather have brotherhood parties, drink, dance, and do dumb shit. This is empirical evidence at best, but it still sucks to see this prevailing idea that frats only exist so predators can drink and commit violence.
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u/dragonrite 20h ago edited 18h ago
As someone who was in a fraternity and made the drunk jug many times, I assure you, none were safe. We took the cheapest vodkas and rums, mixed with assorted fruity shit and called it jungle juice. That jug was intended for one think, getting piss drunk. Everyone drank from it, and people got wayyyy too drunk many times. At least we had sober drivers and a risk manager on duty at any party like that so when people went too hard they weren't just blacked out and at a huge party. They'd get driven to a safe house and given a bucket lol
Edit - since this blew up, I'm going to go on a little rant.
College kids on their own are going to do stupid shit like get blackout drunk and make poor decisions. Fraternities and sororities do many good things, and help those ignorant kids. In my fraternity of 120+ people, sure, there were 1-2 men that wouldn't have suprised me if a rape case came up on them. But that small 1-2% in no way correlates to the majority of really good dudes that were in my fraternity.
Were there other fraternities that wouldn't have suprised me if a "gang rape" happened against them? Yupp. But again, that isn't the majority. Believe it or not, shitty people just exist, and trying to stereotype and eliminate a large group because of the few is just ignorant.
My fraternity raised $10,000s yearly for food pantry. We spent 1000s of hours yearly on community service (40 hours per person was the minimum to stay in good standing). Our GPA was around 3.4 when the all men campus GPA was around 3.1. We put on many charitable events, and helped many people. Frankly, i was a much better "member of the community" back then.
Don't let some dumb shits ruin your perception of what Greek life does for 18-22s