Pizzagirl, you replied to the post directed to alh.
Ridiculous. Of course it’s not always the exact same goal. Haven’t you ever heard of “theme dates”?
90% is pretty darn close to all. If that were the case, every woman and man on this forum would agree that this is true of most of the men and boys they know, which is clearly not the case. If you are saying that 90% of college boys are interested in sex with attractive females, then you have a point. But that doesn’t make 90% of them willing to force drink or otherwise force women to have sex with them.
JustOneDad: In my bubble 100% of men are not like that. Perhaps you are correct 90% of men in society at large are like that. That would go support my argument we live in rape culture. My argument on all these threads has been that rape culture exists, that some fraternities encourage rape culture, and that it may be possible to eliminate some aspects of rape culture through education. Is that the point you were also making? If so, I guess we are in agreement. I don’t really like to believe in that 90% number. It is pretty depressing.
PG I found that interesting as well and wondered how many of the “misfits” ended up on that floor because they didn’t know what they were getting into vs those that wanted to be there, but really didn’t know how. It certainly made the alternative sound very depressing- microwaving meals alone on Thursday night? I hope that the other women ended up finding friends and happiness.
No offense to any Sigma Chis in #214, just the house that first came to mind 
YK, for all this hookup culture stuff, young men and women still do go on dates, to movies, out to dinner, ice skating, whatever. My son’s credit card bill proves this! Fraternity parties never were and never will be the “only” way to meet or get to know members of the opposite sex - it’s just ludicrous. You can still ask that cute person in math class to meet you for coffee, or sit next to a person you’re attracted to in the cafeteria and strike up a conversation.
“Ridiculous. Of course it’s not always the exact same goal. Haven’t you ever heard of “theme dates”?”
Yes, I know what you’re talking about. I don’t ever remember hearing about that kind of stuff when I was in college, and my sisters and I would not have participated in anything where we were called “hoes.” And so … the frats that would have done stuff like that wouldn’t accomplish their objective - getting the hot girls! So they wouldn’t do it! See how that works?
You are uselessly misrepresenting anything I said. Even pigs have to be cognizant of the law. You’d also have to define “force drink” because it’s common knowledge that the men would like to assist the woman in having a drink or two.
Sorority life is all about conforming, in actions and appearances. Some of this is self-selection and some of it is choosing pledges with whom we are comfortable socially. PG may argue we just choose those with whom we want to be friends and everyone does that. “What’s the big deal?” However, when we choose girls very similar to us, the group becomes more and more homogeneous over time. After a while, girls not fitting the sorority norm probably won’ t be interested in joining, even if we were interested in pledging them.
So we are going to end up with a group that isn’t exactly full of girls interested in challenging the status quo, not exactly the sort of population one would expect to question anything fraternities are up to. imho.
@Pizzagirl You can use “Snakey-K” for me and I’ll understand.
Ask yourself; why do you feel the need to dishonestly keep referring to the “all” or the “100%”?
“I don’t really like to believe in that 90% number. It is pretty depressing.”
Thank you. I find it much easier to work with that.
Then explain your comment by describing what you mean by 90% of all men are pigs (you responded to PG’s comment that not all men are pigs, by saying that 90% are). What is your definition here?
To my knowledge I do not associate with any man fitting this description:." pigs who just want to get their rocks off with the nearest female" and haven’t done so for decades. So it is my sincere belief that in my family and social circle is 100% free of these men. It is possible there some really good dissemblers, but I doubt it.
I still don’t understand about why people confuse going out to have a good time, and perhaps ending up in consensual sex, and going out to have a good time, getting drunk, and waking up after being raped while unconscious. Or that they confuse men who would participate in the first with men who would participate in the second.
I’ve gotten that the impression that some people think:
a) Men are victims of their hormones, it’s not their fault if they want to get laid, legally or not
b) Women are not victims of their hormones, they never want to get laid unless there is the potential of a long-term relationship
My take is more:
a) Society tells young men that if they aren’t “getting some”, something is wrong with them. Any young man with half a brain and the ability to make his own decisions doesn’t believe that.
b) Society tells young women that having sex is a tool, something to use when you need something, like presents or a steady dinner date. Any young woman with half a brain and the ability to make her own decisions doesn’t believe that.
And as for “90% of men” - we are talking about men who are attending college. Only 30% of men 25 years of age and older have college degrees in the US. I hope it is not an unrealistic assumption that folks like my cousins who barely finished HS and attended many “house parties” in their teens and twenties (if not past that) with free-flowing alcohol and drugs ended doing worse things, and being victims of worse things than those going to college, because there was no way to even begin to talk about how “fair” it is to have sex with someone who is dead drunk, or to slip someone some pills (the old “oh, here’s some stuff better than aspirin that will get rid of your headache”).
I would also say that the levels of divorce among my friends without college degrees is much higher, and more often the couple had one or more children within a year or two before they discovered they were completely incompatible. There are probably more still married college graduates who are very unhappy, but in the case of my divorced friends without college degrees, invariably one or both cheated on their spouse quite publicly.
Some might say “men are pigs” but I would say that “people are pigs”. I have known both men and women who manipulated and were manipulated all in the name of “love”. I have known both men and women who mistake compatibility and a one-time decision to have sex with “love”,. And I have known both men and women who didn’t recall who their last partner was, and sometimes even if they did or didn’t have sex the previous Saturday night after a party.
This article was about “the price of sex”. And that “price” makes it a institutional commodity, where the frat house pays for the party and all the trimmings, instead of a guy having to ask a girl out to dinner, and invest more time and more money on one individual who may or may not be game. If those parties are bringing together consenting adults, and the girls are benefiting in that they don’t have to drink and they don’t have to have sex (barring criminal activity), and guys are benefiting because a bunch of girls are being attracted to their parties, I am not sure what is wrong.
(You do know that pedophiles are attracted to jobs where they work with children? Then why would it be odd that rapists would be attracted to joining a large fraternity with great parties? The only “odd” thing is that colleges want to sweep the issue of campus sexual assault under the rug, “handle it themselves” like the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts (and PSU for that matter). We mistake the frats as the cause when the lack of policing exacerbates matters tremendously.)
“Sorority life is all about conforming, in actions and appearances. Some of this is self-selection and some of it is choosing pledges with whom we are comfortable socially. PG may argue we just choose those with whom we want to be friends and everyone does that. “What’s the big deal?” However, when we choose girls very similar to us, the group becomes more and more homogeneous over time. After a while, girls not fitting the sorority norm probably won’ t be interested in joining, even if we were interested in pledging them.”
I disagree, alh. That may be true in the southern sororities where what house you join apparently has outsized lifetime social repercussions and shapes your social destiny and whether you can join the Junior League forever, but no, that was decidedly not my experience. There were girls of all different interests and backgrounds - different majors, different life goals, different political leanings, different personalities. As with any group of women, I loved some, liked most and disliked a few, and I could have easily fit into quite a few houses there and had an equally good time. So no, I disagree with your thesis that it was “all about conforming.”
Once again, we will just have to disagree. What did you think about the sorority survey results with regard to top sororities having lowest BMI and rating themselves most attractive?
"So we are going to end up with a group that isn’t exactly full of girls interested in challenging the status quo, not exactly the sort of population one would expect to question anything fraternities are up to. "
The girls in my system were ambitious and driven towards whatever their own set of goals was. Some of them liked to “party with the hot fraternities.” Others had friends or boyfriends in other fraternities and didn’t particularly care about the “hot ones.” Still others simply weren’t interested in hanging around fraternities at all - they had their guy friends through other channels (classes, theater, etc.). Any and all of these was perfectly fine - no one got their hand slapped if they didn’t do anything with fraternities. The most “conformity” was that you were expected to show up to chapter, and comb your darn hair if you were going to wear the letters.
Please stop assuming how the big southern schools do things is some kind of national standard-bearer. I dislike how there is some assumption that the southern systems are the “originals” and the other systems are johnny-come-latelies. My house has been on campus since the 1880’s and most of the other sororities aren’t far behind. This is our normal.
“What did you think about the sorority survey results with regard to top sororities having lowest BMI and rating themselves most attractive?”
I don’t know what link you are referring to, but it strikes me that it’s a good thing for a girl to internally “rate” herself as attractive. (As opposed to - thinking I’m really homely?)
Okay, now you’re saying that they might get some but not the (most desirable?) ones?
And, sorry to put a slightly brighter polish on it once again, but they rarely talk about “hoes”; it’s more like “Miss Scarlett in the Library with the Silver Candlestick”.