The Price of Sex at USC

Parents Forum
41

The argument that it is a free market and that women are free to leave is accurate if the rules are fair.

The problem is that the game is rigged. The article is correct that it isn’t the baby or the bath water, it is the bathtub.

Want to fix this problem without changing the rules? Enforce the laws that are on the books. It is not that hard.

Authorities would have not trouble finding and paying some hot 19 year old girls to infiltrate a few random frat parties and film activities. These frat boys will tell a hot girl anything when they are drunk. Hidden video is a beautiful thing.

Every drink by an underage girl is another charge. The laws are there. 30 days in jail for a first offense. Right in the middle of the semester. Terrible publicity. Dealing with parents. If a felony is committed in the house, the house can be claimed by the state, etc. Once a crime is observed, the house can be searched for other illegal substances and criminal activity. Get a warrant for a wire tap etc.

The issue here is that the authorities and the colleges are complicit in allowing the behavior to continue. Until universities and legal authorities end the fraternities monopoly on campus social life by turning a blind eye, this will be a problem.

I do not care if the girls have choices, and decide to be there. The problem is that they do not have effective options. If it is too illegal to have in a sorority then the law needs to be enforced on fraternities too.

Yes they have rights to rig the ratio, turn away whoever they want, etc. Refuse to admit officers, but they will admit an attractive plain clothes female who can open the door for other offices (take a tip from the Trojan war).

This behavior needs to be brought under control.

42

@rhandco The thing is, these women don’t have to option of bringing someone home. They don’t have that power. Maybe if they did have that power, the sexual assault rates in Greek life would be lower. But their only option is to be in a setting that is controlled by Greek men. That’s a conflict that’s unique to Greek culture that non Greeks wouldn’t experience. However, I know it is more complex than that. And I won’t lie, I’m not very familiar with the economic theories spoken about it in this article.

43

Much2learn, you’ve been told several times - it is not that it is “illegal” for sororities to throw parties, it is that their nationals won’t allow alcohol in their (nicely furnished) houses.

Of course there are options. You can do all kinds of different things on Sat night. Go to dinner, see a movie, go dancing, hang out at someone’s dorm room and chat, go roller skating, whatever. Stop acting as though if a girl doesn’t or can’t go to a frat party she is “option-less,” as frat parties are not the only form of social life.

44

The only problem is if the girls are underage and drinking they too would be issued MIPs. The frat guys might get a charge of supplying alcohol to minors but it would be difficult to figure out which guy actually “bought” the alcohol and a lawyer could get that charge probably dropped down to the MIP, the girls are also complicit in drinking underage. Even if they pre-partied at the sorority and didn’t drink at the frat house they would most likely fail a breathalyzer. It’s a double edge sword…you can’t punish one and not the other.

45

@Calicash, you are saying that a woman does not have the power to take someone home? What country do you live in? I do not know ANY woman at college who could not take someone home, and that includes to sorority houses which “technically” don’t allow any “boys” past the first floor. I knew many women who had “power” and did get a few guys really upset, when those guys found out they were part of a “list” being checked off, or when a guy found out he was just one in a string of one-night stands. And you do know that sexual assault rates off-campus for the same ages are higher than on campus? Let alone that non-Greeks do have off-campus parties where people who go to the party are more likely to be victims because the housemates have their own rooms they can take someone up to.

As for being pressured into sex: if you are “pressured” to buy a car, do you report it as stealing your money if you decide you really didn’t want it? How many times are we pressured into doing something we might not want to do - do your homework or you won’t be allowed to go to the movies. Sign the office get well card for someone you don’t like, because you’ll be called out by the boss if you don’t.

I know people who were drunk and drove. More than once. Perhaps at a later date, they regretted it. Some of them said to me “that’s what it was like back then, everybody drank and drove their cars home”. Some people I knew died from riding a motorcycle drunk. I guess since it was terminal, yeah they might have regretted it. It might have been the first time they rode drunk or the 200th time.

It was inconvenient for them to not drive home. So they picked what they thought was an easier choice, to drive drunk. And most were not caught, and most didn’t die or kill someone. I figure it that way, if someone finds themselves continually pressured into something, anything, that they really do not want to do once they remove themselves from the situation, they should stop the situation from happening.

Another example: my niece has had a steady boyfriend in the last few years. She is now working and attending graduate school, and both she and her boyfriend (separately - they aren’t living together) moved several states away. It turns out, when they were in school, she “had to” help him with his homework. As in do his homework for him. And now that they have real jobs working at a university, and only going to school part-time, she covers for him at work, doing things for him still.

So is he using her? Definitely. Is she consenting to being used? Everything points to that. She is a very bright girl, and many people including her parents (who are not encouraging her to marry him, but don’t want to pressure her to dump him) are shocked she would put up with this. But she is an adult and she chose.

46

I read about being fined for not attending a party somewhere here on CC, but here is an article that discusses it as well, along with some other relevant info. Not sure if I posted it correctly.

http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/02/02/sorority-culture-part-campus-rape-problem/22754819/

47

Ugh, another theory that concludes that women are helpless, victims who are incapable of making simple decisions.

48

@rhandco Sorority girls are not allowed to bring boys into their bedrooms. So no, they can’t bring them home. And according to the article, the assault rates are higher for Greeks.

49

@Calicash, I was in a sorority. And that rule was in place there.

And the rule was broken a zillion times, including a guy who lived with his girlfriend at the sorority. As was the no alcohol rule broken a zillion times, let alone some drug use. There was a basket of free condoms on the end table in the living room as soon as you entered the sorority house.

Are you in a sorority? Have you seen the rule strictly enforced?

50

The rule that seems to be strictly enforced is the rule against having parties with alcohol in sorority houses. Sorority women want to go to parties with men and alcohol-- this is obvious, because they do go to fraternity parties, more than women who decline to join sororities go to those parties. Yet frat house parties can be dangerous places for women who have been drinking. They sometimes get assaulted.

51

@rhandco No, I’m not in a sorority. I cannot speak to the extent at which these rules are enforced. But each school is different and based on the article, it seems as though this is something that is actively enforced at USC. And no offense, but I’m guessing that it’s probably been quite some time since you have been in college. Things can change. And just because your house didn’t follow rules, doesn’t mean that everyone else goes against rules as well. It would however be great to have some current input from a current sorority member on here.

52

Let me be clear-- the rule against sororities having parties with alcohol is not a university rule. It’s a rule that sororities have imposed on themselves. As far as I can tell, sororities nationwide follow this rule. They do not have frat-style parties where outsiders are served alcohol. Fraternities, on the other hand, do have such parties, sorority women go to them, and sometimes sorority women get sexually assaulted at those parties.

53

The thing that gets me is that it is very easy to break this assymetrical situation and many of the same people who argue that nothing needs to change, would be the first to howl if the laws were enforced.

54

What percentage of USC sorority women actually live in the house? Those sororities are huge; I’ll bet no more than 50% (if that) can live in the house at one time. And I’ll bet that the majority live in for only a couple of years. So the idea that they “have no choice” but to go to fraternities for alcohol and sex would not be accurate; many of them can have sex and drink wherever they live outside of the house, or at their sorority sisters’ off-campus apartments.

55

I will agree 100% that the only alcohol parties our sorority hosted when I was in college were by invitation only. We did have open parties with no alcohol.

There were several reasons:

  1. Drunk people mess up your house, and the national does send folks to check that you are giving the proper impression of the national sorority.
  2. Drunk girls who didn’t get into the sorority, or from other sororities are FAR more likely to be an issue at a sorority than a drunk boy who didn’t get in or from another fraternity. It was basically no go for any guy in a frat to go to another frat’s party UNLESS there was an above board relationship between the two frats, which was rare.
  3. For some reason, girls tend to be less tolerant of couples going to their room without asking and using their beds or floors or bathrooms for various activities. Our house was quite old and the locks were not able to be locked from the outside.
  4. Expense - alcohol is expensive, rugs are expensive to clean (many frats do not have rugs downstairs, many sororities do, in my experience)

For the upper echelon frats, there was a SERIOUS cleanup after any party, basically top to bottom cleaning, that was before a national visit. It became quite a joke, and a way to pick on pledges, make them clean up the puke.

And by the way, UVA is listed as 25% Greek, so 75% non-Greek, plus the girl in the story was not in a sorority as far as I know (if you believe that some kind of assault did happen, even with some details in the RS story disproven). I might have missed it, but what is the percent Greek at USC?

And for post #51 - are you assuming that women not in sororities are never assaulted? One thing that was true when I was in school is that we had two “safe” fraternities where our sorority had a relationship with the board members, and there was significant talk about “don’t mess with our sisters”. In one case, when a guy was cheating on my sorority sister, whom he was engaged to, his fraternity was contacted and asked to censure him, which they did.

Only once did I go to a frat party at a house that had been closed for years due to a gang rape. I stayed perhaps 15 minutes before I figured out the level of alcohol and darkness, and the layout of the house, made the risk higher than many fraternity parties. One should be careful, no?

(almost forgot - we did have guys from our associated fraternities as “bouncers” for our open no-alcohol parties, because invariably people would show up drunk already and be confused about no alcohol. One tricky issue was sisters drinking on their own and attending our no-alcohol parties)

56

About 25% of USC men and 20% (or a little less, this is from memory) of USC women are in sororities.

I’m not assuming that women who are not in sororities are never assaulted. That’s far from the truth. Women who are in sororities are assaulted more, though. I’ve not seen studies that control for alcohol use. Women in sororities drink more, and women who drink more are assaulted more, so it may be that the sorority membership is irrelevant: women who drink more both are more likely to be in sororities and are more likely to be assaulted.

The argument for sororities not having parties with alcohol would be that it costs money to supply the alcohol, to insure the house, and to clean up the vomit afterwards, and the sororities don’t want to do that, especially since their members are already spending a lot of money on their appearance. The argument for having parties with alcohol would be so your sisters don’t get raped at fraternity houses.

57

The study presumes/addresses consensual activities but perhaps not enthusiastic activities.

58

@Bay Idk the specifics, but I highly doubt that 50% of women in Greek Life are choosing to life off campus in expensive LA housing over living with their sisters. And yes, technically, they could have sex and drink anywhere, but it goes much deeper than that. The article is largely addressing the women who go to parties and don’t want to have sex, but are consenting regardless.

59

Oh CF, your cattiness is showing.

60

I’m sure my cattiness is showing, Bay, but what part of #55 do you disagree with other than the alleged tone? What do you think are the arguments for and against sororities having fraternity-style parties?