Each school year brings some of the most interesting news when it comes to college fraternities and high school sports hazings.  Last month, several high school football players were accused of sodomizing six younger teammates with a broomstick (size queens) during training camp.  What brings on this sort of thing in testosterone driven sports and initiations in frat houses?

‘Hazings’ are also known as ‘initiations’ – things that one group of people will do to another person in order for that person to be allowed to join a group, gang or even a Fraternity. The word derives from a 17th century Scottish word meaning to frighten, scold or beat cattle while driving them, and from the French Haser, to tease or insult.

No surprises then that Hazings have received some bad press as many initiation ceremonies go further than just simple teasing, and include harassment, humiliation and even physical abuse. You may have seen movies such as The Skulls (2000) which took entry into a college fraternity as its theme – the guys there started out with fun and adventurous rituals to perform, such as stealing the weathervane from a tower. But these soon started to turn nasty and dangerous, both physically and emotionally, for the characters. And that’s the warning.

Hazing has been a popular activity in school and sports institutions for many years, especially among the male of our species. I can remember innocent things which we now call hazing; having to carry someone’s bags, or being dared to do something only slightly mischievous like make a face at a teacher behind his back. Now though these things are becoming increasingly more brutal and institutions and individuals are finding themselves in court over what they have allowed to happen. Here is an example from nola.com, dated May 2008: “Five members of a Tulane University fraternity were arrested Tuesday and five others are being sought on felony battery charges in an alleged hazing incident in which two pledges received second- and third-degree burns from boiling water and crab-boil being poured on their bodies.”

But not all hazings involve such extreme measures and there can be a lot of pleasure to be gained from viewing home videos (on the Tube sites for example) and realty movies on some adult sites – particularly as hazing is fast becoming a fetish genre in the adult industry.

Here’s an example: I searched out collegehazing.com a site dedicated to the practice of sexual humiliation among new guys at college. Images here ranged from guys who were simply ‘mooning’ (showing off their asses) to being bound and stripped. Having to flash one’s dick to the general public is a fairly common and innocuous activity, but licking someone’s ass in order to be accepted in to a football team may leave a nasty taste in the mouth, particularly if you’re a straight guy. Many of these initiations happen during parties, or certainly when there is alcohol around and it is not uncommon to see guys who are unconscious through too much drink being stripped, and even masturbated, while the others look on and the cameras click away.

So is it always a homoerotic pastime I ask myself? Is there always a sexual side to hazing? No, not always but it does seem that even the straightest of football players will stand by and watch as another guy gets naked. It may build team spirit and help the guys to bond but how far will they go to be in a team? Cyd Zeigler Jr., on outsports.com points out: Many of the acts that younger players are submitted to are also homoerotic or homosexual. Licking each other’s bodies, simulating sex acts, forced sodomy with various objects – these acts work on two levels. First, they reinforce the notion that same-sex affection is weaker; the subjected men are rarely “hazed” with forced affection from someone of the opposite sex. Second, they serve to satisfy the latent homosexuality of many of the players involved.

So hazing, in these all male situations, is about domination, both of the body and the mind. It can be seen on various levels: fun, when innocuous; sexual, when nudity, simulated and even actual sex is involved; and powerful as, at the end of the day, the group, the herd, tribe, sports team or gang is the thing that holds the power to accept or reject the person fighting for the right to join them. The trouble is, in the wrong hands or when out of control it can simply go too far.