Posted by Guest on June 04, 2008 at 08:47 [76.4.73.225]
There have been numerous articles in the press recently about
hazing, most notably the high school in Chicago. Most of these
articles look at only the negatives and never see any positive value
to hazing. I went through a hazing as part of a sorority initiation
and I feel that it made me a better person. I am very much an
advocate for hazing when done with common sense. Placing pledges in
situations that even remotely threaten their life or place them in a
situation where they may be an unwilling participant in a sexual act
should not be tolerated. Situations involving the use of alcohol
should be closely monitored as should any task that requires
strenuous activity.
I have read many of the postings on this and other sites about so
called initiations and concluded that many of these are a fantasy in
the writers mind and never happened. After being there, it is easy
to spoke the true ones. My story is true and before I decided to
write this, I contacted all of the sisters involved for their
support. They know my feelings on the subject, but we also have our
own secrecy rules. Each member has done their own editing, that is
removing parts that are not allowed, correcting mistakes I made in
accuracy, and adding their own commentary. Officially, today hazing
is not permitted, and I will neither confirm nor deny whether hazing
exists in our sorority today.
Many people will find this narrative boring as it contains no sexual
material, but as we see it, forcing a pledge to perform a sexual act
as a condition of membership is rape.
I also left out at my sister's request any situations involving
alcohol.
Some background: This happened almost ten years ago as I was a
freshman in college. At the time I was (and still am) a short petite
gal 4' 9" and 120 lbs soaking wet. I was the smallest gal in
my sorority and almost from day one I was referred to as the baby of
the class. This was nothing new to me as all my life I have been
picked on because of my size, both verbally and physically, so I am
used to it and take it in stride. There is nothing that I can do to
make myself taller, so I deal with it.
The constant barrage of humiliating and degrading tasks had already
been underway for almost two weeks as well as the usual sliming with
foodstuffs and belly crawls through mud. I felt that I had been
subjected to more than my share of the punishments, but I never
cried or complained. I had been told to expect an initiation and
that it wouldn't necessarily be pleasant. Since I had experienced
this form of treatment in every other group I had ever joined in
high school, you could say I was somewhat used to it unlike other
girls who cried. I took it in stride.
At the time I joined, I had beautiful long hair which reached to my
waist. I took great pride in my hair and the sisters knew it. I was
accused of taking too long in the shower to wash my hair. They took
advantage of that too.
As my house assignment, I had to clean the showers. As anybody who
has lived in a dorm setting knows, the showers get nasty and need
constant attention. I did my best and keep them very clean, but as
any pledge knows, it is impossible to please anyone as a pledge, you
are lower than dung. On more than one occasion, I was woken up in
the middle of the night to clean and scrub a shower out for a
sister. I was also used as a human mop a couple of times (I was
picked up and my head was dunked in a toilet and them my hair was
used to mop the floor).
The pledges were only allowed to use one specific stall and the
sisters were constantly making it unbearable to use. Some of the
other pledges would bitch at me, because I wasn't doing my job,
but others were sympathetic to my plight as they faced a similar
situation in their task. Strangely enough, the bitches never made
the grade and were ultimately rejected, part of the whole initiation
ritual was to teach teamwork and they didn't exhibit that.
An example of some of the stunts we had to do was the Saturday
morning calisthenics. All the pledges were told on a Friday night
that they were to report to the basement at 5 am sharp the next
morning for a workout. Late arrivals would be penalized. I didn't
expect much of a problem with this as I was a swim team member and
used to working out. We were told to wear only a white t-shirt,
white gym shorts, socks, and sneakers. It was made clear that we
were not to wear a bra or panties. That night I thought about some
of the other pledges that were more well endowed than me (I was only
an A cup then, so you might as well say I didn't have a lot to
flop around) and how painful it may be if they are made to jump
around without any support.
Well 5 am came soon enough and I met my fellow pledges in the
basement. Fortunately, no one was late and we didn't have to
listen to a lecture about that. We were told to line up on a white
line that was painted on the floor and face forward about two arms
length apart from each other. Then we were told to remove our shorts
and t-shirts and place them on the floor in front of us. While this
in itself is somewhat embarrassing, it also revealed that one of
the pledges had not followed the instructions and had worn
underwear. This resulted in a lecture and then the announcement
about her punishment. Karen, the sorority president announced that
the punishment would be the paddle, but we were shocked to find out
that she would not be paddled; instead she would administer two
swats to each of the other pledges as punishment to us for not
making sure everyone complied with the directions. With our feet
spread apart about three feet we were told to grab our ankles as one
by one this bimbo administered her swats to us. I wanted to kill
her, and I am sure that others had the same feeling to, but in the
end she got hers anyway.
After the paddling, we were each given a small jar of peanut butter
and told to apply a third of it to each underarm like deodorant, and
the remaining third between our legs in the crouch area. We were to
keep our legs spread and our arms in the air until one of the
sisters had inspected that we had done a satisfactory job. We could
them put our shirts and shorts back on. We started out by doing 100
full jumping jacks and the sisters made sure that our arms came all
the way down to our sides and legs tightly closed as the counted the
half steps very slowly. It was a hot in that basement and we were
soon sweating and the peanut butter was melting and running down my
sides and my legs. It was disgusting. We then did sit-ups, push-ups,
finished up by jogging through the small town the college was in.
Thank God it was a Saturday morning and very few people saw us. The
peanut butter stains on our short made it look like we shit
ourselves.
Another time I was given a molasses shampoo, my head was shoved into
a bowl of molasses and then they covered my "wet" hair with
feathers from a broken pillow. I was then made to run the downtown
route clucking like a chicken. The worse part about the shampoo is
washing it out. The feathers clog the drain making clean-up a bitch.
On a shopping trip to the mall, before I could go, I had to give my
panties and bra to an older sister who soaked them in syrup and them
made me put them back on, and go that way. Let me tell you, even
with small boobs, my wet bra stuck right to my t-shirt and showed
right through, not to mention the wet outline of my panties on my
sweat pants. It wasn't too much fun to walk around either as the
syrup turned to a gluey substance.
It was a Sunday night and we had two weeks to go when the most
intense task started. I was sitting in the common area watching TV.
Two of the sisters had sat down with me and we were joking about
something on the TV. Another sister entered the room and I looked up
in time to see her nod to Cathy, the girl on my right. Both Cathy
and Nancy grabbed my arms and pinned me to the couch and one of them
said "it's time shortshit."
Shortshit was the name all the sisters referred to me as and I had
sort of accepted it as a pet name. Dawn came over and picked up my
legs and the three of them carried me into the kitchen area where
there was a large table. I was placed on the table and while Cathy
and Nancy pinned my arms to the table, two more sisters, Erin, and
Sharon held my legs down. I was thrashing to try and get loose, but
stopped when Dawn hopped up on the table and sat down on my thighs.
Dawn then grabbed my right tit, but she was only seeing if I had a
bra on. She then said to me "Babies don't wear bras,
you're an
embarrassment, and you don't even have tits." She then
proceeded to
pull my t-shirt out of my pants, reach up my shirt, and starting
pulling on my bra. Cathy and Nancy helped her by pulling my shirt
up. When she couldn't get my bra all the way off she asked Sharon
for a pair of scissors and cut it off. I was then told that I would
not be permitted to wear a bra again until I was a full sister, if I
got that far, and if I was caught with one on, a severe punishment
would follow.
Then Cathy chimed in and said that since I was the class baby, all
my decisions, including what I wore to class would be made by my
older sisters. It was then Karen entered the kitchen and asked if I
was resisting, and Dawn said "not any more." Karen then
proceeded to tell me that for the next two weeks, I would be treated
like the baby I am. "Your sisters will feed you, help you get
dressed, bathe you, and your pledge sisters will change your diaper
and clean your nasty ass. Starting right now, you will wear a diaper
for the next two weeks, at no time do you remove it, and your pledge
sisters will change it for you. You will go potty in the diaper; you
will eat only the baby food your sisters bought for you. Is that
clear?" I didn't know what to say, this was so humiliating
and from
the way she said it, I was the only pledge forced to wear a diaper.
I had gone this far, and I am no quitter so I nodded my head and
said "Yes." Karen then grabbed the scissors from Dawn and
said, "as a baby, your sisters do not have the time to wash and
comb
long hair like this, so you are going to get a haircut." I was
ready
to cry, but held back any emotion, because I thought that they were
looking for a response, and I really thought that they wouldn't
cut
my hair. I acknowledged her by saying "I understand."
By now, most of the other sisters had gathered in the kitchen to
watch the proceedings and here I was, pinned to the table with my
shirt hiked up and my boobs exposed. Karen then finished her speech
by saying "your sisters are now going to diaper you, but first
they're going to shave you, because its bad enough they have to
clean up your mess, they don't need to clean it out of hair, too.
Besides, babies don't have pubic hair. One last thing, your
pledge sisters will not ask you if you need a change, you must
approach them and say "sissy, I pee peed, or I have
stinkies." I
was humiliated and sure I was turning red.
Dawn told one of the girls to remove my shoes, and I felt them being
tugged off my feet. Then Dawn unbuckled my belt, unsnapped my pants
and unzipped the zipper. She hopped off the table and Erin and
Sharon pulled me down the table until my butt was at the edge. They
lifted me up by the legs and pulled my pants off. Dawn then grabbed
the scissors and cut off my cute flowered panties and held them up
for everyone to see. There was a big cheer in the room. I just
wanted this to get over with. While many of the girls had seen me
naked in the shower (the pledge's shower has no curtain and is
visible as soon as you enter) it was different being spread wide
open on the table and shaved in view of everyone which would leave
me even more exposed. I don't remember who actually applied the
shaving cream and did the actual shaving, but I do remember that the
shaving cream was menthol and it burned. While I was being shaved my
legs were held way up in the air and I tried not to move for fear of
being cut. I didn't get to see their handiwork when they were
done as they slapped a diaper on me.
Cathy then said "okay shortshit, time for your haircut." I
could have died, I didn't think that they would actually cut my
hair
and I know that the girls felt me tense up. They held me tight and
took me into the dining room where they tied me to a chair. My arms
were tied to the arms, and my legs were tied to the legs. Sharon who
actually had training is cosmetology proceeded to give me what I can
only describe as a little girl haircut complete with the pigtails.
All of the sisters were laughing and shoving strands of my long hair
in my face. All I could think of is the expression on my father's
face when he sees my short hair. He loved my long hair and always
complemented me on it. When they were done, I was released and then
made to clean up the mess. It was bad enough losing hair that had
taken me years to grow, but further humiliating to have to clean it
up.
I went to bed that night wearing my diaper under my pajamas. It felt
so weird. I always have to pee when I get up in the morning and the
next day was no different. I resisted the urge to go, because I
wanted to get a shower before going to class. I went downstairs and
found one of my sisters and asked permission to get a shower and she
replied laughing, "What part don't you understand? You will
get a bath like a baby gets, in a tub with a sponge." When I asked
when, she replied "probably tonight, by then you ought to be real
ripe." God it was bad enough to be wearing a diaper, now I would
be
stinking in class too, and I know that people will be asking why I
cut my hair. I had gotten so many complements on it. When I got back
to my room, Dawn was there with my outfit, it consisted of a sheer
blouse and a mid thigh length skirt. I was wondering if it could get
any worse or should I quit. I knew that's what they wanted me to
do, but I am no quitter. I asked Dawn about my bath, and she said
baths happen at night and I should have asked last night. Now I
would have to wait. To make matters worse she then asked me if I
needed a change. I made the mistake of saying "In a few
minutes." She
scolded me like a little kid telling me that I must pee or poop
without trying to hold it back as I am a baby and unable to control
myself. Great, now I have to wait until at least my first class is
over in an hour and a half. Dawn told me to get dressed and come to
the kitchen for my breakfast. When I got to the table, she had a
baby bottle prepared for me with warm milk in it and two jars of
baby food. If I ate that stuff when I was a baby, I sure don't
remember it as this stuff was nasty. The smell isn't very
appealing
either.
I really had to pee now and I resisted the urge to go right then and
there. I got to my class and took my seat. A few of my friends
commented about my appearance and I explained the reason for my
haircut was my place on the swim team. It was just too much to
handle, as least it sounded good at the time. By halfway through the
class my stomach was grumbling and I thought that my system was
disagreeing with the baby food. I was getting that feeling you have
when you have diarrhea. I wanted to leave the classroom, but that
was forbidden. There was a point that I couldn't hold it any more
and I felt my bowl let loose and the diarrhea flowed out. At the
same time I started to pee uncontrollably. I prayed that the diaper
would hold it all. The feeling was absolutely disgusting and then I
noticed the smell. There was still about a half hour left in the
lecture when the gods shined on me, the professor announced that he
wasn't feeling well and he was finishing early. I was pleased and
went to a pledge sister in the class that had made it clear earlier
that she didn't like me and told her I needed a change; she blew
me off by saying, "I ain't changing no stinking diaper you
baby." All of the pledges had been told that in all of the tasks
we
were to help each other out as a team, but I guess this was too
disgusting for her or that she just despised me. I found another
pledge and she changed me. It was some of the nastiest smelling shit
that we had ever smelled. It was not until the induction ceremony
was over that we learned why my diapers were so messy. It seems that
the sisters had laced my baby food and milk with a laxative. It took
almost a week for me to flush that stuff out of my system and get
back to a regular turd.
Bath time wasn't so pleasant either. My older sisters took great
pleasure in giving me a bath with cold water. While I appreciated
getting a bath, I hated the baby oil they applied in excess. I felt
like a grease ball. Being made to lay naked on the kitchen table in
full view of everyone didn't make it any better either. The next
to last night they finished me off with a perfume bath; that is they
sprayed me with all sorts and brands of perfume. The confluence of
all those scents is downright nauseating—I stunk to high heaven.
Over the two week period I learned that I could count on seven of my
fellow pledges to change and clean me. Those seven treated me with
dignity and became some of my closest friends. That was seven out of
nineteen, some teamwork. Many of the others plain out refused my
request and others seemed never to be around. I reciprocated by
assisting my fellow pledges with their tasks, but I was often
shunned by the same group who had shunned me, but at least I offered
to help. This fact did not go unnoticed by the older sisters.
On the last night of hell week, I was summoned to a meeting of the
older sisters. I was dressed for bed in a night gown and my diaper.
When I entered the room I was petrified. All of the officers of the
sorority were there as well as all of the senior members. I had been
told that if I was summoned there, it was probably because I had not
made the grade. Karen told me to stand at the end of the table with
my hands behind my head. I thought what now, I had been through so
much and I was beat. She started out by showing me the paddle and
then asking if I knew what it was used for. I acknowledged her and
she then asked if a pledge that didn't follow instructions should
get the paddle or not be inducted. I answered that she should not be
inducted as that is what we were told in the beginning. She then
informed me that she had reliable information that I had failed to
follow my instructions as required. I knew what was coming; I was
going to be kicked out at the last possible minute. I was
devastated. Debbie then took over and said that on more than one
occasion, I had been observed requesting assistance from other
pledges and having them refuse to help me. She then reinforced that
it had been made perfectly clear that non-compliance would not be
tolerated and should be reported to the older sisters. I was asked
if the information was true and I nodded my head and said
"Yes." The next question was whether I had reported it to the
older
sisters. I said "I did not". She then concluded by stating
that the only conclusion the committee can reach is that I have
failed to meet the requirements for induction, and then asked if I
had anything to say in my defense. Tears had already welled up in my
eyes and I was choked up. I responded with words that I have never
forgotten to this day "I am in a no win situation, I admit that I
did not report the incidents to anyone, but I am not a tattle-tale
and at the welcoming session Karen had stated that sisters are not
rats and despise pledges that are. I have done my best at every task
thrown at me, and I have helped my fellow pledges to the best of my
ability. I have been humiliated beyond belief, but I have leaned the
value of teamwork and dependence on others. While I may not meet
your standards, seven friendships that should last a lifetime have
developed in this short time." I then took my hands from behind
my head and headed for the door. Karen stood up and blocked the door
and stated that I had not been dismissed and to stop. I was mad, I
just wanted to go. All the girls then got up and surrounded me,
Cathy grabbed my arms and pulled them behind me as Debbie came and
got right in my face. I was scared and didn't know what was going
to happen. Debbie then stated "Joyce, you made it, you passed the
final test tonight", and then gave me a big bear hug. I was
crying as
one by one all of the seniors and officers hugged me, but I was
brought back to earth when Cathy said, "congratulations, you are
done
with diapers, but you stink. We better see you in the shower in the
next five minutes or we will give you one." I responded that I had
been craving a warm shower for so long that I didn't need any
more of
an invitation.
My life changed that night, while I was showering, my sisters had
stripped my bed and put all clean linens on it, and had a wonderful
take-out dinner all laid out on my desk for me. It was first real
food I had eaten in weeks.
At the induction ceremony, I was one of the eight new sisters
inducted. Twelve had failed to make it, at that time one of the
highest percentages ever, but they all failed because they were not
team players.
My nickname would change to shortcake, and yes I was still picked
on, but in a loving way, and now I could respond back. My sisters
watched my back and took care of their "baby" sister.
I should point out that even though we were stripped naked on
numerous occasions, it was never done in the presence of men or for
a sensual purpose. It was strictly for humiliation and dealing with
it. Face it, while we all at one time or another have seen someone
of the same sex naked, some people feel uncomfortable undressing in
front of others. I was always embarrassed in high school in the
shower, and I was at first at the house, but after the initiation, I
was totally comfortable with walking down the house hallway from the
shower to my room in the buff. I see others facing this dilemma all
the time at the heath club I belong to. One lady actually confronted
me and asked if I had left my modesty at home, this after parading
from the shower to my locker with my towel around my neck. I have
seen other ladies struggle to put on their panties while still
wrapped in a towel. Even a coworker I took to the club had trouble
taking her clothes off in front of me. I was on my way to the shower
and she was still getting her top off. Get a life, you have the same
parts I have, probably bigger, maybe newer, but the same, so what is
the deal. I leaned not to be ashamed of what I have and am proud of
it even if it is small.
Teamwork was the most important lessons learned from my initiation.
Yes there was humility, depravity, and outright embarrassing
situations. But after those two months of hell, I had close to four
wonderful years, and built lifetime friends. Of the seven pledges I
mention in the narrative, I communicate with six of them at least
weekly. I love them all, the seventh died two summers ago in a
boating accident in the Caribbean Sea. I still maintain contact with
the older sisters, but not as close as the ones I went through hell
with.
I have become successful beyond my wildest dreams, and I credit a
lot of that to the teamwork skills I was forced to develop during
the initiation process.
If anyone has any questions or wants further details, please respond
to this posting and I will get back to you.
Your comments regarding hazing, pro or con are welcome also.
Thanks for reading,
Joyce
`96
As one of the pledge masters, I administered all of the
shortcake's
task. We all worried about her because at first she was so quiet and
never complained or cried no matter what we did. We were worried
that she might go over the edge or something. Turns out, we had
nothing to worry about; in fact you sometimes have to gag her to
shut her up. Despite her small size, she was a trooper in every task
and excelled at most. I am proud of her and we are good friends. I
support her fully in her advocacy for controlled hazing.
Dawn
`92
Shortcake is one of a kind. It is hard not to like her. As the
president, I had the honor of welcoming her to our society, but I
also was responsible for helping devise tasks that drove the
majority of her class' pledges out the door. All of us lost a
great
deal of money on her as we had bet early on she would quit and the
harder the task we devised, the harder she tried. Most of us knew
that we had lost when she let us cut her hair. While we lost on our
bets, we gained a friend, a confidant, someone you can truly
trust—a
rarity today.
Karen
`92
Joyce and I went through hell together, literally. I changed her
smelly diapers, but she was beside me all the way with my tasks,
including staying up with me almost all night trying to clean the
printers ink off my body. I had been painted from head to toe and
could not reach some areas. She was so tired the next day from lack
of sleep, but just kept plugging. She was always thinking of others
before herself. After all these years, she is still one of my
closest friends.