Here’s The Pathetic Story Of A Pretentious Journalist Who Snuck Into A Fraternity Party Looking For Dirt And Found Absolutely Nothing

Bogey Wells10 years ago

There are several phrases from 2015 that I would love to see find their deathbed sooner rather than later in this new year. One of those is, “we’re under a microscope,” with the other being, “Greek life is under attack.” Neither of which are false, yet both only further permeate through our Greek bubbles thanks to a never-ending, media-driven desire to knock down what they see as a major source of privileged debauchery.

A female journalist from “Broadly” decided she was going to go undercover into a typical fraternity party in an attempt to see what truly goes down behind those doors. Using the context in which she wrote her article, she seemingly thought she would be entering a rape dungeon. Shockingly, she found nothing of note. Absolutely nothing. Nothing more than groups of college students enjoying their freedom with a side of alcohol.

Her column is long, so I have gone ahead and broken down the best aspects of her sadly uneventful evening. You can read the entire write-up, HERE.

From Broadly.:

6 P.M. My fixer, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Southern California, texts me saying she no longer feels “safe” or “comfortable” with our plan (to keep her anonymous, we’ll call her “Cindy”).

We were going to crash a frat party, hang out, and see what happens. Just a quick anthropological jaunt into the crude and increasingly vexing mating rites of college Greeks.

For starters, if a dictionary is required to read your column, you think way too highly of yourself. The goal of a writer isn’t to over-intellectualize a simple statement.

“The frats are chartering buses to pick women up from the houses and then they are driving them to a secret location,” Cindy texts. “How can we leave if we don’t know where we are? I don’t even like to drink and I don’t feel safe.”

I tell Cindy that I have pepper spray and a stun-gun in my purse and we can take a taxi home the second we feel threatened.

The idea of an innocent, purely alcohol-fueled rager never crosses her mind. She’s set on walking into a world in which no man concludes a night without taking advantage of at least one vulnerable young woman.

7:30 P.M. I have never attended a frat party before. Even in the waning years of high school, when being invited to a college party was an enticing offer, frats were always unappealing. The testosterone and booze weren’t the problem. As a “fast girl,” I coveted liquor and older boys, but frat boys? What sort of man wanted to participate in a reactionary, retrograde institution during college—a time specifically defined by boundary busting and personal freedom? Why on earth would you willingly join an hierarchical apparatchik that involved hazing and paying dues? Simply to codify business relationships with former Greeks at the Chamber of Commerce? Tribalism, school pride, and sex in shitty bunk beds. No thanks

Fuck off.

7:45 P.M. I’m the most interested in tracking the goings-ons of Pi Kappa Alpha, also known as PIKE. Partly because of a short video clip that surfaced on social media in 2015. Shot on a smart phone, the clip shows a seemingly intoxicated woman performing oral sex on a man while he asks her, “What’s the best fraternity at MSU?”

The woman in the video does not respond to the man’s question. When asked again, mid-fellatio, she responds, “Pike.”

Further evidence of her total disconnect with the operations of the national Greek system is the quote above. We should all be reminded that Michigan State University and the University of Southern California are over 2,000 miles apart. Forget the facts, these two chapters must be part of a national PIKE sexual assault ring.

8:30 P.M. Like a high-school fire drill, but hornier, the doors of various fraternity houses burst open and out pour giddy waves of co-eds. The air is frenetic. I am finally seeing the frat brothers emerge, the matadors set to conquer this impending sex fiesta.

Idiot.

At this point the author has trailed the fraternity and their sorority counterparts to an off-campus bar and snuck in with the group. She’s standing in a corner like a fucking creep observing the action.

9:45 P.M. There’s a no camera, no tweeting, no phone policy tonight. The frat wants to keep the secret vibe going on.

Whichever chapter she tailed is a very smart group.

Coming off of the UVA gang-rape that never happened and the mounting paranoia around campus sex, you might believe whatever I told you. I could tell you that the atmosphere was heady and malevolent; with the boys pushing for an advantage over each girl, waiting for the moment when their guard was down just enough. I could tell you that frats are calculated rape machines and I felt threatened and fearful while surrounded by them. I suppose it could have morphed into that later on in the night in a bunk bed, before consent was given, or when it was rescinded. But that could be the case whenever there is drinking and men and women. I can just tell you that this was a relatively endearing night of young folks groping at the edges of adulthood.

I try to sneak some pictures of the lip locked couples in the middle of the floor.

I feel a tap on shoulder. A tall Asian boy with thick textured hair says, “Hey, that’s not very nice.”

I shrugged. He was right, so I left.

And with that, she left, surely upset that she spent a night undercover to witness the exact opposite of what was expected.

I will give her props, though. She admitted defeat. That’s pretty big. She easily could’ve lied, but the Rolling Stone case proves that blatant lies are never profitable. She thankfully conceded that the average Greek is not hellbent on criminal activity, and while this is not indicative of everyone not in a Greek organization, it’s a very sad example of how sadly ignorant so many are to the inner-workings of our little world. We’re not monsters. We’re college students..

[via Broadly.]

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