This fall, as universities across the country are struggling to recreate an authentic remote campus experience, so too are the nation’s Fraternities struggling to make the hazing experience homoerotic enough. This year’s Greek life leaders all agree, putting undergraduates through highly charged physical and emotional challenges is key to fostering lifelong trauma bonds.
Brian “Brinkles” (short for Ball Wrinkles) Keller knows the challenges first hand. As Pledgemaster, Brinkles is responsible for creating the curriculum and facilitating the hazing rituals. “We make all the pledges call each other ‘Homo’ until they get their nicknames, but it got confusing when there were 9 ‘Homo’s in our pledge Zoom,” laments Brinkles.
Brinkles is also making adjustments to one of his most important pledge activities, the annual Ball Smack, where the ‘Homos’ stand in opposite lines and throw lacrosse balls at each other’s testicles. Unfortunately, with remote hazing, the testicles and the lacrosse balls can no longer be in the same room. Aaron Daniels, one of the Freshmen pledging, said, “I’m super bummed I can’t have my balls abused by my pledge brothers.”
This tense homoerotic period of hazing where the brothers emotionally bond with each other is key to the health of the nation’s fraternities. Nathan “Nutsack” Jones, a spokesperson for the Nation’s Fraternities claims, “the gayer the hazing the more devoted to each other and their fraternity the pledges will be so we want to make sure virtual hazing as gay as possible.”
Perhaps the biggest loss due to remote hazing is Fraternity wrestling, the classic Greek life tradition where drunk Fraternity brothers roll around on mildewy carpet to avoid verbal communication. ‘Homo’ Daniels reveals his desires to participate saying, “I was really looking forward to being put in a chokehold by T-sack [short for Testicle Sack]. Ever since we started getting hazed I’ve wondered what it’d be like to be totally, physically dominated by him.”
Pledgemaster Brinkles is confident he will find the right psychological tactics for remote hazing, even though he won’t be able to make the pledges sleep on the basement floor in a cuddle puddle “for warmth”. “At its core, hazing is about having unhealthy boundaries with male authority figures, and in that respect we will always be homoreotic enough.”
The nation’s fraternities noted that if distanced learning continues into the Spring they would have no choice but to be more openly, aggressively racist during hazing.
