I was personally never in a fraternity but I went to a couple of frat parties in college and I could tell, even as a guest, that it would take a certain kind of person to live there.
But one thing is for sure: parties at frat and sorority houses can get wild and even inappropriate.
Check out what these people had to say about this.
1. Turtle races!
“A fraternity on my campus got in trouble for hosting turtle races in their basement… not due to animal cruelty (the turtles were surprisingly well cared for), not due to gambling (it was actually legal in our state), not due to being over capacity (though the fire marshal may have argued about that), but due to six brothers contracting salmonella after kissing their winning turtles.
It was literally treated as a public health hazard!”
2. That’s a lot of sand.
“I wasn’t in a frat, but my friend was, and every year in November, they would have a party called ‘Beach Bash’ where they would put 14 TONS OF SAND in the basement and add boardwalks and lights and music, and everyone would come dressed in beachwear.
This was in Wisconsin in the winter.”
3. Explosion.
“One of our frat houses was a few stories tall and had a back stairwell with a large open space at the bottom.
A lot of beer bottles went over the railing to smash into millions of pieces at the bottom, but the best was watching a very drunk brother toss a printer over one night.
Absolutely exploded when it hit the ground. Think about it every time my printer decides not work.”
4. Terrible idea.
“Former sorority girl here.
I knew about a fraternity house that had a tattoo “shop” in their basement.”
5. Classy.
“When I was a freshman, the women in my all-female freshman dorm were invited to a ‘Pimps and Pr**titutes’ fraternity party.
Obviously, the goal was to encourage the youngest, newest, and most impressionable women at the school to dress skimpily and show up at this fraternity in order to be plied with beer (obviously illegal for under-21s in the US).
Just… super gross. This was in 1988, but I’ll bet parties like this still exist.”
6. Nice and cold.
“Although we never hazed initiates or did anything remotely like it, members would routinely run from our house, around the outside of the neighboring dorm, naked, and sing at the top of our lungs a ritual song to two Naval cannons on the other side of the dorm, before sprinting back.
This is in Maine, in the winter…”
7. Why????
“One frat on campus made their pledges eat a bunch of natural laxatives (like prunes) and then finished off their meal with a chocolate-covered laxative pill.
Another frat was rumored (and very likely be true) to make their pledges dig a hole, pee in it, and sit in it overnight, every night they went out to pledge.”
8. Jeez.
“Goldfish Parties.
Frat at my school made every person entering take a shot with a live goldfish in it (shot of water so fish was still alive), then you could chase it with a liquor of choice.
One of my animal-rights friends tried to go protest. She ended up getting punched in the face. Somehow, the puncher didn’t get kicked off campus.
There were no ramifications for the frat other than a stern warning (that they didn’t listen to) to not host Goldfish Parties anymore.”
9. It’s a fun game!
“Brothers would punch holes in walls, hide beer inside, then patch the holes for the next person to punch that spot to find.”
10. Put ’em to work.
“Using pledges as forced laborers.
As gross as most fraternity houses are, they’d be even worse if they didn’t have pledges cleaning.”
11. That’s odd.
“In many cases much easier for a fraternity to have a fraternity house because sorority houses are considered brothels.
To deter women from enrolling in college lots of cities have banned single women together.
If too many single women live together it’s considered a brothel in many areas. So sorority houses are illegal in many cities but fraternity houses are legal.”