felt really good to feel like I was part of a group. Since we had to be at the house several days a week for pledging, I’d already spent so much time with these girls,” she told me. “I was so proud of myself because I had gotten into my first-choice house. I couldn’t see cutting that out of my life.” In fact, because the rape had occurred within the Greek system, Caitlin said she felt more protected than if she and the rapist had not been Greek. “I know Kappa Tau Chi can’t do anything because there are enough people who know about it. There’s a ‘They can’t touch me’ mentality,” she said. “But it’s still awkward at functions when the sisters are wearing letters and standing with their house and the brothers are wearing letters and standing with their house. I’m standing in my letters with my sorority and I’m sure they look at me and think I’m evil.”
Several sororities have rules that seem to discourage sex; some, if not most, have a strict bylaw forbidding men from venturing upstairs in the house. Many sororities impose a curfew on male guests and forbid sisters from hosting them overnight. During one mid-Atlantic sorority house meeting I attended at the beginning of the year, the adviser instructed the sisters that they even had to “escort male guests to the bathroom.” But that hardly deterred the girls; that mid-Atlantic house was known as one of the most promiscuous houses on campus. State U’s Alpha Rho and Beta Pi both utterly ignored the no-overnight-guest rule. Some of Brooke’s Texas Eta Gamma sisters blatantly defied it by regularly sneaking boys into the supposedly secret chapter room to have sex.
But the real problem isn’t one of sorority sisters hustling boys into a no-guy zone under cover of bunk bed. The more interesting issue is the sorority system’s contradictory perspectives about sex. On the one hand, the girls are reminded of the need to appear chaste and ladylike; on the other hand, they are pressured to find dates for a multitude of events and are encouraged to go to fraternity formals, which often include an overnight hotel stay. This paradoxical view can confuse new members, who then look to the older sisters to lead by example. An interesting power structure ensues, on two levels. From the fraternities’ perspective, sororities generally consist of attractive girls who have already been prescreened through the rush process. These girls have dates to offer because they need escorts to the many Greek system functions. So a sorority can afford to be a selective group, which is why it is the sororities who usually have control over the Greek Week escort process and can choose the highest bidder (or most generous suitor) from among the fraternities. But the sexual power structure within sororities is even more fascinating. When girls are put in charge of other girls—younger girls who don’t yet understand the political landscape within the house—sex can become a commodity and a way to establish dominance within the sisterhood.
In 1997, a sorority girl came forward to announce that her sorority had ordered her pledge class to sleep with an entire fraternity. The pledge class was sent to stay at a fraternity at another college, where the girls were told to have sex with the brothers. “You have to sleep with the brothers here in order for you to cross over,” the pledges were told. “You have to sleep with them . . . That’s your duty.” At first, the girl thought it was a joke. But when she again was told that her pledge class had to have sex with the fraternity brothers as well as the fraternity’s pledges, she refused and depledged.
Other university groups have attempted to capitalize on sorority sisters’ sexuality. One of the biggest sex scandals to hit the sorority system allegedly occurred at Southern Methodist University in the late 1970s and early 1980s. SMU boosters reportedly set up a student-run network that paid sorority sisters to have
Several sororities have rules that seem to discourage sex; some, if not most, have a strict bylaw forbidding men from venturing upstairs in the house. Many sororities impose a curfew on male guests and forbid sisters from hosting them overnight. During one mid-Atlantic sorority house meeting I attended at the beginning of the year, the adviser instructed the sisters that they even had to “escort male guests to the bathroom.” But that hardly deterred the girls; that mid-Atlantic house was known as one of the most promiscuous houses on campus. State U’s Alpha Rho and Beta Pi both utterly ignored the no-overnight-guest rule. Some of Brooke’s Texas Eta Gamma sisters blatantly defied it by regularly sneaking boys into the supposedly secret chapter room to have sex.
But the real problem isn’t one of sorority sisters hustling boys into a no-guy zone under cover of bunk bed. The more interesting issue is the sorority system’s contradictory perspectives about sex. On the one hand, the girls are reminded of the need to appear chaste and ladylike; on the other hand, they are pressured to find dates for a multitude of events and are encouraged to go to fraternity formals, which often include an overnight hotel stay. This paradoxical view can confuse new members, who then look to the older sisters to lead by example. An interesting power structure ensues, on two levels. From the fraternities’ perspective, sororities generally consist of attractive girls who have already been prescreened through the rush process. These girls have dates to offer because they need escorts to the many Greek system functions. So a sorority can afford to be a selective group, which is why it is the sororities who usually have control over the Greek Week escort process and can choose the highest bidder (or most generous suitor) from among the fraternities. But the sexual power structure within sororities is even more fascinating. When girls are put in charge of other girls—younger girls who don’t yet understand the political landscape within the house—sex can become a commodity and a way to establish dominance within the sisterhood.
In 1997, a sorority girl came forward to announce that her sorority had ordered her pledge class to sleep with an entire fraternity. The pledge class was sent to stay at a fraternity at another college, where the girls were told to have sex with the brothers. “You have to sleep with the brothers here in order for you to cross over,” the pledges were told. “You have to sleep with them . . . That’s your duty.” At first, the girl thought it was a joke. But when she again was told that her pledge class had to have sex with the fraternity brothers as well as the fraternity’s pledges, she refused and depledged.
Other university groups have attempted to capitalize on sorority sisters’ sexuality. One of the biggest sex scandals to hit the sorority system allegedly occurred at Southern Methodist University in the late 1970s and early 1980s. SMU boosters reportedly set up a student-run network that paid sorority sisters to have
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