I’ve been wanting to talk about this with my throwaway, so the March contest is well-timed. My experience of this situation is apparently a little unusual, based on people I’ve talked to. And after asking a few friends about it in person, I mostly stopped, because weird looks…
I joined a student club at a university in Europe a few years ago. I was an expat so wasn’t as familiar with this tradition. These things are frowned upon in my home country (rules against hazing), but apparently still happen in Europe.
A few people had warned me against joining because I’d have to do crazy stuff and they thought it was demeaning to women. It turns out I did do crazy stuff, but I didn’t find it demeaning at all. In fact, I found it exciting.
My particular experience involved being topless in a thong in front of at least 100 people while having a messy, sticky substance thrown on me. I’m not exactly sure why, but I found everything about this experience exciting. It felt a little exhibitionistic, but even getting messy was exciting. Maybe it was “you aren’t supposed to do this” kind of thing.