Why Is the Frat Boy Culture So Sleazy and Sex-Crazed?

By Nicholas L. Syrett, National Sexuality Resource Center. Posted June 4, 2009.

This version of sexually aggressive masculinity is not inevitable. The first generation of fraternity men would not have recognized it because they did not live in a world that denigrated their intimacy or encouraged them to prove their masculinity through sexual conquest, at least not to the degree that we see today. Of course not all fraternity men necessarily practice it, and just how many of them subscribe to this version of masculinity is impossible to calculate. That said, it should not surprise us that the structure and the historical context of the fraternity give rise to this phenomenon: an all-male organization intent on proving masculinity in a world where masculinity is seen as antithetical to intimacy amongst men, because that intimacy is too often understood to be

"gay." Until fraternity men learn to be more comfortable with the intimacy fostered through the bonds of brotherhood without demanding its concurrent disavowal through homophobia and the conquest of women, it seems unlikely that women will be much safer on college campuses with active Greek populations.

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