I am so appalled by the news that part of the Phi Epsilon sorority initiation involves branding the initiated's genitals with a hot fork. I'm somewhat stymied in general by the idea of Greekdom. When I was in college, I was actually courted quite heavily by a non-official sorority that was seriously not scary. I actually didn't pledge, because I figured that I'd rather spend $1,000 a year on books and having a bed to sleep in rather than paying someone to be my friend. I ended up getting adopted as a "little sister" by a fraternity through my involvement in student government and ended up hanging out with the sorority anyway. So maybe through my non-pledge status, I narrowly avoided getting my hootchie scorched by a utensil stolen out of the cafeteria, but I'm also pretty sure that I would have noticed weeping scorchmarks on the nether regions of my friends in our painfully non-private dorm showers. I want to believe that such things are isolated incidents, but then a friend told me about how everyone in his fraternity was assigned a nickname based on the special unique traits of their penis.

But this branding? With a hot fork? What the heck? Can someone explain this to me, as I am trying desperately to parse the information and I just can't.

So, your genitals are what defines your gender, socially speaking, although we know that this is not always the case. And fraternities and sororities are segregated by gender. So, by extension, your genitalia becomes an instrument of your belonging. And the branding is very archetypal, much like the assumption made about birthmarks during the witch trials of yore. Yay, sign me RIGHT UP!

If you're 18 years old and have spent all semester trying desperately to fit into a clique, and then finally, it's your big moment, you've been accepted, and then they come at you with a red hot BBQ fork, would you have the wherewithal to pull your pants up and stomp back to your dorm? Would you be afraid of social backlash later? Would you worry about being thought a coward for the rest of your college days? Or would you just hold your breath and wait for it to be over? Hmmm. I wonder what this sorority's stance on female genital mutilation is? Would they throw a fundraiser? Make T-shirts? What do you think? Is this no different than getting your peach pierced? Should I lighten up?

The comments totally are into guys with Prince Alberts.