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By Root 957 0

my mom I was doing it because it was a “community service” sorority, but I don’t think she bought it. I tried to justify it to myself by saying that it was only because my friends were pledging, and I didn’t really care that much about the stupid club. However, I soon realized I was denying the obvious. I wanted to fit in just like every other high school freshman. Who wouldn’t want to be in a prime club like Kappa Zeta? It’s a predominantly white sorority, made up of mostly cheerleaders, rich kids, and the occasional Distinguished Scholar. All of the Kappa Zeta girls dress like they just stepped out of a Gap ad, their nails are perfectly manicured, their hair perfectly curled under at the tips. All of the upper classmen in Kappa Zeta are so elite that when they ask someone to do something, they do it. Even if it means doing something extremely degrading. So, when I received a flyer to attend a Kappa Zeta pledge meeting, I went without hesitation.

At first, pledging was really fun. All of the members were really friendly, and they gave us gifts and sweatshirts with the sorority symbol on it, like they were trying to lure us in. But after the novelty wore off, things started getting hard. The members held a traditional interview called “Questioning.” They’d take us into a room in twos and ask the most embarrassing questions imaginable. As my partner, Sarah, and I waited to go in, we saw previous couples come out crying. We soon found out why. Fortunately, I am practically sinless. Everybody knows that I’m the girl who’s really shy and practically faints at the sight of a boy. So when the members started asking about our sexual experiences, I had nothing shameful to say. But Sarah’s boyfriend is a senior, and all of the members knew the kind of things the “senior men” did with freshman girls. The second they brought up Josh, Sarah started crying…bawling, because she knew what they were going to ask her. You’d think the members would have tried to comfort her, or at least stopped asking about him, but they just ignored her tears. I guess the point of questioning is to see how strong (or weak) the pledges were, so they just kept probing her with personal questions and rude comments. They couldn’t have cared less that they were really hurting her. They had even prepared a baseball cap with “slut” painted on the front, that the girls who had boyfriends had to wear at school. After “Questioning” a lot of the pledges dropped out, including Sarah. They blamed it on their parents or the club being stupid. Maybe it was, but after Sarah quit, things were different. We weren’t really friends with her anymore. It wasn’t intentional. I guess it was just because we were all going to be in Kappa Zeta, and she wasn’t.

The rest of the pledges and myself thought the worst was over. Little did we know the worst was yet to come. Pledge night was the scariest part because the guys got involved. Technically, they weren’t allowed to tell us what to do, but they did anyway. We had to listen. If we didn’t, it meant dismissal from pledging. I was really scared to go to one particular pledge night, because they told us to wear clothes that could get messed up. That night we met at the fountain in the park at eight o’clock. As soon as everyone arrived they made us lie down on the ground and “sizzle like bacon.” I thought, “I can live with this, it might even be fun.” I was perfectly content with sizzling like bacon, but as I looked to the right I could see my friend Shannon. I presumed she must have been given specific instructions because while we sizzled, she kneeled in front of David O’Neal, a popular junior boy. I couldn’t make out exactly what was happening, but he was holding something in front of him that looked like a bottle, and I think she was crying. Then her head started moving back and forth, and as a crowd of rowdy boys gathered around them she started to cry really hard and they started yelling at her. Just as I started to go help her I was pushed back to the ground as a voice screamed, “Where do you think you’re going, whore? Did I