Fraternities and Sororities and spanking

This is another one of those "what really happened" threads.

At one time, paddles were definitely used, both on pledges at initiation, and on members who broke the chapter rules (disgraceful display on campus, failure to do chores, sagging grades, etc.)

Today, practically every chapter on every campus has a strict no-hazing policy, which clearly gets broken from time to time as one fraternity or another is in the news for a pledge getting hurt or killed, or leaving the society and either suing for damages or just ratting them out.

When did the big change occur? Did it happen at the same time for chapter discipline as it did for hazing? Were some fraternities/sororities known to use the paddle more than others? And what were typical punishments/hazing rituals?

There is a sorority story that you might find interesting in the library that is based on some of your thoughts and premises. As the story states Candy Red apples is a code to fool National. It is called Alpha Candy Red Apples by Cherry Red.

You might like the movie "Doctor Marston and the Wonder Woman" - about the guy who came up with the Wonder Woman character. I haven't seen it yet, but there's supposed to be a sorority spanking scene in it.

Can't help much, can only tell you that my father was in a fraternity in the 1950s and they definitely paddled in those days. I was in a (different) fraternity from 1980-1984 and ours didn't, although there were probably 2-3/16 that made no bones about the fact that yes they paddled their pledges. This was right after "Animal House" and "assume the position" was a well-remembered part of the movie.

I was in the next bed of the cardiac ward with a guy who had been to an Ivy League University and we were there for some time. He went to Uni in the early to mid sixties.
we had both rowed, he for to a very high standard and while talking about it, he explained the Ivy League system and I asked him if paddling and hazing really occurred, as I found it almost impossible to believe and to explain fraternities.
He confirmed that in his time it existed and that hazing could be cruel and extreme and harm some people psychologically even to the point of suicide, and was now universally banned.

I tried to research this online for a story I wanted to write, but didn't get very far. Initiation rituals were kept secret and may have been altered (or simply made up) by the group organising the initiation that year.

Adverts for paddling devices, including one which fired a blank cartridge just behind the pledge as the paddle landed, seem to indicate that paddling was an accepted practice in the 1940s/50s.

Stories of hazing rituals gone wrong and leading to serious harm seem to have been around almost as long as sororities have existed - I came across a JPEG of a newspaper clipping of such a story from just two years after the inauguration of sororities. (The problem in that one wasn't too much paddling, but a pledge being made to eat spaghetti that had been cooked in soapy water).

The factors causing a decline in paddling (and hazing rituals generally) seem to me to be; the change in attitude towards corporal punishment - the less acceptable it was felt to be in general, the more it was frowned upon in fraternities and sororities; increasing availability and use of drugs in the 1960s - hazing while high could easily get out of hand and result in real harm; and the increasing number of students going to college or university and therefore joining fraternities or sororities (if every member of a sorority is expected to give a paddle swat to each pledge, and the number of members swells from 20 or so to 100 or more, what was a moderately severe spanking becomes dangerous abuse).

I note that some modern paddles are obviously designed to be merely decorative; for example I saw a Canadian example whose handle, in the shape of a cluster of maple leaves, would probably inflict as much pain on anyone attempting to use it as the business end would on their target!

Of course all this is just my opinion, based on a little online research. If anyone actually knows, I'd be interested to hear about it...!

According to my dad, hazing happened in high school as well. He told stories of senior boys whippiing freshman and sophomore boys with belts til they were black and blue. He said when they tried it with him, he took the belt away from the senior and told him he'd beat him to a pulp if he tried it. They seemed to believe it as no one ever tried to whip dad after that episode.

Dad said it would have been different if it were just a few token licks given in fun, instead it was a full bore beating meant to show who was in charge and to show dominance over others. He wanted no part of that scene.

This would have been in the late 1920's and early 30's as Dad graduated HS in 1932.

Hazing has been on the downturn since at least the 1970s. Every advance for rights has led to less and less hazing.

In reference to the hazing/paddling in high schools as well as colleges, there's a great film called Dazed and Confused set on the last day of school in 1976 and there's a practice of the graduating seniors initiating the incoming freshmen by catching them as they leave school and paddling them. The girls have a similar practice, but their's doesn't involve paddling.
I was on a trip in Europe with a guy who graduated college in the early 90's, he went to a fairly big uni in the US and was in a fraternity. He said that at the time strictly speaking paddling was banned, but the fraternities still used it, but only for initiation and it was only a few swats.

Things like Dazed and Confused really happened - but were technically illegal. As time went on the laws started being enforced.

Case in point: the year before I entered high school there was far more hazing than when I got there. One case involved a guy who had entered a boy's bathroom being stripped naked and tossed out the door - almost colliding with a female teacher (I hope they let him finish first). When I got there half the kids were still talking about that story and saying "you're lucky because if we try anything like that this year we'll be expelled". That said, I still avoided the third floor bathroom where the smokers and stoners hanged out.

And if you were on a sports team there were still initiations happening. A few years after graduating I heard how people were trying to stamp out the degrading, humiliating, painful etc hazing in high school. Today I think there's zero tolerance for anything like that.