What do you, BRITISH people think about the American sororities/fraternities?

Never come across anything like it in universities in the UK.

However I lived in a tower block with a two floor house system which had communal showers and a coffee room. A jape occasionally played was to grab somebody's clothes and towels when they were in the shower- their door keys would usually be in their pockets, but if they weren't then their door would be locked and the keys put in their clothes. Their clothes would then be hung up in the large window where anybody walking across the courtyard would see the victim. To add a little more spice if the cleaners were around they would be invited to join us in a cup of tea or coffee.
There was of course only one cool way to act- walk in nonchalantly and grab your towel, wrap it around you and either leave with dignity or even better sit down and have a coffee.
I did see one poor sod reduced to tears by this though.

But some apprentices underwent pretty horrible initiation ceremonies
-being crucified on the racking for your lunch hour- the unfortunate was forcibly put in place
by a fork lift and tied safely standing on very heavy duty racking.
He was a cheeky little sod and thought he was hard until a couple of lorry loaders showed him he wasn't.
Probably did him a lot of good.

There were of course other examples, butchery apprentices, in a sausage factory being captured by the production line women, masturbated to an erection and a sausage skin popped on.
Apparently the erection wouldn't go down and they had to go to casualty to have it cut off!

Balls blacked by printers ink or similar was supposedly commonplace.

I have heard of plenty of others but I know these examples happened.

These were just accepted as a good joke and part of growing up in the 50s to 70s; we are a bit more civilised now.

Now for my opinion. I know all about this subject matter. I was never a member but I went to college where these groups were very strong. If one did not join, they were left out of everything; even normal friendships. I was going out with a young woman who had joined a sorority. Once she joined, she immediately broke up with me, for absolutely no reason on my part except that I was not part of the "Greek" establishment. End of story. These groups are great for immature people who need other immature people to bond.

Well, all these testimonies make my blood run cold.
I never experienced such a thing, thank God! The only thing I have ever suffered from is to be put under another heading: being ostracised for having a different opinion about how to do my job.
But that's another subject, even if it still rankles, long after my retirement.

I don't know much about sororities - mind you that won't stop me making up a story! - but I know from my own initial joining of the great British workforce, that there are always certain rites off passage that have to (or rather had to be, I'm talking late 1970's here) undertaken to be accepted by your workmates.
So I would imagine that most colleges/unis. have similar traditions.

As Jim said hazing isn't just something fraternities and sororities indulge in. There regular stories of naive apprentices being sent chasing after left handed screwdrivers, and while it wasn't hazing as such, my father who was a painter regularly used to set his apprentices the task of burning out the paint pots (they don't do it anymore for environmental reasons), the reason Dad did it was mainly because he didn't particularly like it and he'd had to do it as an apprentice, so he felt the new ones coming up should also experience the entire job, not just the bits they enjoyed. I heard about some of the hazing from the bloke I knew in a fraternity and it was pretty harmless stuff really, these days anything more serious winds up being dealt with and can lead to the chapter of the organisation being deregistered.

That is my position also. Although I've written a couple of stories about them, I never went to college and almost everything I know about fraternities & sororities, I learned from watching 'Animal House'.

A complete and accurate source of information if there ever was one!

I admit most of my fraternity/sorority knowledge came from US films and TV shows. I recommend the show Greek as both good entertainment and having some fairly useful information.

For those who are interested in sorority spanking DJ Black, who is an author here at the library, has much information on his blog, A Voice in the Corner. Look under the Sorority category where there are 32 entries.
http://voiceinthecorner.com/

Also Michael Masterson on the The Spanking Blog has many actual sorority spanking pictures. Look under Sorority and under Sorority Pictures.
http://www.thespankingblog.com/

I was in a fraternity in college. My fevered imagination aside (e.g.,the Gwen's Sorority Days saga)there was no paddling or anything like it. Greek organizations were about communal living arrangements and offered social and athletic activities. Did parties get out of hand on Saturday nights? Occasionally, but it wasn't that big a deal. We didn't have hell week, we had "help week" where we performed some chore for a charitable organization. And no, we never did put up a "Paddling Booth" like in the story of the same name. On major college campuses paddling and all that was pretty much gone by the '60's.