Vulgar behaviour of my fellow school peers

[Mullac]

Last week, my college held a "Fresher's Event" at a prime concert/club venue, mainly involving loud club music, blinking lights and a large proportion of pre-drunk teens. Although the number of drunken teenagers could be seen as ridiculous in itself, what really surprised me, and the school as a whole, was a "game" played by the rugby team. The whole event was actually picked up the The Sunday Times and explains the situation very well:

LAST WEEK they had their freshers? party at a sixth-form college near where I live. This is one of the higher achieving state colleges in the country but for all the academic excellence, it remains connected to the community it serves. That is to say, it deals with the same issues as other educational establishments and the authorities had the usual mess to clear up on the morning after the freshers? party.

They say that about 30 students were admitted to the accident and emergency unit at the local hospital, but that wasn?t what caused the greatest misgivings over the following days.

What bothered a majority of the students and their teachers was the behaviour of a group of boys who came to the party with a game that they thought was funny.

The boys were mostly members of the college?s rugby team and their plan was for each one to ingratiate himself with as many of the girls at the venue as possible, engage in a snogging session, record the event with a notch on their arm and then move onto the next girl. The guy with the most notches would have bragging rights.

You may think that this was nothing more than a relatively harmless prank and even find mitigation in the fact that most of the young rugby players had consumed a lot of alcohol. When the young women, lured into a game they didn?t even know they were playing, discovered what had taken place the next day they weren?t in the least amused. What made matters worse was that the girls only discovered what had happened via Facebook and the boys? boasts about what they had been up to.

The college authorities also took a very dim view of the behaviour of the boys. There was a disciplinary process, warnings, emails of apology from the guilty parties to every student in the college and the Christmas party was cancelled. The boys? behaviour wasn?t just crass, it was beyond that and not far removed from misogynistic.

This is my first experience of a situation like this, both the club atmosphere and the actions of the rugby team, so I was completely thrown. Some people reacted even more strongly and in response to this a feminism society has actually been set-up in the college (which received equal measures of support and hate).


The point of this thread boils down to this:

Are you surprised and do you think it's a big deal? It's been a strong topic of discussion across the college.

 

[Batou667]

It sounds positively tame as rugby club antics go.

And, all the girls involved were individuals who were consensual participants in this snogging, right? They weren't all so naive as to expect a drunken dancefloor hookup to be deep and meaningful, I hope? Were any of the girls "shamed" in the sense of being filmed or named-and-shamed on social media, or was their "ordeal" simply being consensually kissed?

I'm struggling to think what grounds there would be for disciplinary actions, or why this is deemed misogynistic. I certainly don't see what they hope to achieve by "cancelling" Christmas.

 

[Private Custard]

Seriously, this is an issue??

A rugby team with notches painted on their arms is hardly the quietest, most inconspicuous crowd to have in a place, even at a freshers event where the aim of a lot of people (of both sexes) is to get as hammered as possible. Unless they were literally forcing themselves on said females, I'd say they pretty much knew what was going on, and to paint them as victims is a bit of an insult to them to be honest.

Fill a club with drunken teens and stuff like this will happen. It's happened for many many years, and it will continue to happen.

There's loads of variations on the theme. Notches, collecting underwear or items of clothing, pull-a-pig, the list goes on and on. It's not a 'man issue', hell, I've encountered countless hen parties over the years that'd put any group of blokes I've seen to shame!

You don't want to be a notch on someones arm, don't just randomly 'get-off' with them. It takes two to tango.

This whole thing is a non-issue, created by people who are just looking for something to be outraged at. There's a lot of that on this forum recently and, along with all the other sexism topics, is getting pretty fucking boring!

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

It sounds positively tame as rugby club antics go.

And, all the girls involved were individuals who were consensual participants in this snogging, right? They weren't all so naive as to expect a drunken dancefloor hookup to be deep and meaningful, I hope? Were any of the girls "shamed" in the sense of being filmed or named-and-shamed on social media, or was their "ordeal" simply being consensually kissed?

I'm struggling to think what grounds there would be for disciplinary actions, or why this is deemed misogynistic. I certainly don't see what they hope to achieve by "cancelling" Christmas.

Yeah, kind of what I was thinking. I mean, so long as none of the girls were forced into anything, and considering it was just making out, I really don't see what the big deal is. I mean, the article mentions that the guys recorded themselves making out with the girls with the notches on their arms, but it doesn't say that those videos were filmed secretly (I assume that they were of the "selfie" variety and that the girls would have known that they were being recorded, and that they were ok with the recordings if they didn't stop them), and it also doesn't say that the videos themselves were posted on facebook, only that the guys bragged about their game there. All in all it seems pretty tame.

Without more information about what happened and exactly why everyone was so offended I can only say that it seems like quite the overreaction.

 

[Private Custard]

I mean, the article mentions that the guys recorded themselves making out with the girls with the notches on their arms, but it doesn't say that those videos were filmed secretly (I assume that they were of the "selfie" variety and that the girls would have known that they were being recorded, and that they were ok with the recordings if they didn't stop them), and it also doesn't say that the videos themselves were posted on facebook, only that the guys bragged about their game there.

I don't think any video was involved. I think the notches on the arms were the records of the events. At least, that's how I read it.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I mean, the article mentions that the guys recorded themselves making out with the girls with the notches on their arms, but it doesn't say that those videos were filmed secretly (I assume that they were of the "selfie" variety and that the girls would have known that they were being recorded, and that they were ok with the recordings if they didn't stop them), and it also doesn't say that the videos themselves were posted on facebook, only that the guys bragged about their game there.

I don't think any video was involved. I think the notches on the arms were the records of the events. At least, that's how I read it.

I read it as they recorded themselves making out with the girl while having a notch on their arm. The way it's written isn't exactly clear, but rereading it I think your interpretation is correct. If there was no video involved then I'd say it's even more of an overreaction.

 

[Private Custard]

I mean, the article mentions that the guys recorded themselves making out with the girls with the notches on their arms, but it doesn't say that those videos were filmed secretly (I assume that they were of the "selfie" variety and that the girls would have known that they were being recorded, and that they were ok with the recordings if they didn't stop them), and it also doesn't say that the videos themselves were posted on facebook, only that the guys bragged about their game there.

I don't think any video was involved. I think the notches on the arms were the records of the events. At least, that's how I read it.

I read it as they recorded themselves making out with the girl while having a notch on their arm. The way it's written isn't exactly clear, but rereading it I think your interpretation is correct. If there was no video involved then I'd say it's even more of an overreaction.

I think either way would still be a huge overreaction. Have these people never watched any of the countless shows, dedicated to showcasing teens behaving in all possible ways? Shows like 'club reps', 'Sun, Sand and Suspicious Parents', etc etc...

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Sounds like kids being kids to me, nothing that didn't happen back in my day.

If they were individually naming the girls on facebook then that would be a bit much. As per usual, if you're giving a false impression of your intent to get a quick one (snog, fuck, bj, whatever) then that's kind of a dick move (still not one I'd say should result in disciplinary action), but if both parties are just up for a quickie and no expressions of undying love or the like were falsely given to get it then I see no problem other than maybe just being a bit insensitive. Writing an article about it in The Times though? They're 16 year olds, this is schoolyard gossip material at best. Eh...I suppose I've seen worse bullshit talked about by columnists.

 

[ExDeath730]

Well...Vulgar? Yes, but it happens in club enviroments.

Here in Brazil it's not just the guys that pull this kind of thing, girls do the same, so...Hummm, i don't like it, or would do it, but if they want to compete amongst themselves about the number of people they can snog or go on a quickie while the party is going on and no one is forced to do nothing against their will, they can do it. I mean, it's like i said, maybe i have this vision because here both guys and girls do this kind of thing and brag to friends after it.

 

[JaceArveduin]

So... did they just sharpie the notches? Because that word always invokes something a little more damaging to my mind.