Frat Parties

A week or so ago two friends from home emailed me and asked what an ‘American Frat Party’ was as my home university’s student union was trying to re-create one. For those of you who don’t know, this is what it is…

A frat party is held at a Fraternity house on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. A fraternity house is the male equivalent of a sorority house; a house occupied by 60 or so American University boys and one poor house mum who takes care of them all. Fraternities share the same recruitment process, secret pledges and Greek names as their sorority counterparts however the rules for a house full of boys differs ever so slightly from the rules for a house full of girls as you can well imagine.

By the time the weekend roles around the sorority girls, most of which are below legal drinking age and who are not - under any circumstances - allowed boys passed the living room of their sorority house, are more than ready for a party with the boys. The huge frat house is turned upside down with music, traditional red party cups and holy water. Holy water is the name given to a traditional concoction of pure spirits the frat boys unleash on the unsuspecting girls; something I can live without trying.

Now here’s where it gets tricky. Technically, as the University of Oklahoma is a dry campus (no alcohol permitted on campus AT ALL) and the fraternity houses are part of the Uni, alcohol is not permitted in the frat houses.  This however doesn’t stop them, it just means you have to be prepared to dive under any table, bed or bush to hide from security if they come to break up the fun.  In a sense it’s like having a giant party at your parents’ mansion only they come home from holiday a day early… And you’re in huge trouble.

I appreciate that it’s probably my British upbringing that makes me sceptical about fraternity boys but there is something about a man in his twenties choosing to sleep in bunk beds in a room with one or more men that is not quite right in my mind. I understand the bond of brotherhood they achieve and that it is a fantastic way to make friends in your first year of Uni but it just doesn't sit right with me. The only thing that gives me hope is that Brad Pitt was a fraternity boy when he was at Uni in Kansas; this I found out from my sorority sister whose Dad was in the same house as him at the same time… I guess Brad turned out alright.