It literally took me all day to write this post. I’ve never publicly discussed this. I regret that I never told anyone at the University that I attended about what happened to me. I felt like the fraternity was bigger than my voice and definitely had more clout. I also felt partially to blame so I lived in silence. Before reading my post you may want to read about The “Draft” in the article Their Dangerous Swagger.

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This morning on Twitter Schmutzie posted a link to an article on BlogHer titled Bloggers React: Prestigious Boys’ School “Draft” and the Sexualization of Girls. I read it and had a rush of emotions. All of the sudden I felt like that eighteen year old girl in college, dating again after a break up with my high school sweetheart. I was completely naive to the games that some boys played back then.

I was invited to a lot of fraternity parties that spring  and had my share of fun. In fact, I went wild. I drank, a lot but luckily I had good friends who made sure I didn’t do anything too incredibly stupid. I was a flirt and rarely turned down a date. I went out with a lot of different guys over a short period of time, mostly from one particular southern** fraternity. I was having a good time and playing the field. I never gave a thought that the reason someone might be asking me out was for some ulterior motive.

Most the guys I went out with were gentlemen. They opened doors, were extremely polite and didn’t treat me like a sexual object. Many of them knew I had just come out of a relationship and knew that I was just having a good time. I really wasn’t looking to date anyone steady, and I definitely wasn’t interested in having sex. Little did I know that was all part of the challenge.

I began dating one particular guy, we will call him Mark*, from this particular fraternity on a regular basis. We had mutual friends and he was different than his frat brothers. He had less money and he was not as smooth. He also seemed to be more interested in academics than constant partying. After a few dates I started dating him exclusively. Mark was a great conversationalist and we had a lot of things in common. Most of our dates consisted of going to the museum and talking for hours in its corridors.  I often would go with him to his fraternity house to hang out and all the guys would joke about how I was now taken.

After we had been dating for about a month, things were beginning to get hot and heavy. He really wanted to have sex and I kept putting him off. He would act is if he respected my position but then he would do things and say things that indicated that he did not. There were times when he would get aggressive when we were kissing or making out and my words to “slow down” would often piss him off. This should have been when I exited the relationship, but I didn’t. I looked at his other great qualities and the fun we had and blamed myself for being a “tease”. Mark had professed his love for me and was always full of compliments and praise, being so vulnerable I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

There were several nights that I actually spent the night with him after going to his fraternity parties or hanging out with friends. Each time I was able to put him off about sex. I would always give some kind of excuse rather than just telling him no. The whole situation was totally uncomfortable to me and I was relieved when he told me that he would be going back home, in a neighboring state, for the summer. I thought that some distance between us would dissolve some of the sexual tension while still getting to know each other. Even though my gut kept telling me to move on from the relationship, something kept pulling me to stay, so I did.

After he left for the summer I was busy hanging with friends and going to school. Occasionally I would run into one of his fraternity brothers who were incredibly friendly and would jokingly ask if I was still dating Mark and invite me over to the frat house to hang out. I would decline the invitation and say that I would see them around when he came into town, but in fact, I would visit the fraternity house uninvited after running into Mark’s college roommate just a few weeks into the summer semester.

The conversation with Mark’s roommate started out very casual. I had  met him a few times and didn’t know very much about him except that he was introverted and was into computers. After we talked a few minutes he started acting very fidgety like he wanted to tell me something. He brought up Mark and asked if I had seen him since he had gone home. I actually had. I had gone with friends on a day trip to visit him the previous weekend and to meet his family. I could tell when I said this that he was uncomfortable and then the words just started pouring out of him.

The fraternity had taken up money and set up a point system for new pledges that involved sexual conquests. Each sexual encounter, from first base to a homerun, was worth so many points. However the points weren’t just calculated on that alone, the kind of girl you scored with was also worth a certain amount of points as well. So having sex with a bunch of different girls wouldn’t necessarily put you as a front runner for the money. The girls personal situation also was worth points as were additional sex acts with the same girl and any memorabilia you collected, like panties or a bra. When girls were invited to a fraternity party they were essentially “graded” on looks, personality, and how difficult it might be to get her between the sheets. The easier a girl was in their book, the least amount of points she was worth.

By the time the roommate had spilled it all, confessing that he had actually been asked to create situations where Mark and I could be alone and even being asked to spend the night out, I felt like I had been sucker punched. I could tell the roommate was not lying, even though I didn’t believe his motives for telling me were entirely pure either. There was something inside of me that just knew, like this had been the missing piece of the puzzle all along and it was nauseating.

I was enraged.  I can remember driving to the fraternity house in a mad rage and without knocking, I barged right into the house where several of Mark’s fraternity brothers sat around “shooting the shit”. Jake*, who I had known over several school terms, immediately could tell that I was pissed. He began to open his mouth and I just blurted out “I want to know about the damn list and how many points I am worth.” Some of the guys were silent, others laughed, and one blurted out that he didn’t know what I was talking about. Jake didn’t even bother with lying, he just nonchalantly admitted that there was a list and that I was on it. More laughter. One of them kept saying how “Mark was fucked” and that just pissed me off even more. Jake and I talked for several minutes and I followed him through the house where he showed me a board that the point system was done on. It was all in code of course but none the less it was there, in front of me, and I got to see my “value”.

When I went to leave the fraternity house Jake began telling me that Mark really cared about me and that it had not been entirely about getting the most points. I just felt sick, angry, and used. He even said that he thought I should feel good about being one of the girls that was worth the  most amount of points. I just kept thinking to myself how stupid he sounded and that I just needed to get out of there before I did something I might regret, like run him over. Before I got into my car though I made it very clear to Jake that I had never had sex with Mark

A gamut of emotions filled me as I drove home that day. I felt stupid and taken advantage of. I was angry that I had allowed myself to be used and paraded around for the amusement of others. I was also angry at Mark for toying with my emotions and making me the object of a sexual conquest for money. I was determined to make him pay for making me out to be a fool and trying to coerce me into bed. I wanted him to feel as humiliated as I had felt standing in that frat house with his fraternity brothers laughing at me and the whole situation.

I never confronted Mark.

I broke it off with him in a letter with little explanation.

I did make him pay in a very cruel and humiliating fashion, but that is a story for another day.

I never got “played” again by another man.

I heard rumors that the fraternity continued with the point system with the next batch of pledges.

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*Mark and Jake are not their real names.

**Don’t ask which fraternity. I will not disclose it.