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I hate how everything men enjoy is treated like this. No actual issues, just innuendo and psycho-analysis in the service of emasculation.
Jokes are not a problem, pranks aren't a problem and you even noted yourself that the misogyny and homophobia is light hearted, which in a sane world would be another way of saying "not a problem". And then we get the kicker - repressed homoeroticism. No action involved is an issue, but there are problematic thoughts involved.
These young guys might be homophobic! They might be misogynists! And heh heh heh, they might even be gay themselves! What a relief that would be.
+++ Thank you. There is little discourse that strikes me as stupider and less informed by these sorts of takes on "locker room culture" and male spaces. Where else in the culture do we see people constantly collectively seeking greatness? And who else is generating greatness? Its no mistake that early Facebook, early Amazon, early Tesla (and kind of still Tesla) all get slandered with these same insults. Its what works! If you don't like men making jokes, pulling pranks, and enforcing norms against buggery, you don't like civilization. Which I suppose for some might be the point, but if you aren't part of that group enlighten thyself!
A little too antagonistic. This isn't a locker room, we have norms of politeness here. You can defend locker room norms, but calling the attacks on them "stupid" is not really in line with what we expect.
If you don't mind my asking, what description would have been better and still communicated that the poster disapproved?
Not using the word stupider would have been enough.
I'm just trying to come up with something milder and it comes up blank.
Something like "misguided" would change the meaning entirely.
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Yeah I don't think a lot of it is a problem. I'm not one to start an Inquisition over some "problematic" jokes or whatever. But when you're say, having all the veterans take turns pissing on cookies that you then force the rookies to eat, or you have all the veterans take turns teabagging the rookies, or you force the rookies to run a gauntlet of towel-whipping while nude... there's a point where this crosses a line into both homoeroticism and cruelty
I have a hard time believing the "cum on a cookie" myth has much, if any, basis in reality. People have been telling that story (always about some other team or sport, or sometimes somebody else's frat) for decades and I've never heard of anyone with first hand experience. It's possible I've lived in a bubble and different cultures exist with different norms, but this is so far removed from my and my acquaintances' personal experiences that I just don't really buy it as a serious, widespread problem.
Yes, serious, sometimes crossing into abusive hazing happens, but it's much more rare than you'd think just going off the urban legends and sensationalized news stories. So many of these "homoerotic sexual abuse" stories come across like cope or fetish literature by women and nerdy wordcels who have never actually set foot in a male locker room.
None of these are myths entirely and I've experienced all of them in some form, in multiple sports, clubs, countries and continents.
What's not common is the kind of over the top ritualised stuff described in the press, which as you say come off as fetish fan fiction.
It's not the entire team pissing on someone, it's just someone pissing on another guy in the shower.
It's not forcing a rookie to eat buns with cum on/in them, it's tricking them to do it.
It's not the entire team teabagging someone, it's a bunch of guys holding someone down who is then tea bagged by one guy (or doing it while they're sleeping)
Forcing some rookie to run a towel whipping gauntlet naked is par for the course though. People beating each other or games where you get to beat someone is very common, just like it is in ~middle school.
Harsher stuff can of course happen but it's rare.
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CHL hazing is notoriously wild. Former Philidelphia Flyer Dan Carcillo's class action lawsuit against the CHL alleges rookies in his CHL team, Sarnia, routinely being urinated on or beaten while naked.
https://thehockeynews.com/news/carcillos-former-teammates-back-up-hazing-and-sexual-assault-allegations
Jesus, thats pretty grim. Fair enough, guess I'm more sheltered than I thought.
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They absolutely can be a problem, just because feminists like to harp on about lad/bro culture doesn't mean that it's this flawless beacon of jovial good natured fun and they're just jealous harpies trying to drag us down.
I've definitely seen people be seriously hurt, physically and emotionally by both pranks and jokes, being the cause of some of that hurt myself over the years. It's pretty easy for banter and fun to get out of hand and there should be a way to tamp down on that energy and get things under control if the aforementioned lads can't self regulate and are causing problems. Feminists and progressives see no value in lad/bro culture and are therefore completely fine just ripping the whole thing out root and stem, but to deny the possibility of problems or bad behaviour that might need moderating/limiting to me feels like a knee-jerk "defend against the out-group" response.
Yes anything can be a problem, my point is that jokes and pranks are not in and of themselves problems, and that is a common theme I see in the discourse - the crimes men commit are perfectly legal activities that, like almost everything else on the planet, can be a problem if done with bad intentions. Following an incident those bad intentions are then assumed part and parcel with the actions, which quickly turns into those actions are tied to those intentions, which becomes those actions are the same as those intentions.
There are 750 players in the NHL. Even if junior hockey has twenty times the players, nothing they do matters or is a problem. Using a couple of thousand concussed Frenchmen to further emasculate all of society very much is.
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