A Nation of Sayrevilles indeed. Michael Kasdan digests the latest high school locker room hazing and abuse incident, this one in Doylestown, PA.
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By now we are all familiar with the facts:
- Deeply troubling allegations of inappropriate hazing and sexual abuse at the hands of high school football players.
- A canceled football season.
- The outcry of students and parents, upset with the decision to cancel the remaining games.
But this isn’t another report about Sayreville. It’s a new report from another suburban high school, this one in Doylestown, a suburb outside of Philadelphia in idyllic Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
As reported by ThinkProgress and The Daily Record, Central Bucks High School West’s football season has been canceled by school administrators due to allegations of extreme hazing that involved forcing freshmen to touch other players’ genitals, as well some form of ‘waterboarding’ that involved placing towels over their heads and leading them into the showers.
I applaud the decision of the administration to cancel the season in Doylestown, just as in Sayreville. As the Superintendent, David Weitzel, stated, “I want to be clear that these activities did not result in physical harm, but were not harmless.” Only an absolute zero tolerance policy by decision-makers will teach that this behavior is not acceptable. This cannot be achieved by cowing to pressure of playing a game.
I am again aghast at the parents who do not understand this, who complain about the lost football games.
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These incidents raise serious questions about our culture and about our values.
In my Good Men Project article about Sayreville, What’s Unusual About Sayreville’s Locker Room Sexual Assaults? Nothing, I openly wondered how often this type of sexual abuse based hazing happens. I noted that though much of the evidence is anecdotal, there is data indicating that it happens more often than we may realize and acknowledge, both on football teams and in fraternities. Some of the evidence is discussed in that article.
But let’s go back to the anecdotal for a moment. Since publishing the Sayreville article, I’ve personally heard a number of these anecdotes. From friends, in emails, in notes, in comments.
I’m beginning to think that these anecdotes are far more important than the statistics here. More true.
Salon republished our Sayreville article under the title, “A Nation of Sayrevilles: why locker room assault is all too common.” When I first saw that title, I remember thinking to myself, “Clever headlining, but ‘A Nation of Sayrevilles’? That’s a bit much.”
Now, after a week of hearing peoples stories, after reading about this next Sayreville in Doylestown, what I’m thinking is:
“A Nation of Sayrevilles indeed.”
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There are a lot more Sayrevilles out there.
We abuse each other, physically, emotionally. We work violence on each other. We assault each other. And we let it happen over and over and over again.
Through our continual coverage of this issue, we are trying to promote a dialogue that puts us on the road towards change. Hopefully.
We need to keep shining a light on that which previously was just not talked about.
We – both parents and children – need to change from a culture of ‘just go through it’ and ‘just watch in silence’ to one where we speak out and say ‘this is not OK.’
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For additional Good Men Project Sports coverage of this issue, see:
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The Good Men Project, What’s Unusual About Sayreville’s Locker Room Sexual Assaults? Nothing, by Michael Kasdan
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Salon.com, A Nation of Sayrvevilles: Why locker room sexual assault is all too common, by Michael Kasdan (reprint from The Good Men Project)
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The Good Men Project, With Football and Hazing, History Repeats Itself, by Brian Patrick Harmon
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BBC News, ‘It’s rape’: Sayreville High School players face charges of abusive hazing, citing and quoting Michael Kasdan of The Good Men Project.
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Photo Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/Jenni C
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To hear such sickening acts of cruelty and violence is just disheartening….I have heard one of the karate students talk about fights in the HS lacrosse locker room, which always seem to happen as soon as the coach is out of sight….but this sodomy stuff is just another level of sadistic behavior….I assume this is occurring in a nice suburban neighborhood with “nice” families….just appalling…
So now that these issues are surfacing via HS hazing and misc events, society has decided there’s a problem? It’s sad that it’s taken these incidents to bring light to a problem that’s been around for a long time. I don’t want to minimize these incidents in any way shape or form, but I’ve been working with adolescent male issues for 15 years now. Kids rolling through the criminal justice system like cattle through a slaughter house has been ignored for more years then I can remember. But if incidents like these provide exposure to the problems with adolescent males,… Read more »
Tom, you should write an article, push the conversation further. You really should.
A Nation of Sayrevilles INDEED! I could not have said it better myself. When I discussed the Sayreville incident with my husband, he thought the actions taken by the school were extreme…that this type of behavior was going on when he was in high school over 30 years ago. I reminded him that just because that was happening back then, it does not make it right. It is exactly the behavior of ‘turning a blind eye’ to what is happening and allowing it to happen that turns boys and girls into men and women who think that physical abuse, sometimes… Read more »
Those who defend hazing and bullying will continue to defend it. For them, it isn’t about right and wrong, its about their emotional need to abuse and donimnate others. In the USA, they reserve that right as part of being male, or being white, or being American or being Christian or whatever. There are versions of this same attitude overseas, where the race or religion changes but the need to dominate and subjugate remains. Opposing this mindset is the battle we must fight. We must fight and win in the field of politics, religion, race and gender. The bullies grow… Read more »
Christopher Anderson –
I agree.
Its become clear as day to me.
Good question Lisa Hickey. Tough question. If you’re asking — “Is it football?” and I don’t think you are, than I’d say its almost impossible to sort out. Is there a “trigger” like hazing or something else? I have no idea. I’m not looking for a near-term trigger. Too hard to correlate. BUT if the question is – are there immense pressures on boys that they do not have the maturity and emotional tools and a comfort zone in our world to deal with, and so it blows up in violence and abuse, I would say absolutely. T here’s a… Read more »
Four words:
Tip of the iceberg.
From Bloomberg article last year:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-20/sodomy-hazing-leaves-13-year-old-victim-outcast-in-colorado-town.html
“High-school hazing and bullying used to involve name-calling, towel-snapping and stuffing boys into lockers. Now, boys sexually abusing other boys is part of the ritual. More than 40 high school boys were sodomized with foreign objects by their teammates in over a dozen alleged incidents reported in the past year, compared with about three incidents a decade ago, according to a Bloomberg review of court documents and news accounts.”
Thanks for continuing to shine a light on this difficult subject Michael. Soooooooooooo….I have a question. The school shooting in Washington? The kid was 14 years old and a Freshman — and, according to the NYTimes “played football and had been elected homecoming prince.” Could there possibly be some underlying current in these events? Could there have been hazing at that school? Or…something that was a trigger? Like, “if boys can’t be victims, what then?” I am not even saying this is likely—just that if there are underlying patterns with boys and men, we are the ones most likely to… Read more »