Uni Sport- initiation

[Chchchanging]

Name changed for this and not sure where to post.
DS1 started uni this year. He finds making friends difficult and has had mental health issues since year 9. (His head is permanently full of over thinking, self doubt, rituals, and stress- had no official diagnosis). He also doesn't drink and finds socialising where alcohol is involved v difficult.
He joined the uni sport club for his team sport and has started to enjoy it. He even managed to go to one social.
Yest he went to an away match. The match itself was good.
On the way home on the bus he was pressurised into a game called 'gay chicken' and he had to full on kiss another player (same sex) twice. He pulled away v quickly and 'lost' but still feels like he has done an awful thing.
He is totally distraught and feels violated. He felt trapped in the bus and couldn't say no. He is usually good with peer pressure but this time he just couldn't back out.
I am disgusted that this stuff still goes on.
He will probably not go back to the club ever again now. He is coming home today (pre planned) and honestly if he hadn't been I would have had to go up. I am not sure what he might do.
I don't know how to handle it really. The club is run by the students there is no 'adult' invovlement.
I am so sad for him that his one foray into making friends is now prob over.
Not sure what the point of my post is really but I had to get it out somewhere.

You won’t change the world by reporting this and getting the team disbanded, you’ll simply have one less group for your ds to be part of. In the process you’ll also adversely affect dozens of other students some of whom may get real value out of the team. Some may also use it as a mental health lifeline.

your ds could have moved or pretended to be asleep or simply said no. He chose instead to snog another boy and he feels bad. He needs to understand that the way to deal with this is to resolve his own feelings, not to punish others for his choices.

unless this was a much more serious situation than the op initially described then this is a problem particular to the ops son, not a major sex crime.

It actually isn’t assault OP. Sorry but legally it simply isn’t.

your argument is akin to me saying I was raped because I ended up agreeing to sleep with a boy at uni when I regretted it the morning after. That’s not rape, I agreed. Your DS was not assaulted.

@Ciri I'm not sure why it is that you think that reporting this behaviour would result in getting the team shut down? One would hope for a proportionate response from the SU.

Do you think that the team should be permitted to violate the rules of their own organisation?

We're social animals, being excluded from the group evolutionarily could have meant death, we are programmed to be sensitive to peer pressure and studies have shown that the emotional pain of being excluded is felt very similarly to physical pain in the brain. He could have just said no sounds remarkably like what women are told about sexual assault or domestic violence. Teenagers are particularly sensitive to what their peers are doing, it's part of growing up and growing away. I am not surprised he found it difficult to resist.

They are not allowed to run initiation ceremonies. This was a dare on a bus not an initiation ceremony

Wow. No wonder things never change with your kind of attitude.

He won't be going to the initiation social. Which he has been worried about all term. He'd already decided that. He doesn't want to eat cat food and drink until he is unconscious

It's not the same as him deciding to sleep with a boy and then regretting it and crying rape.
Because he did not decide to do it. He felt forced to. Yes no one pushed his face into the other lads. But he still felt forced

I never said he wanted to disband the team.
I never said he would report it although I think he should.
That is up to him.
But I feel extremely sad for him. He has tried so hard to merely play a sport he loves and has played since being a young child. Something in the fabric of his life for years

And he now won't. Because he is too 'weak'for it or doesn't fit in socially. His social issues have no bearing on the pitch. He is a valuable player to them.
And it's not rugby or football btw.
Anyway thanks again for all your views they have been very helpful.

(Warning: you do sound a bit like MPs saying that their Christmas parties were "within the rules" during lockdown.)

@Chchchanging sorry your DS had to go through that. My student DS just wanted to play sport and have a chat & a laugh but the uni sports teams make it difficult - firstly it was difficult to get into teams as full of 3rd / 4th years and then the stupid games.

No idea why the sports teams insist on stupid games - no matter what they are, drinking ridiculous alcoholic drinks on the bus to dressing up to kissing team mates etc. Many students just want to play the sport - not do the stupid games.

Obviously they have a choice - they don't have to play the sport but given they are at university and it's a time in their life when they can do this (young, free time) it's a real shame.

And I don't think there should be a distinction between initiations and other stupid dares. Also I can't believe some pp are minimising this behaviour - being coerced into doing something.

Exactly this @simplynot

See rugby drinking games etc at all the teams i know are only for those who want to participate, no one is forced and no one is pressured.
The ones who don't drink db't join in, the fancy dress all tend to join in but some costumes tame and others more out there, and the choice to not go
And most importantly they all no that NO means no and if someone doesn't want to join in they don't and they are left alone
What the OP describes is very different to all that

@simplynot but for those who want to play drinking games etc then they can but no one should be forced thats the difference
But an outright ban on anyone doesn't seem right either as it should be a choice
But the game they played seems more of one to force someone to feel uncomfortable and more like an initiation

I don’t think it is different. That’s my point.

I think that unfortunately the Ops son might be in a place where because of his isn’t mental health issues he felt he had to join in. That is unfortunately particular to him. Others will have said “nah mate I’m not snogging him, I’ll take the loss”

the OP has literally said this was assault. It simply wasn’t. The ops ds decided to play.

It is different. It is the difference between "no one is forced and no one is pressured" and "He felt trapped in the bus and couldn't say no. He is usually good with peer pressure but this time he just couldn't back out."

I agree that it wasn't assault, but I do think it violates typical SU guidance on sports teams' conduct.

Needmoresleep Spot on with your analysis - and it is mostly the traditional sports (boarding school background) which have these problems.

I don't think 18 year olds do know what sports clubs at Universities are going to be like. Their experience up to that point is playing their sport in a controlled environment where responsible adults are in charge. Even if they know about the socials, they wouldn't know about the behaviour on the away buses.

The adverts for these particular sports might as well say they are looking for 'outgoing binge drinkers happy to be shamed'

Throughout DD's 1st year she encountered many girls who had been put off returning following the initial trials and social. It's wrong to assume the sports teams would not exist if they cut out the hazing. They'd be made up of a bigger variety of people and likely more skillful players, and more students could reap the benefit for their mental health. DD is at a particularly sporty university. Once when visiting we passed the sports fields as the 2nd team were playing the 1st team of another sporty university, expecting to see some amazing play. We didn't. It's a hierarchical system. First years are expected to toe the line and pay their dues and final year students will put them and their friends in the higher teams.

Less traditional sports societies are much more inclusive and welcoming and manage to play and socialise without the ritual humiliation thrown in. Why not expect that from all of them and if some clubs can't manage it, take the running of them out of student hands and employ some qualified adults to coach and manage the teams.

What was more remarkable at DD's University was that the men's teams got first dibs at the training facilities leaving the women to end training late on a Friday nights etc.

In fairness I have hear the same thing about third years selecting their friends and it being hard for first years to break through happening with Oxford college choirs. I guess it is human nature. Once you have paid your dues you then think you have earned your third year privilege.

For those that say things never happen, these are the two infamous incidents that happened at DCs Universities, one slightly before DS arrived and the other whilst DD was there. A bit dated now, but I have heard nothing since that suggests things have changed, nor that it is limited to those two Universities.

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/article-2786833/LSE-Rugby-Club-banned-misogynistic-sexist-homophobic-behaviour.html

www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-universities-varsity-rugby-matches-907814

(I picked the DM report on the first, rather than the Guardian as I was impressed by the full house of adjectives in their clickbait headline.)

For a full house I tried the other UK University DD attended. This was one of several stories from different years that Google picked up.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/6459109/university-rugby-team-rude-snaps-in-front-of-churchill-statue/

Google search "University name, rugby, banned" is illuminating.

@Chchchanging - how horrible for your DS - in my view completely unacceptable and no wonder we have a problem in society with sexism and homophobia if this is seen as 'normal' and to be tolerated- it is quite possible to have fun, a laugh and a drink (if you want) post match without these practices.

My DS is a social secretary of a college sports society and is working hard to bring in social activities that have less alcohol to encourage a more diverse range of students participating. He's back tomorrow and I might ask his view. His college team are though egalitarian re selection which is done strictly on merit but it is a sport where there is quite a clear measure of success. As a first year he went straight into the college 1st team.

He did though have problems with a Uni Sport team where the culture was uncaring, unwelcoming and unsupportive for those who had potential but hadn't come from a school with elite sporting facilities. The participants are literally fodder for Uni glory and a completely brutal approach to student well being. Now much happier back in the college team.

Urgh I've heard stories about this too. Want to join the football team? Then you have to have a bottle of vodka gaffer taped to your clasped hands and parade around the city centre in your undies until it's finished. Want to be in the netball team? Then you have to drink some weird cocktail with fish guts and rotten eggs.

Just no. It's bullying and awful. Agree with other posters that you must take this up with Uni or the Student Union as it's not OK.

So glad my student son is more into Dungeons & Dragons, and Warhammer. They don't have initiations. They just talk geek to each other.

Actually if you were coerced into sleeping with someone that IS rape. Stop victim blaming.

Googling university initiation death UK brings up a couple of alcohol-related deaths in the last few years. Horrific.

I’m not victim blaming and no it wasn’t rape. I agreed, I regretted it afterwards. It most certainly wasn’t rape.

the OPs son agreed, he regretted it. It certainly wasn’t assault.

neither was it an initiation. He was on the team. No conditions attached. He decided to play a stupid game on the bus. Nobody forced him to. He didn’t try to object. He didn’t say no. He snogged two boys, he then wished he hadn’t.

Im not saying it’s pleasant to regret participating in something and I’m
not disputing that peer group pressure can be a factor but you simply cannot remove the concept of consent when making allegations of criminal behaviour which is what the OP is doing when she starts shouting “assault”.

This is good advice.

My own experience of university was that the level of sexual harassment is incredibly high, particularly from the ‘gay community’ who at my uni were constantly recruiting and keen to call anyone who didn’t want to be sexually touched by them a ‘narrow-minded bigot’ ☹️

The good news is that if your DS has found a sport he enjoys there will be other clubs around, not all can be full of creeps.

It would be a great shame if he, and you, let one bad experience put him off the sport / uni. Bad experiences in life cannot be avoided and it’s essential for all of us to find a way to ‘bounce back’ and try again, whether its a new attitude or a new club or a new job or a new partner etc. Do be sure that you don’t teach your son to always run away from difficult situations, it’s so easy to do that. Rather teach him “Ok that club isn’t a good fit let’s keep looking.”

By the way if he struggles with making friends I would encourage him to explore the local religious groups, unless he’s vehemently atheist (in which case perhaps meditation groups?), they’re usually very gentle and welcoming and less into booze / sexual assault.

Op @Ciri is a lone voice so I would assume they have no idea about young adults & uni life.
Dd is in her first year & has joined a team who have a bit of fun but nothing that would make anyone uncomfortable.
However she's spoken about some of the other sports teams initiations & I was absolutely shocked & that takes some doing.

Well apart from the fact that I have a 20 year old an 18 year old and a 16 year old.

Im a lawyer. Consent is an important concept. You cannot throw around allegations of assault like this. You could ruin a young persons life,

I'd be raising hell about this. If Uni can't run a sports team properly they should cancel it. This type of bullying needs to be stopped.