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These stories usually get public giggles and eye rolls. But these are bad dude training camps. They prey on insecure young men and offer a way out of their anxiety: aggression, stunted emotions, masculinism, punishment as “love.”

When my alma mater (Northwestern) had a revelation of hazing in the football program a few years ago, it gave me the impetus to re-process a lot of my experience, particularly because I have a sort of vestigial tie to that football program (as a marching band alum). Hazing sucks.

Hazing sucks *incredibly* in fact, and it's pervasive, because so many of our institutions, both formal and informal, are grounded in cultish, hierarchical, violent practices. AND it's not actually that hard to prevent. You just have to put in leaders who are committed to ending that violence.

Speaking to my personal experience: The football coach at Northwestern, Pat Fitzgerald, was fired for cause, because there was hazing occurring in his program, under his watch. He was not a leader who was committed to preventing it. Now he's coaching football at Michigan State. God help them.