TikToker Exposes Disturbing Fraternity Ritual Called ‘Hogging’ — That Could Be Considered Sexual Assault
This needs to stop.
megsforfun / TikTok Fraternities are known for having terrible traditions and problematic hazing initiations, however, some of the worst practices they partake in are the unspoken traditions.
One of those is a sex competition that members engage in called "hogging."
The term has been circulating on social media with many people hearing it for the first time, only to learn they may have already been victims of the cruel trend.
What is hogging?
According to Urban Dictionary, the term is defined as, "A competition, usually between a group of men that involves going to a bar/frat/house party. Participants go with the direct intention of hooking up with the fattest girl at the party. The guy who bags the fattest girl wins."
Hogging has had a definition on the website for since 2003.
RELATED: The Perils Of Dating While Fat
Even though the term is dated, it still is being used and the men in fraternities are still engaging in the competition.
Cases of hogging have been punished in the past.
In 2018, Cornell fraternity Zeta Beta Tau made headlines after being but on probation for hosting a "hogging" competition where brothers earned points for sleeping with women who were overweight. They called it a “pig roast."
Therefore, this has been a thing that's well known and happening at colleges across the country. However, very few women know it exists.
Megan Mapes, a plus-size body activist on TikTok, posted a video about the term last month and explained that sometimes the men, in this case, the fraternity brothers, would come into the room after their friend had sex with a fat woman, and start hogging or oinking until she leaves.
She then explained if men are in a sexual slump, they'll have sex with fat women to get out of it.
She quoted her research from the authors Ariane Prohaska and Jeannine A. Gailey who have both written and studied this term as they say it has been "largely overlooked by scholars," and explored the effect it has on women's lives and oppressive structures.
Fraternity's 'hogging' tradtion could be considered sexual assault.
Mapes viral video has now nearly 1.5 million views on TikTok and many women were appalled in the comments to hear about the term.
People commented on the video saying, "I think this counts as sexual assault??"
"Absolutely sexual assault. 100% needs to be made an illegal act. The kind of trauma this would leave the person would be unmatched," another wrote.
Unfortunately for one woman, she said she might have experienced hogging herself writing, "..... pretty sure I was part of a frat ritual."
In Ariane Prohaska and Jeannine A. Gailey's study "Achieving Masculinity through Sexual Predation: The Case of Hogging," hogging can actually be considered sexual assault if men go to the extreme, "such as using alcohol to reduce women’s resistance to sex. In these instances, hogging is essentially rape."
BuzzFeed spoke to Mapes and asked about why the term is unknown to many and how her TikTok can create a call to action.
"My hope is that by having a conversation about hogging, more people will become aware of it and respond negatively to it happening. And so, hopefully, it happens less frequently," she added. "But more importantly, if and when it happens, I hope that people see, and become aware, and we can check each other," said Mapes.
Megan Hatch is a writer at YourTango who covers news & entertainment, love & relationships, and internet culture. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.