A sophomore at the University of California, San Diego has exposed the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity for trying to solicit ‘pledge boobs‘ photos from women. If you’ve never heard that term before, ‘pledge boobs’ are pretty much what you’d expect them to be: photos of a woman flashing her boobs with ‘Rush *insert fraternity name here*’, in this case it was ‘Rush ΣAE’.
The girl who was asked by an acquaintance for pledge boobs was appalled, and instead of dealing with her friend and telling him all the reasons she thought this was a despicable practice and talking it out with him she decided her best course of action would be to publicly shame this kid, and put up a long Facebook post that has since gone viral. Here’s that initial interaction:
Rachel, the girl asked to show her ‘pledge boobs’, then took this story to the local news. The NY Daily News reports:
Instead of complying, Friedman posted the seedy request on Facebook and contacted local news organizations.
“It is common practice and goes along with the rape culture,” she told the station. “It is more common in Greek life than any other aspect.”
The student later apologized on Facebook and asked Friedman if she would remove his text from her post, the station reported. The offending members of the fraternity, which was founded at the University of Alabama in 1856, have been suspended by the local chapter.
“The national organization and its leaders do not tolerate behavior of this kind, nor is it part of any activity or expectation by the fraternity,” spokesperson Brandon Weghorst said in a statement.
In a bizarre twist, Friedman said she had met the fellow student one year ago at a “Free the Nipple” campus demonstration.
The offending members of UCSD’s SAE have since been suspended and Rachel’s story is still picking up news all across the nation. For more on this story you can click on over to Gawker’s write up of the situation.