ZedDash

Drink, drugs, debauchery… welcome to the world of posh uni boys (and girls) gone bad.

The first time I photocopied my breasts, I was 19. Waiting for the machine to whir into life, I unbuttoned the top of my shirt, positioned my bra onto the glass and pressed 'Copy'. Proudly brandishing the sheet of A4, I went to the student bar and asked random men to sign their names across it. I was a first year at Cambridge University and this was part of my drinking society initiation. Drinking societies at elite institutions (which inspired September's hot movie release, The Riot Club) have been around for hundreds of years. But in the 16 years since I underwent my cocktail-fuelled induction, the on-campus culture surrounding them seems to have become noticeably more seedy.

The idea is relatively simple: an exclusive club with like-minded members who arrange dining engagements where the aim is to down at least a bottle of wine. Initiations, like mine, are par for the course. But all too often, light-hearted merriment turns into something darker.

At Oxford University, the Bullingdon Club - famous for having once counted David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson among its members - is notorious for its riotous dinners held in rural hotels or family estates, where rooms were ritualistically smashed up, causing thousands of pounds' worth of damage. Meanwhile, the Piers Gaveston Society became infamous for Bacchanalian parties at grand country mansions, fuelled by Champagne, caviar and illegal drugs.

At Cambridge, the Pitt Club was historically the preserve of former pupils of Eton or Harrow. Although this has been relaxed in recent years, its membership is still predominantly public school, rich and white. "The Pitt pretends to be all civilised and posh," says Ruth, a second-year Classics student. "But it's degenerate just like all the others. The last time I was invited to drinks (female students are only allowed in for drinks parties by anonymous invitation), I walked in on a couple shagging on my coat in the cloakroom. I got the feeling that women were only asked along to look pretty and be available."

<p class="p6">Last year, a male-only society at

Oxford called The Black Cygnets was branded "repugnant" after

organising a spoof 'fox hunt', where men sporting hunting attire

chased women dressed as foxes through the streets. "The girls who

are invited to attend are picked purely on their looks," confirmed

first-year student Carenza Harvey. "The dress code unavoidably and

unashamedly generated a sexist and demeaning predatory feel to the

evening."

And if you think that's shocking, until recently, The Wyverns, a sporting society based at Magdalene College, Cambridge, organised an annual summer party that involved semi-naked women jelly-wrestling. This is the same group that found itself at the centre of controversy in May, when a video emerged of some of its members walking through Oxford city centre, allegedly chanting "rape".

"At my university, there were plenty of drinking societies run by and for boys, mainly from private schools," wrote one anonymous contributor to the Everyday Sexism website. "They would hold ridiculously lavish parties at which drunkenness and debauchery were heralded as some kind of epic achievement. The few girls who were invited were ritually humiliated, objectified and utterly sexualised, yet they continued to go through some kind of deranged notion of 'pride' at having been chosen."

The initiation rites to join these societies can range from the hilarious to the downright sleazy. Just ask Charlotte, 21, who recently graduated from Cambridge and whose initiation involved letting boys drink shots from her cleavage and running around the room in her underwear. "I was drunk, obviously," she recalls. "But when I sobered up, I felt so embarrassed that I'd been peer-pressured into acting in ways I didn't want to." And don't think you're let off lightly at a female-only society: the initiation for the New Hall Nymphs - also at Cambridge - includes riding a bicycle into town wearing nothing but an open formal gown, flapping in the breeze.

The Bullingdon sets its bar rather higher - it requires members to invest in a £3,500 uniform consisting of navy tailcoats with monogrammed brass buttons. Though, of course, none of this is talked about openly. The drinking society culture is still shrouded in secrecy. You only get to know about it if you're asked to join.

This lingering sense of exclusivity and power is particularly prevalent among the men's societies, whose extensive old-boys' networks provide career opportunities post graduation. "I think most girls grow out of drinking societies when they leave university, whereas the guys keep coming back for alumni dinners," says Morwenna Jones, 20, a second-year English student at Cambridge. "At the moment, everybody here wants a job or to get an internship, and there are probably twice as many opportunities for male members of drinking societies to meet CEOs and influential people than women - it's just right there on their doorstep." And there is a broader worry that, once these students leave university, they run the risk of doing so with a warped notion of what appropriate behaviour between the sexes might be. The anonymous commentator on Everyday Sexism concludes that drinking societies are protected by "the aura of tradition": "There was no sense of general outrage," she writes. "The university made no move to challenge them. Until archaic and enormously prejudiced proceedings like this are prevented from continuing, how are we to be treated as equals on the wider playing field of life by these same men?"

There is, clearly, a misogynist undercurrent to what goes on, and women are encouraged to view themselves as little more than sexual commodities. Just look at their names - the male societies have impressive titles redolent of power and battle (The Epics, the Caesareans, The Stoics), while the women often present themselves as sexually available, semi-pornographic objects of desire (The Harlots, The Strumpettes, The Hoes, The Wenches).

Drinking games include 'whaling' - where young men compete to find, bed and 'harpoon' the 'ugliest' girl in a bar or club - and 'Captain's Challenges' - where a 'Captain' is appointed and shouts out dares, such as getting all the girls in the room to take off their tops.

According to Morwenna Jones, sexism is the elephant in the room, and everyone knows it's there. "In my first year, I was part of a drinking society and we were asked out to a dinner by a male second-year drinking society who wanted the theme to be Baywatch," she says. "As a female student, if you're happy doing that, that's great. But I would wake up in the morning thinking, 'Oh my God, why did I do that? There's a photo of me on Facebook half-naked in a curry house.'"

Such incidents can only increase on-campus sexism. Research by the National Union of Students found that 50% of participants identified "prevailing sexism, 'laddism' and a culture of harassment" at their universities. In 2010, an NUS report found that 68% of respondents had been the victim of one or more kinds of sexual harassment while on campus. So why are students today still getting involved?

There is, says Dr Fox, a desire "to fit in". This is heightened by social anxiety about being seen as a spoilsport for refusing to take part in what everyone else is saying is a light-hearted bonding exercise. At 18 or 19 - when you're just beginning to forge your identity - you don't want to be the one labelled a party-pooper.

And there's an element of flattery in being asked to join, too. I know there was for me - the drinking society that approached me in my first year was known for being for the 'attractive' girls. They didn't normally recruit freshers, but said they had made an exception for me. My ego was tickled. Really, how could I refuse?

Of course, some of the excessive behaviour is just trivial - an example of students letting off steam. Over the past few years, and largely because of the unwanted publicity drinking societies have attracted in the press, there's been a noticeable cultural shift on campus: they are now as often the subject of ridicule as condemnation.

"It's toxic," says one Old Etonian of today's Bullingdon Club. "Look at all the shit Cameron's gone through because of it. The really ambitious stay away from it." But when I look back at my days as a drinking society member, I remember them with fondness. I had a good time and met some genuinely nice people who have remained friends. I never felt pressured by men to dress in a certain way or to be sexually available.

I was lucky. If I went back to university today, and was confronted by the barrage of sexism, scandal and debauchery some students have described, I wouldn't want to be part of it. And that's nothing to do with ambition. That's just common sense.

Elizabeth Day is a novelist and a features writer for The Observer

This feature first appeared in the September 2014 issue of GLAMOUR Magazine

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