Yes, pledges must suffer for your amusement

You get out the Rulebook and are about to put pencil to paper on a new page for sororities, when you think maybe you need to set the groundwork first and so start off with the following rules on the page for your country:

Old Rule: Every young girl dreams of joining a sorority and will try to do so when she's old enough, if she possibly can. All other members of society feel this is an excellent aspiration and encourage it unreservedly.

Old Rule: Anti-hazing legislation does not apply to women under the age of twenty-one. It is socially acceptable to haze women under twenty-one in any walk of life and everyone (including the women themselves) feel it is character building and fosters a sense of teamwork, especially if the hazing is extremely harsh and demeaning.

Then you turn back to the blank page and write Sororities & Fraternities along the top.

Old Rule: The more brutal and degrading a sorority's hazing rituals, the more prestigious and sought after is its membership and the greater the respect given to those sisters who successfully endure the ordeal.

Old Rule: Sororities haze pledges for an entire year in the cruellest and most depraved ways their members can devise.

Finally, you decide that girls shouldn't have all the fun, so you add one more rule.

Old Rule: Because hazing of young men is illegal, most fraternities require pledges to provide a female surrogate, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, to be tormented in the pledge's stead. It is considered extremely rude and cowardly for a woman to refuse such a request from a relative, friend or lover. Once a woman has agreed, she must submit to all requirements of the fraternity and cannot voluntarily withdraw unless the pledge also drops out.

Ready and eager to see the results of your rule-making, you turn onto Sorority Row and are stunned by the sight that meets your eyes.

About a quarter of the woman seem to be pledges, judging by the fact that they're wearing various forms of strict bondage and little else besides. There are girls **** to crawl on their knees and elbows by straps round their arms and legs, girls who have to look up to the sky constantly, because cords run from their noses over their heads to hooks in their arses, girls walking with their knees bent so that the chains from their shoes to the clamps on their labia don't get pulled taut, even girls who have to perambulate on their hands since their ankles are attached to their collars, along with a dozen other variations. Most of them are wearing some sort of gag and their bodies bear the unmistakable signs of relentless and callous punishments, but the suffering of these unfortunate young ladies seems banal compared with the activities taking place in the grounds of the sorority houses.

The first you come to has a garden party in full swing, with many male guests. The pledges (you assume) are standing barefoot on plinths scattered around the grounds, holding trays of drinks and nibbles for the guests. They can't get off the plinths, due to the metal columns rising up between their legs, apparently impaling their genitals. Each girl is sweating heavily and performing a strange dance, moving her feet backwards and forwards, left and right to an unheard rhythm. Every so often, one pledge will give a shriek and a shudder will run through her body, often knocking over the drinks on her tray and sometimes sending showers of canapés cascading through the air. Guests or sisters then take a multi-tailed whip and lash the offender's back mercilessly, not stopping until another girl suffers a similar blunder.

Curious, you enter the gate and approach the nearest pledge, a tall, willowy blonde who can barely see through the tears streaming from her eyes. You notice that the top of the podium on which she stands is made up of metal plates and the spasmodic dance she's performing involves moving her feet from plate to plate in a complicated sequence. Suddenly, she gives a squeal, but manages to avoid upsetting her trays, jerking her right foot back a little, before resuming her awkward jig with even greater desperation. You realize that she accidentally touched two plates at the same time and when you see the black electrical cable running into the plinth, it dawns on you that she must have received a shock.

"It's modified from an electric fence," a masculine voice comes from over your shoulder and you look around to see a handsome youth wearing a dinner jacket, unusual given the time of day, a glass of fizz in one hand.

"I saw you looking at the wire," he continues. "It's really very clever, the active circuit changes four times a second so there's no chance of injury from a prolonged shock, but if she doesn't get her toes in just the right spot, then zzzip, ten thousand volts up her leg and into the baby chute." He laughs, then his eyes narrow vindictively. "It's just a matter of time; nobody can keep it up indefinitely and I'm going to enjoy seeing this one writhe under the lash."

"Why her, particularly," you enquire, more out of politeness than a genuine desire to continue the conversation.

"Oh, because I bet on her being the first to break and I've lost a pretty penny waiting for her to drop her trays. Still, not much longer now; you can see she's starting to tire."

It's true, her movements are becoming less coordinated and precise. It's quite mesmeric and you continue to watch until the inevitable happens. She's just a bit too slow and the current snaps through her leg, buckling both her knees and sending a handful of drinking vessels crashing to the ground. If not for a bar protruding from the metal upright, she might have ended up skewered. As it is, she dropped down onto the spar with sufficient **** to leave quite a bruise when her legs gave way, but **** herself back upright immediately, howling in agony and trying to get back into the rhythm.

The young man who was talking to you is the first to grab a whip and begin to flog the girl's back raw, but you're more interested in her crotch. Her gyrations make it difficult to see, but it looks very red where she hit the horizontal rod. Resting on it to conserve her strength is clearly not an option.

More frequent screams are coming from around the garden as other pledges fail in quick succession. Soon, they will all be getting whipped continuously. You consider taking a turn wielding the lash yourself, but a rumbling in your stomach tells you it's nearly lunchtime—you can scarcely believe you've been here so long, but you suppose that's always the way when you're enjoying yourself. You could stay anyway, but the pledging will continue all year, so there's no need to fit it all in today and you decide to have something to eat, the sound of the lash and girlish screams echoing behind you.