* The Daily Beast's Tricia Romano declares Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa a "post-racial commercial genius." Commercial genius? Yes, ladies. Post-racial? Not so much, says Georgetown Girl.

* Liz at THE LINE writes about the problematic social imbalance between fraternities and sororities:

The social structure that we lock into as a sorority is, for lack of a better word, stupid. Here’s how it works: sororities are dry and fraternities are not. This means there is absolutely NO alcohol allowed in the sorority houses. If the fraternities host all the parties, decide who gets to come, and provide all the alcohol, who holds all the power? Frat parties can be fun –my friends and I are even known to take our costumes to the next level. But there is a problem with the structure because it promotes an unbalanced social scene.

* Help Holla Back DC! re-brand itself.

* Milk Nymphos star Lorelei Lee talks to Broadsheet about the importance of keeping her real name private:

While most of the fan mail that I receive is positive, I've also received a number of e-mails that have been pretty frightening. For my own safety, my professional name is the one that I use in every public context. There was never a need for my legal name to be revealed in open court. The prosecutor's claim that using my professional name would give me an "air of legitimacy" was incredibly insulting.

As it turns out, I'm not the only one hoping that the widespread media coverage of date rape drugging will die down a bit. A fraternity on the University of Arizona campus has been accused of sabotaging 10,000 campus newspapers in order to cover up a small item in which a woman alleged having been drugged and possibly sexually assaulted at one of the frat's parties.

The copies of the Arizona Daily Wildcat containing the offending "Police Beat" item were apparently removed from their racks and strewn on the outskirts of campus shortly after publication on Oct. 8. The Daily Wildcat pinned the sabotage on the fraternity named in the piece, Phi Kappa Psi, after the Spanish homework of members Alex Cornell and Nick Kovaleski surfaced at the site of the discarded newspapers—a revelation the Phoenix New Times astutely notes mirrors a plot point from the 1998 film The Big Lebowski. The New Times phoned Phi Kappa Psi President Keith Peters "to find out if two 'pledges' were really dumb enough to steal 10,000 free newspapers and then leave their homework with the stolen stash." Peters declined to comment.

The student paper later received less hilarious evidence linking Phi Kappa Psi to the crime—e-mails from friends and relatives of fraternity members confirming that the theft was engineered "under the orders of fraternity leadership." Despite the paper's leads, the University of Arizona Police Department closed the case "without questioning any Phi Psi members."

Nevertheless, the prank has directed significant campus attention to the original item, a modest 250-word crime brief. It's clear that Phi Kappa Psi severely miscalculated their damage control over the drugging accusations. Even on a college campus, a straight item on an attempted date rape will hardly cause a stir. An item on a fraternity's elaborate—and absurdly botched—plan to keep that attempted date rape item hush-hush, on the other hand? People actually care about that.

But let's get back to the reason this 10,000 paper cover-up is so offensive in the first place: Apparently, the fraternity really, really, really didn't want people to know that its parties may feature date rape drugs. Below is the original crime report that Phi Kappa Psi was so afraid of getting out there. (Heads up for the future, boys: Newspapers are on the Internet these days). According to the alleged victim's testimony, she experienced symptoms of GHB after attending a Phi Kappa Psi party in September:

The woman claimed that on arrival, a fraternity member she knew gave her a drink. Later, an unidentified man gave her another drink. The woman told police she had assumed both drinks contained vodka, as they were both colorless. The woman reported that at approximately 11:30 p.m., she had begun feeling “overly flirtatious.” The woman also claimed to have experienced a loss of both hearing and bladder control. The woman told officers that her friend had walked her back to her residence at the Arizona-Sonora Residence Hall at approximately 1 a.m. on Sept. 27, at which point she vomited. The woman’s friends later told her that between the hours of 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 26 and 1 a.m. on Sept. 27, she had made out with three different men at the party. The next day, the woman looked up GHB online and believed she had experience its symptoms. She also told police that she had attempted to contact the fraternity president and had left several messages at the fraternity, but had received no replies. She told officers she was reporting the incident to document the event in the hopes of preventing any future sexual assaults.

Photo by kenlund, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

According to fraternal historian ­Nicholas Syrett, America’s fraternity culture has thrived on a fear of homosexuality since the 1920’s. All-male fraternal organizations, Syrett writes, “compensate for what might be perceived by outsiders as either feminine or gay behavior by enacting a masculinity [of] aggressive heterosexuality.” In order to preempt homosexual interpretations of the fraternal bond, the brothers employ ritualistic paddling, frat house sex, and homophobic epithets to fight their way back to straight.

The Syrettian fraternal tradition poses some pre-professional problems for the young men on the campus of George Washington University.

After all, GW’s fraternity brothers are the nation’s future congressmen, investment bankers, and CEOs. They won’t reach those positions if their Google profiles turn up associations with homophobic and misogynistic fraternities. So GW’s frat boys—and don’t call them that!—are straining to undo the legacy of “aggressive heterosexuality” and gay-bashing forged by their predecessors. It’s an effort that involves a good deal of re-education, some new alliances, and a compensatory vice or two.

RUSHING. Each September, GW’s potential pledges navigate a monthlong schedule of university-sanctioned rush events. The activities provide a brief introduction to each fraternity’s social reputation. Will the future fraternity brother enjoy s’mores at Kappa Sigma’s “acoustic jam” or feast upon Kappa Alpha Order’s steamed Maryland crabs? Will he chat up Sigma Chi’s favorite sorority ladies or help Sigma Nu launch a frozen turkey down a Slip ’N Slide? Will he scarf Lambda Chi Alpha’s Chipotle burritos or watch the brothers of TKE take a sledgehammer to a car?

This year, Beta Theta Pi decided to trade the food porn and the masculine displays of destruction for a more meaningful approach. “The events that I rushed into initially were food-focused,” says Stephen Molldrem, the fraternity’s vice president. “This year, we’re trying something completely different. Other fraternities will pick men who share their values out of the ones who show up for the Maryland blue crabs. We attract men of values, and we then just happen to serve them Maryland blue crabs when they show up.”

Beta Theta Pi Vice President Stephen Molldrem

That formula—values first, crabs later—helps weed out the homophobes with the hungry. In Beta Theta Pi’s first rush event this year, titled “Frat Versus Fraternity: Myths Debunked,” Molldrem and his brothers discussed popular misconceptions about “frat boys” with potential pledges.

William Zelenty, the fraternity’s rush coordinator, says the strategy had helped establish Beta Theta Pi as an organization of principle. “In the past, the fraternity was about upholding the status quo and letting the sexist and homophobic stuff fly,” he says. “Now, we’re dealing with it. If you’re the kind of person who goes around and says that kind of stuff, you’re not the kind of person I want involved in our chapter. Not everyone is perfect, but if any homophobic comments arise in a meeting or on the Listserv, I can tell you right now that it’s quelled immediately.”

Also not welcome at Beta Theta Pi: stereotypical comments about sexist and homophobic “frat boys.” “It’s just patently offensive,” says Molldrem, who is gay. “Even using the words ‘frat boy’ together can connote a bias.”

Beta Theta Pi rush coordinator Will Zelenty

HAZING. When one GW sophomore pledged an off-campus fraternity last year, he was relieved that the hazing process did not involve the “grotesque display of homosexual actions and physical pain” he had heard rumors of back home in Alabama. But what the hazing lacked in homophobia, it made up for in Kentucky Gentleman.

The night he officially pledged the fraternity, the student and his pledge class assembled in the frat house. “A trash can was brought out and put into the middle of the floor, and we were told to stand around the trash can,” he says. “We were then asked to drop our pants, but to leave our underwear on,” he says. The light homoeroticism—and the trash can—proved red herrings for the main event. Once the pants were dropped, the student says, “a bottle of Kentucky Gentleman bourbon was introduced to the circle, opened, and passed around among the circle of pledges.

As the pledges drank, the brothers sang. “You would have to drink until they stopped singing,” he says. “The first time, it was not that bad—they didn’t sing for that long,” he says. “The second time, they sang for maybe 10 to 12 seconds—an extremely long time.” When the bottle was finished, the pledge pulled up his pants as a newly minted member of the fraternity. “Shortly after that, I blacked out,” he says.

The student awoke in Georgetown University hospital to learn that he had left the post-pledging party, entered another student’s dorm room, and urinated all over his possessions. The student called the University Police Department, which administered the pledge a breathalyzer test. He blew a .24.

All hazing activities—from “paddling” to “scaveneger hunts”—are banned on the GW campus, and many fraternities honor school rules. When GW frats do haze, the activities—low on the homoerotic domination, high on the blood alcohol content—comport with the campus’ progressive nature. When fraternity brothers don’t fear associations with homosexuality, they’re a lot less likely to turn their hangups into a good paddling. But chugging alcohol is universal. Stereotypically, “frat boys are thought of as sexist and homophobic, but I don’t know if I’ve ever really heard that at GW,” says Josh Brown, rush coordinator of Zeta Beta Tau. Brown, who doesn’t drink, says that even GW’s wildest frat parties involve only “drinking to prove yourself,” not “drinking to get a girl drunk.”

PARTYING. Todd Belok, a GW sophomore, was a member of the school’s Naval ROTC program when he decided to pledge Beta Theta Pi. Belok wanted to make sure his potential brothers “didn’t hate who I am,” so he casually informed a couple of brothers of his sexual orientation over the course of the pledge process. “I was taking a course with one of the brothers who happened to be in my class,” says Belok. “I asked if I could bring my boyfriend to [a fraternity] party, and he said that would be completely fine.” Later, inside the Beta Theta Pi house, another brother “pulled me over and told me it was totally OK, and they didn’t have a problem with it here.”

Beta Theta Pi brother Todd Belok

The fraternity house quickly became a safe haven for Belok. A few weeks later, Belok was again partying with his boyfriend in the Beta house when a couple of Belok’s fellow NROTC midshipmen saw the couple kissing and reported the infraction to their superiors. “I had seen the guys at the party, and I was a little bit concerned,” says Belok. “But I thought it was really wrong to keep on hiding.”

The incident, which led to Belok’s dismissal from NROTC under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” revealed a growing rift between two of the nation’s most masculine traditions—fraternity life, which embraced Belok’s sexual orientation, and military life, which rejected it. Belok’s dismissal hasn’t prompted Beta Theta Pi to take a more discriminating approach to its guest policy. “What are you going to do? Stop everyone at the door and ask them about their thoughts on various social subjects?” says Belok. But it has renewed the house’s commitment to its idea of fraternity culture. “A lot of the brothers were really angry that it happened,” says Belok. “And they were really angry that it happened here.”

Photos by Darrow Mongtomery

How about we get more to the point and call it: People Who Shouldn't Have Sex: Rapists.

Date Rape Anthem: Asher Roth's "I Love College"

Relevant Lyrics:

I can't tell you what I learned from school but
I could tell you a story or two, um
Yeah, of course I learned some rules
Like don't pass out with your shoes on (get the sharpie)

And don't leave the house 'til the booze gone (no we're not leaving)
And don't have sex if she's too gone
When it comes to condoms put two on (trust me)
Then tomorrow night find a new jawn

Why It's So Rapey: On the surface, Roth's love-letter to undergraduate debauchery condemns date rape ("don't have sex if she's too gone"). So why would this Village Voice detractor call the Morrisville, Pa. rapper's first album "nothing more than a soundtrack for date rape"?

Maybe it has something to do with the context of Roth's one-line defense of consensual sex. At the beginning of his video for "I Love College," Roth awakes on a fraternity house couch with a half-naked girl passed out on his lap. He doesn't date-rape her: He just pushes her off onto the floor and starts drinking again. Later, when the party is in full-swing, Roth boasts that he drank the party house dry as he "danced my face off and had this one girl completely naked." He doesn't date-rape her: He just uses her naked body to boost his cred in a rap song.

Roth's song does sets limits for consensual sex—don't do her if "she's too gone"—while simultaneously urging college students to push those limits by getting wasted and getting it on—in other words, doing her when she's juuuust gone enough. In a fraternity house full of people partying naked until all the booze is gone, "she's too gone" might start to seem pretty relative.

Meanwhile, one in four women will be sexually assaulted while in college, making the listener wonder how Roth learned the "rules" of college behavior. Roth knows now not to a) pass out with your shoes on, b) leave before the booze is gone, c) date-rape a girl, and d) have unprotected sex. Has he learned from experience?

Still, it's enough for commenters on feminist blog Feministe to defend Roth against charges of racism and sexism: "He does the bare minimum of saying, '…don’t have sex if she’s too far gone,' whatever his motives," one writes. "I honestly didn’t expect that much because date rape is usually so fucking hilarious to frat boys."