“Fraternity”
Funny,
how the word means brotherhood.
But also
expectation.
Limitation.
Translation:
“Be like us or be alone.”
And somehow,
I wasn’t either.
Not quite like them.
Not quite alone.
Just
present.
Queer.
Muslim.
Watching.
Learning.
Laughing.
High-fiving.
Grieving.
Challenging.
Becoming.
And maybe,
just maybe,
rewriting what
“brotherhood”
can mean.
“A gay Muslim walks into a fraternity house…” It sounds like a setup for a joke, doesn’t it? But instead of a punchline, I got three years of life lessons, existential crises, and more stories than I ever wanted to tell my therapist. I lived with 64 men in a fraternity house as their House Director for three years, which became a cultural experiment as much as a survival reality TV show, and an intense personal transformation. I experienced a house of entitled, hyper-masculine, and sometimes charming young men who embodied everything I used to despise as an undergraduate and everything I had come to fear as a queer person. It wasn’t the life I had envisioned when I received my master’s degree in student affairs. I imagined I was ready for it all: late-night crises, homesick freshmen, sobbing breakups in the student center, but graduate school did not prepare me for fraternity life. It was a whirlwind of keg stands and parties, fist bumps and microaggressions, locker-room humor, and raw moments of vulnerability. There were the days when I was an anthropologist writing about a strange culture, and those when I was the outsider fighting to become a part of it.
The poems I share here are a reflection of those years, as captured in journal entries scribbled in frustration, laughter exchanged when walls came tumbling down, and the turning points that changed the way I think about masculinity, education, and myself. They are an effort to understand a self, constructed in contradiction, and to present that self as a lens through which others might examine their own. My goal is for these stories to provoke critical reflection on fraternity culture, queer belonging, and the performative aspects of everyday life.
Frat House Gospels
A Scandal of Sober Sex
By the time I packed my bags from that frat house life,
I’d heard enough stories to fill a keg
testosterone tales wrapped in locker room myths.
They called ’em meatheads –
buffed bodies, booming laughs,
desire was the currency,
and “sexiness” the ticket in.
They ranked each other like draft picks.
Who’s hot? Who’s not?
Bids based on biceps and body count.
And the house was holy ground
for the religion of drunken sex.
But then
scandal.
A whisper turned wildfire,
A bro…
had sober sex.
Sober.
Like Chipotle and eye contact.
Like no vodka veil or beer-blurred lines.
Just him.
And her.
And nothing to numb it.
And suddenly,
that was taboo.
they said he’d caught feelings,
Cause sober sex meant he might actually care.
Like the lack of liquor made it real,
and real was dangerous.
Because sober means present.
It means you showed up,
in your skin,
Sober means you saw her.
And she saw you.
And you didn’t flinch.
Didn’t hide behind a Solo cup.
But he wasn’t ready.
He had demons
Distorted body in the mirror.
Dad’s whiskey rage echoing down the hall.
The slow, quiet fall of every hair on his head
like a countdown clock
to being unloved.
He carried shame in six packs.
Laughed louder than his loneliness.
Flexed harder than his fear.
They knew about consent.
They took the trainings.
Sat through the slides.
Nodded at the definitions.
But consent gets murky
when your soul is sedated,
when your hands move faster than your healing.
Booze was their invisibility cloak.
Their ticket out of tenderness.
Sober sex?
That was the real scandal.
Not because of what happened in bed
but because of what it meant.
Sober meant you chose to feel.
Sober meant you didn’t run.
Sober meant
you might actually want to be known.
And for them?
That was terrifying.
I looked at him,
and all I could feel was
grief.
Not for the act.
Not for the girl.
But for the prison they made for themselves
and called manhood.
And the worst part?
I didn’t know how to fix it.
You can’t seminar your way out of silence.
You can’t workshop your way to worth it
I left that house
with a head full of questions
and a heart heavy with hurt,
wondering how many more bros
would have to drink
just to feel
less alone.
Nights are for the Boys, Mornings are for Mourning
The house was loud.
Always loud.
laughter bouncing off beer cans,
bass lines from Bluetooth speakers,
egos echoing in every hallway.
But the mornings?
The mornings were mine.
Silence seeping through the cracks like sunbeams,
Stillness
before the house put its mask back on.
That morning,
it wasn’t silence I found
but sorrow.
Country music,
low and aching,
like the kind that haunts the last call
after everyone’s gone home
but you.
I cracked the door open,
half-annoyed, half-pulled by something
that felt holy.
Bro
Slumped on the couch
like grief had weight
and his spine finally gave in.
Three bros sat with him
not talking.
Just being.
And I stayed in the shadows,
a quiet witness
to a moment not meant for me.
His best friend gone.
Cancer.
Twenty-something
should never rhyme with death
His voice cracked like glass
under a boot.
Sniffles, curses,
half-formed thoughts
that didn’t need finishing.
And the others?
They didn’t flinch.
Didn’t crack a joke.
Didn’t hand him a drink.
They just sat.
Still.
Present.
And in that silence,
I saw love.
Not the lustful kind.
Not animal house loyalty
or drunken shouts.
But real,
tender,
gut-punched
love.
And damn
it wrecked me.
Because this house?
By day it’s a coliseum.
A stage for war cries,
bench presses,
and battles over who got what girl
and how fast.
Vulnerability?
Nah.
That’s a foreign tongue
spoken only in dreams
or early mornings
when the party’s paused
and the mask slips.
By noon,
everything was back in place.
The walls high
The music loud.
He was laughing again,
as if his grief had an expiration date.
But I remembered.
I remembered the way they held space
without saying a word.
How masculinity-real masculinity-
showed its face
in a whisper,
not a roar.
And I wondered
how many moments like this
live behind closed doors,
hushed and holy,
never making the group chat?
What if the house
was more than a stage?
What if, under the protein powder,
there was sanctuary?
Brotherhood not built on body counts,
but on bearing each other’s burdens
when no one else is watching?
What if this is what they’re really protecting
these raw, rare,
fleeting flickers of being seen—
before they armor back up
with booze,
and bravado,
and the weight of what men are told not to feel?
The Second Coming (Out)
I never planned to be out
to the brothers.
Not right away.
Fresh from a breakup,
heart hurt
soul sore,
not in the mood
for romance
or rainbows.
I moved in
with no flag.
No stickered identity.
No Safe Zone sign
I told myself:
Reinvention.
New chapter.
New me.
But maybe…
maybe it was a retreat.
Back into the closet
for some self-reflection.
Just me
and the hangers.
Did they know?
I’ll never know.
They never said
Maybe it was the way I walked.
Or didn’t.
Maybe it was the silence
of not saying anything at all.
Then came
The Incident.
Camouflage-themed party.
Them, in war paint and tank tops.
Me, leaving the house
with someone
not dressed for war
but for a date.
A whistle.
A “Oooooh, Musbah!”
A smirk.
I shouted back
“Shut up.”
That was it.
My second coming out.
Casual.
Like slipping a secret
into a joke
and hoping it lands softly.
They were supportive
in their… unique dialect.
One guy, half-drunk and whole-hearted,
slurred:
“If he ever hurts you,
I’ll fuck him up.”
Which roughly translates to:
“I care about you”
And weirdly,
it landed.
I started to understand their love language:
Threats.
Shoulder punches.
Chug-offs.
Masculinity,
with a sprinkle of sentimentality
drowned beneath
Red Bull and rum.
I felt
safe.
Yeah
safe.
In a frat house.
What irony.
But then,
the relationship died,
and casual dating began.
And the questions came
clumsy, curious,
like, “Who’s the woman, bro?”
One night,
I walked a friend out.
A real friend.
Just books.
Just vibes.
I collapsed on the couch,
melodramatic as ever.
A bro looked up
“You get some ass tonight?”
And I…
I don’t know who possessed me,
but I grinned and said,
“Fuck yeah, I did!”
High five.
Laughter.
Cheers.
Unity.
Validation.
And then
me,
alone,
behind a closed door,
in the quiet
that always follows pretending.
“Is this what I’m becoming?”
Was I the awkward gay kid
in his mom’s heels?
Or this parody
of hypersexual pride?
Did I create a character
to survive?
To be accepted?
To be one of the boys?
Was I playing a part
or finding one?
Was I proud?
Or just drunk
on the fraternity’s strange affection?
The house became home.
But at what cost?
What’s the line between blending in
and blurring out?
Between adapting
and disappearing?
I still don’t know.
But that night,
I felt like
a character I hadn’t cast,
saying lines I never wrote.
And maybe that’s the danger
when coming out
becomes
becoming someone else.
The (Other) F Word
It started with yelling.
Not your regular frat house noise.
Not the thuds of beer cans or chest bumps over pong wins.
No
this was war.
Somebody decided
3AM was a good time
to pick a fight
with the neighboring fraternity.
And when I asked why later,
they said,
“They started it!”
Sure.
Okay.
But it wasn’t the war cry that woke me.
It was the word.
“Faggots!”
Launched across the alley
ugly, familiar,
and oh-so-casual.
Not the first time I’d heard it
Not even the fifth.
But this time
it was loud enough to shake something loose in me.
I could’ve stayed in bed.
Pulled the covers up over my queerness
like I used to.
But not tonight.
I threw on my robe
no shirt,
no pants,
just rage.
Grabbed the baseball bat under my bed
part self-defense,
part decorative flair.
Either way,
it felt right in my hands.
I stormed up the stairs,
into the chaos,
into the circle jerk
and I roared:
“WHO’S SAYING FAGGOT?”
Silence.
One guy,
eyes wide,
steps forward.
I lock eyes.
“Say it again,” I tell him.
“To my face.”
He freezes.
I step closer.
“You wanna scream ‘faggot’? Scream it at me.”
His mouth fumbles.
“I… I won’t do that. I don’t see you that way.”
“You know I’m gay, right?”
He nods.
“Yes, but I don’t see you like that.”
And right there
I didn’t know whether to
laugh,
cry,
or swing.
I didn’t.
Swing, I mean.
But I wonder.
What was I really gonna do with that bat?
Make a point?
Make a mess?
Make them hear me
in the only language they seem to understand?
I’ve been trained better.
I know de-escalation.
I know safer ways.
But in that moment,
hypermasculinity crept into my chest
like a virus I thought I’d outgrown.
Maybe I fought fire with fire.
Maybe I became what I feared.
Maybe I needed to.
Because you know what?
That word?
Never uttered again
in my presence.
Was it a victory?
I don’t know.
But I’ll take it.
Because sometimes,
you don’t win the war
by rising above.
Sometimes,
you let yourself be dragged
down into the battlefield
just long enough
to say:
“If you’re gonna call someone a faggot
say it to their face.”
Analysis, Reflection, and Scholarly Context
I never intended to write about my experience in the fraternity house. I was there because it was a great gig: I got paid and lived in a lovely house in the campus area for free. The guys would joke about me “studying them,” but I wasn’t. Not intentionally, at least. It was not until I left the university that it occurred to me that what I observed was a uniquely intimate experience of getting to know these young men and, in the process, getting to know myself. I had to share the stories. Because something strange happened in the midst of the chaos: I saw masculinity — our masculinity, my masculinity, and all its contradictions — more clearly. I saw young men wrestling with the disconnect between performing hegemonic masculinity and being authentic. I saw my own wrestling with fitting in as I held on to the parts of myself that made me stand out. And I didn’t see masculinity as just dominance and swagger, but as connection, care, and the subtle ways we all struggle to become ourselves.
So, what is masculinity? Connell (2014) defined masculinity as “the pattern of configuration of social practices linked to the position of men in the gender order and socially distinguished from practices linked to the position of women” (p. 40). Scholars understand masculinity in opposition to femininity, a relationship that was abundant during my time at the fraternity. But this relationship seemed complicated when queerness was involved, especially with the normalization of queer relationships in mainstream society. My interest in men did not push me out of the brothers’ perception of masculinity, nor did the perception of having sex with men, provided that I was queer in a manly way.
The Second Coming (Out) really highlights this idea: the men celebrated my perceived sexual exploits because they fit into their script of manliness, regardless of the gender of the person. Conversely, it amazed me how some of the men who were shouting “faggot” in The (Other) F Word did not make the connection between me, as a gay person, and the violence implied and perpetuated by the term. They said, “I do not see you that way.” They thought of me as gay (which was okay) but not a faggot (which is not okay).
In A Scandal of Sober Sex, masculinity operated in two interrelated ways. First, masculine ideals seem to necessitate a preoccupation with sexual exploits and a subjectification of women’s bodies. However, the narrative is not that the person in question uses alcohol to exploit women (although that may indeed be the outcome), but as a mechanism to overcome the insecurity that comes with intimacy. This notion then complicates the dynamics of personal responsibility toward one’s sexual partner and introduces the tension between intention and impact. Even when someone breaks away from the norm of drunk sex and crosses into sober sex, the men around him restrict the extent to which he can engage in such intimacy.
The danger of masculinity here is not just the preoccupation with sex, but the use of masculinity to numb one’s capacity to be vulnerable with others. The story highlights the fraternity men as not only perpetuators of hegemonic masculinity, but also its very victims. I find myself living with the guilt of saying nothing, of not educating, while realizing that whatever I say would not have healed the deep-seated insecurity that robs these young men of experiencing raw human emotions.
On the other hand, Nights are for the Boys, Mornings are for Mourning highlights another type of masculinity: caring masculinity. Elliott (2016) framed caring masculinity as the antithesis of hegemonic masculinities. Instead, this masculinity is based on the rejection of domination and integration of values of care, such as positive emotion, interdependence, and relationality, into masculine identities.
Although the men in the story may not have perceived the interaction as an act of caring, sitting with a friend through a difficult time and making space for their grief turns masculinity on its head. I suspect that the presence of alcohol helped facilitate the breakdown of barriers. Nonetheless, there was no doubt that what I saw was a more positive manifestation of the brotherhood that the fraternity allegedly intends to provide. Similarly, one young man’s vow to beat up my boyfriend if he ever hurt me was, in a way, an act of caring, albeit intermingled with the expected aggressiveness that accompanies hegemonic masculinity. Importantly, I experienced the interaction as caring: Is that enough for it to be a positive expression of masculinity?
This question leads me to reflect on my positionality as a man in this setting. As a man, I reap the benefits of masculinity and can be complicit in perpetuating masculine norms, as was obvious in the high fives about my sexual life and trying to address a crisis with violence. I concede that my approach in The (Other) F Word was not the best and could have been disastrous, but it seemed to deescalate the situation, interrupt the use of the slur in the moment, and communicate to the young men that the word they use to put down others has an emotional impact on gay men like me.
Did I perpetuate hegemonic masculinity, or did I use an approach that the guys would understand? I am unsure and grappling with my guilt as I reflect on the incident. That said, queer men often seem to have a complicated relationship with masculinity. My interest in men should, by default and social expectation, put me outside of dominant frameworks of masculinity. But it did not – at least not in that fraternity house. I often wonder what the men would think if I were more effeminate. As long as they did not perceive me as a “faggot”, I was able to belong.
Finally, one of the biggest takeaways I gained from observing masculinity in the fraternity space is that masculinity, as a social performance, can be contagious. Perhaps contagious masculinity is a form of toxic masculinity. Kupers (2005) defined toxic masculinity as “the constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia, and wanton violence” (p. 714). Toxic masculinity is often associated with harmful behaviors and norms associated with hegemonic masculinity, such as aggression, dominance, emotional suppression, homophobia, and misogyny. Toxic masculinity reifies that masculinity itself is not inherently toxic or harmful. Rather, the term critiques certain masculine behaviors as having a negative impact on the person and/or their surroundings.
In The Second Coming (Out), I found myself practicing the type of masculinity that was valued in that space, even though it did not reflect my reality. I lied to fit in, and it felt good (at least at first). I am not sure if, in this scenario, I was the one being toxic or if the fraternity environment was toxic and rubbed off on me. In the end, I am sitting with the uneasy realization that I became someone I barely recognized, not because I wanted to cause harm, but because I wanted to belong. Perhaps discussing masculinity necessitates a discussion of belonging as a fundamental human need.
My journey as a queer house director for a fraternity has shed light on the complex interplay between masculinity, vulnerability, and identity. While I witnessed the often-toxic manifestations of hegemonic masculinity, I also encountered moments of profound connection, care, and authenticity among the young men I lived with. This reflection serves as a call to critically examine the structures of masculinity that shape our interactions and identities, encouraging a reimagining of brotherhood that embraces vulnerability, empathy, and the richness of diverse experiences. Ultimately, the stories shared here challenge us to rethink what it means to belong and to be seen, urging a shift towards a more inclusive and compassionate understanding of masculinity.
Author Biography
Musbah Shaheen (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He researches the impact of college on identities, attitudes, and student success. He can be reached at shaheen@umass.edu
References
Connell, R. (2014). The study of masculinities. Qualitative Research Journal, 14(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-03-2014-0006
Elliott, K. (2016). Caring masculinities: Theorizing an emerging concept. Men and Masculinities, 19(3), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X15576203
Kupers, T. A. (2005). Toxic masculinity as a barrier to mental health treatment in prison. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 61(6), Article 6. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20105