Any experience or literature on male initiation rites?

Question

Here in europe (and also in the US, I guess) we have an increasing number of seminars for adult men offering "male initiation" (for men who feel they could need it) presuming that this is something every man in the industrialized countries needs.

I have doubts about this theory - because I do not know anyone who had to undergo a "male intitiation rite" in Africa, Australia or somewhere else personally - so it remains totally unclear to me, if these "original" rites are something positive (or something horrifying ..).

Is there anyone out there who either experienced "male initiation" or knows literature about that?

Answer 1

Yea we have them here in the US. If you wanna pledge to a fraternity while at college, you have to go through a series of trials and do some crazy stuff in order to join. Then, AFTER ALL THIS, you have to pay to get into the fraternities sort of like a membership fee.

Of course YOU get to punish next year's incoming class just as much, but it is all sorta pointless and unprofessional especially when fraternities are most useful for networking and are runned like businesses.