(Probably another thread already started, please move if appropriate. This thread is intended to be a general catchall about the subject.)
At my highschool--a fairly small local private K-12th grade--the good old-fashioned wedgie by an upperclassman was a male rite of passage upon entering the 9th grade. Everyone knew it, even the faculty, many of them condoning it because they had probably had it done to them there.
It promoted a social order, but I was not truly amongst that order. Instead of being a carbon copy of the various elite professionals in my town, I was a drunk shrimper's son, at the Academy only because I blew standardized tests out of the water and, by the time high school came I was something of a local soccer star, state Spelling Bee champ, and all that other good stuff. I had the good fortune of being both a nerd and a jock, something that made me fit in with all the guys. Didn't work so great with the girls (because they were ritch bitches, too, and I've already mentioned my pedigree) because I was somewhat enigmatic, and girls can be just as cruel in their stupidity as boys.
The wedgies usually happened singly, i.e. one kid at a time, so as to savor the ritual, to stretch it (pardon the pun). The mob of gobs seemed to enjoying the planning as much as the execution. I remember someone actually had a calendar/timetable for all the new victims. In their slight defense, the wedgers usually only got a kid once.
However, the loathed kids sometimes got what I now think of as "The Chainsaw Variant." (Good title; if I can ever write again, I might use it for something). It was an alternating dual wedgie from the front and the back...and it usually involved blood.
I had been wedged myself (normal one), but I knew approximately when it was coming, so I perforated my underwear near the band with a razor blade. No problems at all when the time came. Underwear a-tatter, I ended up freeballing during that gym class, and I wore the remaining band doubled up on my forehead as a sweat-absorber thingy as a joke...and maybe an act of defiance.
When it was my turn to be a "wedger," I made sure the kids knew in advance, and told them the razor trick, and to holler out good...and I tried to get to them first. If not me, then who? There were some bad guys coming if not me, there was inevitability, so I took it upon myself to dole out the lesser of two evils.
I made some good friends amongst the younger guys by being a kind and benevolent wedger.
(There's another wedgie story about how I cleared a room of five bullies via a backflip and karate--after which no one in my town ever even frowned at me again--but that's for another day.)
At my highschool--a fairly small local private K-12th grade--the good old-fashioned wedgie by an upperclassman was a male rite of passage upon entering the 9th grade. Everyone knew it, even the faculty, many of them condoning it because they had probably had it done to them there.
It promoted a social order, but I was not truly amongst that order. Instead of being a carbon copy of the various elite professionals in my town, I was a drunk shrimper's son, at the Academy only because I blew standardized tests out of the water and, by the time high school came I was something of a local soccer star, state Spelling Bee champ, and all that other good stuff. I had the good fortune of being both a nerd and a jock, something that made me fit in with all the guys. Didn't work so great with the girls (because they were ritch bitches, too, and I've already mentioned my pedigree) because I was somewhat enigmatic, and girls can be just as cruel in their stupidity as boys.
The wedgies usually happened singly, i.e. one kid at a time, so as to savor the ritual, to stretch it (pardon the pun). The mob of gobs seemed to enjoying the planning as much as the execution. I remember someone actually had a calendar/timetable for all the new victims. In their slight defense, the wedgers usually only got a kid once.
However, the loathed kids sometimes got what I now think of as "The Chainsaw Variant." (Good title; if I can ever write again, I might use it for something). It was an alternating dual wedgie from the front and the back...and it usually involved blood.
I had been wedged myself (normal one), but I knew approximately when it was coming, so I perforated my underwear near the band with a razor blade. No problems at all when the time came. Underwear a-tatter, I ended up freeballing during that gym class, and I wore the remaining band doubled up on my forehead as a sweat-absorber thingy as a joke...and maybe an act of defiance.
When it was my turn to be a "wedger," I made sure the kids knew in advance, and told them the razor trick, and to holler out good...and I tried to get to them first. If not me, then who? There were some bad guys coming if not me, there was inevitability, so I took it upon myself to dole out the lesser of two evils.
I made some good friends amongst the younger guys by being a kind and benevolent wedger.
(There's another wedgie story about how I cleared a room of five bullies via a backflip and karate--after which no one in my town ever even frowned at me again--but that's for another day.)