Inside the wild world of America’s most notorious ‘frats’ where sex, booze and creepy rituals are part of everyday life
Photographer Andrew Moisey reveals what really goes on inside a fraternity, after spending six years documenting the antics of an unnamed California frat house
STRANGE initiations involving human skeletons, a secret book of rituals, outrageous parties and a lot of nudity.
These were the experiences that photographer Andrew Moisey was confronted with, as he spent six years documenting the antics of an American fraternity.
He went on to document the whole lot in a book, which takes reader inside an unnamed University of California frat house.
Among the many images of partying, puking, and private parts, are descriptions of strange rituals for a closely-guarded 60-year-old rituals manual.
Moisey, 38, was allowed the access because his younger brother was a member.
Even then, some rituals were off-limits, and he agreed not to name the members or the fraternity.
The images run from 2000 to 2006, showing the stark difference between the ideals of the organisation, which revolved around honour and chivalry, and the reality.
Despite the seeming depravity, the frat houses are incubators for past and future leaders.
Promoters say the book will shed new light on the peculiarities of the fraternal orders which count 75 per cent of modern US presidents, senators, justices, and executives among their members.
The book lists 400 prominent businessmen, congressmen, Supreme Court justices, and presidents that are and were members.
Moisey told the : “One of the things that the book shows or at least tries to show are the things that they say on the one hand and the things that they do on the other, and they often don’t match up.
“I was not interested in this particular fraternity itself but I was interested in the culture that the United States has of men joining secret societies in college and the kinds of things that they do that other people not in those societies don’t do.”
Photos include one that shows a woman passed out on a bed, others where young women are drinking with the fraternity brothers.
On the list of former Fraternity members is current Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who has been accused of sexual assault.
He is a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon chapter at Yale University - the same fraternity as Bush and his father George H. W. Bush.
The fraternity house is shown as derelict, with many after-party shots revealing an enduring mess.
The shots of debauchery are contrasted with the seriousness of the ritual book.
An initiation ceremony, where candidates wear black robes, requires passwords to enter the “chamber of preparation”.
When they enter, there is supposed to be a coffin with either a human skull or skeleton.
At one point, the pledge is put in the coffin, wrists bound with cord, according to the book.
Then the brothers carry the coffin in the direction of the sun three times about the lodge.
Candles are lit for truth, honesty and purity.
The book also includes the song, 'Yo-Ho,' with lyrics such as “I put my hand upon her s*****,” and “I put my c*** inside her mouth.”
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Moisey said: “The people in my pictures are not bad people. They’re not evil people.
"A lot of them have very strong relationships with their girlfriends and their families and a lot of them are people that I look up to but they get caught up in a culture that I don’t really think should exist."
All images are copyright Andrew Moisey from the book The American Fraternity: An Illustrated Manual published by Daylight Books
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