A student at the University of Tennessee (UTK) is denying funnelling wine into his anus after he was hospitalized Sept. 22.
The 20-year-old student, Alexander Broughton, was found unconscious in his dorm room, shortly after witnesses say he was seen playing drinking games, USA Today reported.
An examination by the hospital found that his blood alcohol level was around 0.448 per cent, five times the legal driving limit in Canada. Hospital staff also found evidence of sexual assault.
This led police to investigate the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity house, where they found smashed boxes of Franzia Sunset Blush wine and traces of blood.
When questioned by police, Broughton’s cousin alleged that Broughton had undergone the enema, though he later took back the statement, USA Today reported.
Broughton denied participating in butt chugging at a press conference Oct. 2, in which his lawyer David McGehee said the university, police and media had misrepresented the story.
Broughton had not even heard of the term butt chugging until he was brought to the hospital, McGehee said.
“Mr. Broughton denies each and every allegation whatsoever that has been inferred that he may have been a gay man. He is a straight man. And he thinks the idea and concept of butt chugging is repulsive,” McGehee said.
McGehee said they will taking legal action.
When asked what actually did happen that night, Broughton replied, “it’s a long story.”
Students at UTK are unsure what to think about the ordeal.
Although a young man almost died, the circumstances of the event have led to a “wow, are you serious?” exclamation from several students, UTK student David Cobb said via email.
Cobb admitted that due to the large school size, incidents involving alcohol were frequent.
He believes the prevalence of alcohol incidents are partly to blame for students’ casual reactions to these serious stories.
The practice, known informally as “butt chugging,” has seen several documented cases.
The most severe incident stemmed from 2004 when a woman was charged with assisted manslaughter after helping her husband ingest two bottles of sherry rectally, an act that lead to his death.
More recently, the practice was featured in the movie Jackass 2.
“I didn’t think anyone ever did it, even on fraternity row, and honestly I’m still not convinced that it actually happened,” Cobb said.
Several Carleton university fraternity members have expressed their concern with the event.
Matthew Hutchison, a Carleton English student and member of Alpha Epsilon Pi, said he doesn’t believe that this behaviour is characteristic of fraternities and hopes that people don’t think this is how fraternities act.
“Somebody just saw this in a movie and thought ‘I’ll try that because he can do it,’” he said, “That’s all it is.”
Huey, a Carleton finance and economics alumnus and member of Kappa Sigma who would not give his last name, said he thinks these practices are giving students a bad name.
“We do hundreds and thousands of hours of community service, we help in the community, we do things for Shinerama, but that is always overshadowed. Nobody ever, ever mentions that,” he said.
Neither Huey, Hutchison, nor Cobb said they had ever heard of anything like this happening in their fraternities.
The UTK chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha will be suspended immediately until at least 2015, according to a press release from the fraternity released Sept. 28.
“While there have been some sensational elements to the incident that took place on September 22, 2012, the important area of focus for the Fraternity is the illegal and dangerous activities involving alcohol,” the release stated.
“This should not be an indictment of the 136-year history of the Zeta Chapter.”
