Salterrae • October 2015
Episkopon’s Death Wish From Skulls and Bones to Sorrows and Woes By Haley O’Shaughnessy & Victoria Reedman Illustrations: Trinity College Archives
Editor’s Note: Students should be reminded that Trinity College is in no longer affiliated with Episkopon. Any further concerns about Episkopon and its relation to the college should be directed to student heads, or the Trinity administration.
Episkopon: one of the few topics at Trinity College where a mere whisper of an article led to several messages telling us not to speak. Leaks of our survey, false rumours of a blacklist of Pon members, and online attempts by Pon to censor this article soon followed. Please consider this article as not a whisper, but a loud and unrestrained exposé of Episkopon. Along with our thoughts and experiences with the not-so-secret society, we have asked twenty-two Members of College to give their perspectives, with their affiliations ranging from attendee to a former Scribe, who was the highest authority within Pon. The fear that circulates all discussions about Pon did not escape any of us. It should not come as a surprise that Pon Editors and Scribes are some of the most active people within “social Trin”. The power dynamics of Episkopon and its influence at Trinity should give anyone pause about agreeing to speak with us, if not
complete trepidation. Excused from any consequence, all allegations of binge drinking, bullying, slut shaming, and outing remain allegations. The consequences of speaking out are plentiful, with a majority of our sample choosing to remain anonymous. A disclaimer - our focus remains on Episkopon as an institution and this article refrains from personal attacks. As will be discussed later, the groupthink, systemic and structural violence, and political influence of Episkopon, namely its ability to convince otherwise pleasant Trinitrons to bully their peers, is far more important than the actual Trinity students involved. For simplicity, we will be referring to the female branch of Episkopon as “Fempon” and the male branch of Episkopon as “Manpon.” Although we did have an all-cap, red-font protest against the use of “Manpon,” we find the explanation that it is “Episkopon” and then “Fempon” to be sexist. We will not police our words for such misogynistic objectives, especially since “Manpon” has been used colloquially for many years. We would never attempt to say our sample was representative of Trinity’s views of Episkopon. Given both the topic and our perspec-
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tive as the writers, people against or ambivalent about Pon were more likely to participate. To provoke discussion, our survey had an informal, conversational style.
“With the Triad constantly changing, what remains the same is its base structure: a group of active Members of College, divided according to the gender binary, ridiculing any student’s deviation from the norm. That basis is forever inequitable.” Social standing One former Scribe of Fempon, who left the organization last Thanksgiving, emphasizes how Fempon has been both a feminist social support group and an anti-consensual, anti-feminist rumour mill: