Is it hazing or is it sexual assault?

Maybe it's because they don't want to fully admit how ugly this is. Or maybe it's because it started in Sayreville as hazing rumors and reporters just can't make the leap. No matter the reason, we need to stop calling this 'hazing'. The conduct said to have occurred in the locker room at War Memorial is criminal sexual assault.

Hazing is hiding a guy's equipment. Throwing some powder on him. Haha. All in good fun in the end. Not here. This doesn't end well. The wolf call, the lights going out, a freshman struggling as he's held down by multiple players, only to have someone's finger roughly penetrate his rectum then that same finger be shoved down the freshman's mouth. Hazing? No.

Even this story appearing today on NJ.com has a headline written in an oxymoronic way with the words 'anal-penetration hazing'. Really? If this happened on the street to your daughter, being held down by four or five guys while another did this to her, would you call this hazing? Or would you call this rape? Using the word hazing diminishes the seriousness of what appears to have happened here.