Practically every questionable tradition works in this manner. They're often justified in some manner but those justifications tend to ring hollow.

To take just one example, look at humiliating and often illegal initiating ceremonies in military units where beatings, scarring and/or semi-rapish scenarios are enacted on the initiates by the senior members. These stories crop up again and again. They're not isolated incidents. Would you be shocked how often these things have to be broken from the outside with only one or two members of the hundreds that experienced it willing to complain and break the silence at first? or condemn it when it's revealed?

This story is as old as dirt.