I will never forget that prawn. Small, not long defrosted and glowing pinkly at the bottom of a pint glass, the rancid contents of which I had just been required to down in one. Now I was meant to take this alcohol-soaked crustacean and, for reasons that remain obscure, place it in my bra during dinner. I refused – but my fellow initiates did as they were told.

I was 20, a student at Cambridge University, and undergoing the sort of initiation ceremony that government advisers are now asking universities to ban. This week the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recommended that university sports clubs and drinking societies that encourage excessive drinking should have their funding withdrawn, a step that Exeter University has already taken after a student, Gavin Britton, died from alcohol poisoning in 2006.

My college's lame-duck women's drinking society never witnessed such a tragedy – and it was nothing like David Cameron's notorious Bullingdon Club. No one was quite sure why it existed: some of the women were sporty, and some (including me) were not; mostly from state schools, we weren't particularly posh either. Our bizarre initiation rite (the prawn-wearing was followed by optional streaking in the college garden) was suspended for two of the three years I was a member, after the new intake refused to take part.

We were, of course, expected to drink alcohol, and it was a good way to meet people – but it was also silly, puerile and exclusive. And, on the occasions when you drank too much, it was even dangerous. So I say bring on the ban. It might be difficult to enforce, though. My college's "rugby and boating" group, for instance, was banned during my time there, but continued its alcohol-fuelled activities clandestinely as the "rhythm and blues" society.