The siblings returned to the main office to get a pass and Davis popped out of his office, astounded to hear their voices in the outer room.
“It’s you! What happened to them...”
“It’s okay, Mr Davis. No one got hurt. Some MPs came by and suggested that they leave and not return,” Cynthia said, trying to stifle a grin. “We just need another late pass.”
“Please come in, the two of you. We need to talk.”
“You’re not going to go into that ‘you need to be in the Program’ argument again, I hope,” Roger said.
“No. I’ve underestimated this situation—that is, the strong student opposition, and want to learn more about what the students are doing.”
“Now that’s a constructive attitude, sir, but we don’t speak for the students. We objected on personal principles, not as a representative of any group. But we’ll be happy to talk about our own opinions.”
They went into Davis’ office and he invited them to sit. The twins explained how their upbringing, the moral code that their parents instilled in them and the Marine concept of personal and community honor, were such a central part of their personalities that subjecting themselves to humiliation was totally repugnant. Furthermore, they would not tolerate performing and observing what they considered to be immoral acts. They told him that “honor” included not only personal honor, but honor for one’s family and that the Corps was a family—it was much more than a family, even for the kids of the serviceman or woman. They explained how a Marine’s buddies became closer to him than even his own brother and that a buddy’s injury was also a personal injury; a sense of these close relationships was apparent to the children of the Marine and the need to form similar close relationships became a part of their own psyche as well as their Marine parent’s.
“That’s only one piece of the picture, but if that’s how we were personally affected, the other Marine kids must feel pretty much the same way,” Cynthia continued, “but then came the order from the base’s general that the Marine parents must not allow their children to participate. That was the honor thing again, our community’s honor.”
Roger broke in, “What we read about the purpose of the Program—to become comfortable with ourselves as people and sexual beings—is total nonsense when you consider how the typical serviceman’s kids are raised. We grew up getting to know kids from almost all of the armed services and the kids who are in families from the other services have pretty much the same values. We’re taught a strong respect for authority and for doing the proper things. We’re usually taught to take care of our bodies and to respect others as people and individuals with the same rights that we have—we don’t have the right to tell other people how they must think. In a military community, everyone must totally trust his peers so that they will trust him. So making someone conform to another’s idea a of a personal matter like sexuality is a violation of the trust that should exist between peers.
“In school, the effect of the humiliation caused by the forced nudity requirements and public fondling of another’s sexual organs totally destroys any trust between peers—it actually tears people away from each other in disgust rather than bonding them together in respect. That’s what I think you’re seeing in how the kids all pulled together to protect the naked kids, even though I think that none of the ones who are naked are Marine kids. They’re still our peers and need support and respect, not humiliation and objectification. Cindy and I can’t see how the Program could possibly work for us military kids, and for the civilian kids, we know so little of their world we could only guess. Maybe there’d be a few who would benefit somehow, but for most, they may tolerate the experience or be damaged by it.
“And how you started the Program here was terrible, and equally terrible is what you expect us students to endure. On Monday morning you were about to have us physically stripped by staff members; you tried to hold us in a room against our will—that’s actually kidnaping; you’re using coercion with threats of not graduating and transcript withholding—using coercive methods to get a person to do sexual things has to be some kind of felony; you’re permitting, even encouraging, sexual assault and exploitation by exposing naked kids to other students with the expectation that those students will sexually molest them. What’s the next step? Well, the school’s permissiveness in letting students have free access to other kids’ naked bodies could appear to some students that the school is allowing or even encouraging rape.”
“Roger’s right. That’s the official part of the Program that’s abusive. Some other examples of abuse is how the Program wants kids to engage in public displays of masturbation. The dumb Relief idea seems to be included in the rules because of the myth that an excited boy needs to have an orgasm if he gets an erection from being sexually stimulated. I’d think that being humiliated in the way the Program works would actually be a sexual turn-off. Well, I’ve been doing some research and found that there are whole communities where nudity is practiced—resorts and clubs—there’s even a nude beach nearby—and no guy seems to have the need to have an orgasm at those places. So why does it require class time to do that? Then there are the class demonstrations. Already, in our second day, we’ve been told that our naked bodies were needed to demonstrate something for which excellent materials are already available in all possible high-quality media. And that there’s a compelling need to post the videos of the demonstrations on the school website? This has exactly what kind of educational value?” Cynthia exclaimed.
“Well, I’m certainly getting an earful,” Davis commented. “Our Program requirements and curricula are dictated by the federal Program office and all the schools in the entire state must adopt the Program by the coming fall term. There’s no place for exemptions from it or alterations to it, so although I understand your moral objections, I don’t see how the non-participation of your Marine families and the federal participation requirement can be reconciled.”
“That’s pretty much what we assumed and we think it’s what the other students concluded too. I strongly doubt that any Marine kid will participate. I’ve heard rumors that any forcible attempts to strip a kid will result in violence; there’s a lot of very angry students out there and you don’t want serious injuries. Roger and I were actually gentle with your teachers yesterday. We could have seriously damaged them, you know. We only gave them bruises and sprains, just like we give our students in the judo classes we teach. If angry kids feel trapped into resisting, well, I don’t think I need to paint a picture, do you?” Cynthia asked.
“No, we certainly don’t want injuries. But there’s the graduation requirement to consider, too.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Roger continued. “We suppose that you could prevent students from formally graduating. But it seems that that’s a hollow threat, because colleges look at school records, not diplomas. And acceptance offers are made before graduation, as ours were. I personally don’t think that colleges give a flying whatever about someone doing the Program, so withholding final transcripts and that kind of stuff, I think would be counterproductive for the high school’s reputation among the colleges. It would seem to them that the school thinks the Program was more important than the academics, wouldn’t it?”
“Again, there are rules that the school needs to follow, rules that the feds mandate.” Davis demurred.
“So follow the rules and don’t be surprised at how creative the students’ families can be at getting what they need from the school,” Cynthia remarked. “And as far as how the students are handling the Program here and now, we think you should wait it out and see what develops. Your threats didn’t produce any results, right? I think it made the kids even more motivated. I think the general idea seems to be to keep the Program kids away from any forms of humiliation, so it looks like they won’t allow Reasonable Requests since that is only a form of entertainment and exploitation for the requestor and does nothing for the participant. You can let Mr Cirota complain all he wants but it seems that he won’t find any target to direct his punishment at. If the participant does everything he or she is supposed to do but the other students arrange it so that the student can’t be seen, is that a Program violation? Not according to the booklet I read.”
Roger picked up the thought. “Will it cause great harm to anyone—Mr Cirota excepted—if you let things take their natural course? If the Program’s true objective is to let the kids who are willing become comfortable with public nudity, then what the other students are doing isn’t interfering with that at all. If the objective is humiliation, exploitation, sexual predation, and encouraging voyeurism, then those are not valid educational purposes, and what the other students are doing is proper and moral. Can you justify any educational benefit for the latter objective, sir?”
“Again, we are required to follow federal rules, Roger. It’s not a matter of what the objectives are.”
Cynthia suddenly sat bolt upright. “Wow,” she exclaimed, “am I the only person to think of this? I read that the Supreme Court said that Congress could pass a law that took civil rights away from minors and that’s how the Program was able to become mandatory. But I recall from Civics last year that education is a state’s rights issue, it’s under the Tenth Amendment. So it seems to me that the federal government may recommend curriculum materials but constitutionally it can’t mandate that any particular course be taught and by extension it can’t set any kind of particular rules that must be met to graduate. And we learned that the only exception to state’s rights for many, many years has been in matters involving interstate commerce. Education isn’t commerce. Right, Roger? The only way that a federal law could make schools comply with federal rules is if the Constitution were amended to allow federal control of education.”
“Oh my God, Cindy, I think you’re right! Mr Davis, you want to be famous? Get the school to claim that the federal Program law violates the Tenth Amendment. But you’ll need to do it fast, because we’re going to try to challenge it too. Was that all you wanted from is? Can we go now?”
“Yes, go. I’ve got enough headaches now, especially if the Program enforcers start bothering me. Just go.”
They got their late passes, returned to class, gave the slips to the teacher, and sat. Five minutes later the bell rang.
Ayame was quivering to hear what had happened and was captivated by the siblings’ recounting of their experience with the Program enforcers and their conversation with the principal. By this time, the maelstrom in the hall was predictable; one simply needed to keep away from the ever-changing knots of people surrounding the Program kids as they made their way to their next classes. One of the small tornados deposited several naked kids at a table near the Denisons and Ayame, so the trio got up and went over to them. The little naked group consisted of two girls and two boys, who asked the Denisons to join them.
Cynthia offered to get them lunch, and then another small cyclone arrived bearing a boy and a girl, so Ayame went along with her to help pick up the larger lunch order.
“I’m Roger Denison, guys, and my sister Cindy and I were supposed to be participating but we refused.”
“Yeah, we remember what you did in the conference room, Roger,” one of the girls said. “I’m Melanie, guys, I’m a senior. I wish I had your courage. I hate this,” she said, indicating her unclothed state.
Dennis continued, “I heard you guys were behind this protection and human shield idea. Thanks for that, too. Remember me? Dennis from yesterday?”
“I can see how it’s working in the halls, but what about in classes?” Roger asked. “So far I’ve had two classes where the teachers tried to intimidate us over our refusal to participate—and I hope you don’t hold our refusal against us; we’ve been ordered by our folks not to do it.”
“I wish. My name’s David and I’m a junior. My parents said I would learn to be a little less shy and signed the damn permission. When I told them what was happening—you know, groping, masturbation, sex shows in the classrooms—they were appalled but, you know, it’s too late. Anyway, I did have a kind of demo earlier. But your Marine gang came to the rescue. It was in Health and the teacher wanted the boy and girl to demonstrate how they get themselves sexually stimulated.”
“Yeah, and I was the girl,” a cute girl next to him said. “I’m Wilma. The teacher got us on the table in front of the room and set up a camera. Then some of the students came up and crowded around; one knocked the camera over, and they kept milling around, interrupting the teacher with random questions, and blocking the class’s view of us the whole time. The teacher kept trying to get them to sit down and they did, but another bunch got up and did the same thing. That went on for maybe ten minutes and finally the teacher wised up and asked if this was planned.”
David picked up the story. “One of the girls said that it was actually planned spontaneity and everyone laughed, except the teacher. Someone else said that any naked demos would have the same results and that no one in the class would watch or be able to watch and there were enough kids in the class who would interfere that she couldn’t fail all of them. So she just gave up.”
Another girl spoke then. “I heard that pretty much the same thing had happened in another class, too. By the way, my name’s Sandra and I’m a junior. I’m really really hoping that I won’t have to be in a demo. I’m scared shitless about that.”
By this time the food had arrived and Cynthia sat down with Ayame, who was introduced to everyone. Ayame was blushing and trying to look everywhere but at the naked kids.
“Ayame, are you embarrassed?” asked Melanie.
“Yes, very. Parents’ raising of me said public nudity is proper only in few places, not others. In Japan are onsen, public baths, but men and women are almost always apart.”
“Oh, my, what will you do if you’re selected for the Program?” David asked.
She jerked in alarm. “Ehh, I couldn’t!”
Cynthia broke in. “She’s a Japanese citizen and kind of an exchange student here. Ayame’s already graduated high school in Japan and is just taking some American electives to get ready for college. So she’s not a Program candidate.”
“Oh, okay,” one of the group answered.
Cynthia continued, “Earlier we heard that some hidden cameras were noticed in the girls’ locker room.”
“Yes, and in the boys’ too,” Wilma said. We heard about the ones that the boys found and looked and found two in the boys’ locker also. Then some guys came in and broke them. Someone said that they might try to put new ones in vandal-proof housings next time, though. I don’t want anyone to make videos of me showering; that’s so nasty!”
“How is the switched-around locker room setup working?” Roger wanted to know. “That was actually Cindy’s idea.”
“Really? Great! The teachers really flipped about it.” Dennis said. “I had gym last period and was in the girls’ locker room and there were only guys in there too. Then two men teachers came in and tried to get the boys out but everyone just ignored them—they kept saying yes, okay, I will, all right, but kept on changing. Hardly anyone showered, yeah, no one did, that’s right, I didn’t see anyone take a shower last period.”
“Look, this is interesting,” Cynthia said as she glanced around. “See how everyone in the room seems to be acting normally—like you guys aren’t anything special to watch? Maybe the resistance movement is having some effect.”
“Well, this experience can’t be over too soon,” Sandra sighed. “I had such terrible dreams last night, and I can’t concentrate in my classes, either. All I can think of is getting to the end of the day and getting my clothes back on. This experience is making me afraid of being undressed, not making me more comfortable with it!”
The others in the group expressed similar sentiments; the forced nudity was making them tense and anxious. Soon the period was drawing to a close and the Program kids reluctantly prepared to go to their next classes. As they got ready to leave, other students came drifting over to serve as their escorts, but now the groups protecting them weren’t as frenetic as they had been in the morning, since the teachers had apparently given up on trying to force the participants to remain visible.
As Roger was standing up, Cynthia told him to wait for a second.
“I’m texting Dad about what I thought about that Tenth Amendment idea. Maybe he can ask someone in the base’s attorney’s office about it if they need to challenge the school to get records released.”
“Yeah, good idea. Dad’s always told us that being prepared means having good alternate plans if your main ones aren’t working.”
There were no unexpected events in their English class and the class-change conditions between the sixth and seventh periods were now fairly routine, just groups of students hurrying along with each other to their destinations. Roger and Cynthia marveled at the scene in the hallway, admiring how organized the escort services had become in such a relatively short time. Then they entered their psychology classroom, wondering if they would need to fight off another attempt to get them to strip.
In the next instalment, our feckless trio is confronted with a few more challenges to their Program resistance and gets some welcome news. But is the Program's seductive sexuality having an effect on our heroes? Will they try to learn more about how kids in the Program at other schools cope with the nudity and overt sex? Can they resist its insidious sexualizing effects themselves? Maybe -- or maybe not.
Copyright © 2015 Seems Ndenyal. All Rights Reserved.