Chapter 13

Activities at Norwich Academy had once again settled into normality. The only activity remotely Program-related—students’ names were no longer being read to participate—that kept the attention of the students were the occasional articles which appeared on The Realist blog, which was now being read far more faithfully than any school assignment. Late in the week, the students once again had a juicy topic to engage them; Jeremy and Amelia had created another Program posting...

On Wednesday, Jeremy had gone home with Amelia. His blog had received a reader’s comment—a plea for help, actually—and he wanted to get Amelia’s advice about how he should respond.

After they entered the flat, Jeremy took out his laptop and pulled up his blog files.

“Sweetie, I formatted the reader’s blog comment into an article to post and made up a title, so please read this part. I fixed the writing up a little. Then I’ll tell you how I think we should answer. Here’s the part the reader wrote:”

^{The Program: Whose Morals are They, Anyway?}

^{Dear Realist. You write about human rights abuses and how bad things happening with the Program. I had a bad thing happen—it was a disagreement with my head teacher over how the Program rules are enforced. It seems that the rules were supposed to protect us from doing objectionable things and I think that all that wanking in public they want us to do is terribly rude and humiliating. It’s just porn and isn’t proper in public. I’ll try to write down what happened as I remember it.}

^{I was stopped in the hall by a group of boys and given a reasonable request.}

^{One said, “I want you to touch yourself in your fanny.”}

^{So I did, reluctantly, I stroked myself for him.}

^{“No,” he said. “you need to stick your finger up in your fanny and do a wank.”}

^{I refused then, because that involved putting something inside me and that’s not a reasonable request. So I told him I wouldn’t, that it wasn’t reasonable. He told me he would complain to our head teacher.}

^{The next period I got called to the office and the boy was in with the head teacher. The head asked him to tell me his complaint.}

^{So the boy went, “I asked her to use her finger and”—he almost said wank—”get herself off to show me. She said it was a foreign object and the rules say no foreign objects. A finger isn’t a foreign object so it was a reasonable request.”}

^{I got real mad and said, “A finger is definitely a foreign object to my fanny. I have the right to say what’s reasonable, the rules say so, so I have the right to say no.”}

^{The head sat down at his desk and opened the Program booklet. He read it for a minute and then looked at me.}

^{“I think that the booklet spells it out clearly; it reads, ‘No student shall ever be required to insert a foreign object into any bodily orifice as a part of a Reasonable Request or a classroom activity.’ I agree with Alexander that fingers aren’t objects, they’re body parts and since they’re your fingers, they aren’t foreign. So my ruling is that the request was proper and from now on, for all girls and boys, a request that they masturbate will be a reasonable request. You can go to class, Alexander. Jane, please stay,” he told me.}

^{After Alexander left, the head teacher told me, “The booklet also says this about physical sexual contact: ‘No student is ever required to submit to oral sex or penetration with a sexual organ as a part of a Reasonable Request.’ Notice, it specifies that there’s no penetration with a sexual organ; it doesn’t mention other body parts, like fingers.”}

^{I dug my copy out of my rucksack.}

^{“But it says that I can decide what’s reasonable, here, where it says, ‘The Program participant is the sole judge of the reasonableness of any request that involves physical contact.’ I’m being asked to touch myself, that’s a physical contact, so I have the right to decide,” I objected.}

^{“That right only applies to protect participants if they object to doing something and there’s no one available to make a ruling. I’ve made the ruling. Let me remind you of the purpose of the Program; it’s ‘to help you become more comfortable with your body and your sexuality’ and tells all pupils ‘to treat others ... as sexual beings.’ It’s clear that allowing intimate touching and requiring you to touch yourself sexually is obviously an essential part of teaching you to become a sexual being. If you try to avoid that, you’re avoiding one of the major Program objectives. You can be punished if this continues, Jane.”}

^{Please, Realist, can you help? Isn’t this a Program abuse? Can we be forced to do immoral things like putting objects inside our sex? We are being asked to accept someone else’s idea of proper morals and behaviour. Shouldn’t that be counted as a human rights violation?}

When Amelia finished reading the question, she was indignant. “I read that part in the Program booklet and didn’t think that the rules allowed a person’s refusal to be overruled like that!”

“So what do you think about a response that tells kids that if they refuse a Request, they should stick to their refusals, since they could refuse to participate at all?” Jeremy asked.

“Umm, I have a better idea,” Amelia replied. “Remember what Denise started in her uni? About using legal terms and definitions against the Program rules? Why don’t we see how ‘foreign object’ is legally defined? Since it’s not defined in the booklet, then its meaning can come from an accepted source. That’s what Kevin said.”

“Great! What a brilliant idea. Let’s look. Where?”

Amelia grinned. “In a dictionary first, dummy.”

“Oh. Sure. Let me try.”

Jeremy typed “foreign objects” in his browser’s search field.

“Lots of hits,” he told her. “Okay, here. It says, ‘Definition: “Foreign” means “originating elsewhere” or simply “outside the body.” Foreign objects typically become lodged in the eyes, ears, nose, airway, and rectum of human beings.’ Wow, that’s cool. Oh, we should check medical sites. That would be a better match.”

He searched again. “Okay, here: ‘Foreign objects can be inert or irritating. If they irritate they will cause inflammation and scarring. They can bring infection with them. In medical terms, a foreign object is something that is in the body but does not belong there. Foreign objects may be inserted into the body accidentally or intentionally. A foreign object may be inserted and become lodged in the rectum due to a desire for sexual stimulation.’ That’s perfect, a finger doesn’t belong in a pussy according to this.”

“I have an idea,” Amelia ventured. “Try legal sites. I’ll bet there must be stuff about sexual abuse.”

“Oh, good thinking,” Jeremy approved. “Let me see ... Here’s one: ‘In some U.S. states, rape with a foreign object is classified as sexual assault. In New York State, digital rape (using a finger) is included in the foreign-object definition.’ Well, that’s from a U.S. site, but it’s still an authoritative site to mention. Let’s see if I can find others ... Okay, here’s a good one and mentions that the law applies to the U.K.: ‘Sexual assault is a broader term than rape. It includes various types of unwanted sexual touching or penetration without consent, such as forced sodomy (anal intercourse), forced oral copulation (oral-genital contact), rape by a foreign object (including a finger), and sexual battery (the unwanted touching of an intimate part of another person for the purpose of sexual arousal).’ Way cool!”

Amelia had been typing on her computer. “I found one too, and it comes from this British legal site. It says, ‘The code defines a crime known as “sexual penetration with a foreign object” and includes, as examples... ‘ and then the article lists a number of items, plus this one: ‘Insertion of a finger into a woman’s vagina against her will,’ and the best one is this: ‘Coercion of a person to use a foreign object like a dildo or finger to penetrate their own anus or vagina.’ That’s the best one, right?”

“Sweetie, you nailed it. You should write the response to Jane,” Jeremy grinned.

“Wellll ... you’re much better at that stuff, darling,” she replied. “Let’s do it together.”

“Sure.”

When Kevin arrived home, the teens were still hard at work.

“Hey, guys. What’s up?” he called as he came in.

“Hi, Kevin,” Jeremy answered. “We got a message on the blog from a girl who was told she had to frig herself if she got asked. You know, in a Reasonable Request. Her head teacher told her she had to do it, even though she showed him where the rules said she could refuse.”

“Yeah, Kevin, hi,” Amelia chimed in. “So we wrote a response. Sweetie, you think it’s ready now?”

“Yeah,” Jeremy mused, “actually ... no. Not quite. I just thought of something else she mentioned—the thing about ‘sole judge.’ Did you notice that?”

“Yeah. I thought ‘sole’ meant ‘only’ or ‘exclusive,’” Amelia told him. “I think the head teacher was wrong there too.”

“Okay, I’ll look that up and write something but then that should cover it,” Jeremy responded.

“So tell me, how did you budding lawyers answer the question?” Kevin asked, grinning.

Jeremy smirked at him, “Amelia suggested using the ‘Kevin’ technique...”

Kevin shot him a quizzical look.

“ ... that’s where we pull out the dictionary definitions when the officials disagree with you about what a word means.” Jeremy finished.

“Ah,” Kevin nodded. “I understand from some experts that the Kevin technique even works.”

Amelia looked puzzled. “Which experts?” she wondered.

Kevin chuckled. “Denise.”

“Oh!” the teens giggled.

Jeremy had been looking up terms and typing; he was done quickly and then began transmitting the article to the blog. “There, it’s posted. Want to read it, Kevin?”

“Yeah.” He sat down as Jeremy turned the screen toward him and he began reading.

^{Yes, Jane, the Program Denies Everyone’s Morality}

^{Jane, the questions you ask go to the very core of the reason that The Realist opposes the Program. The original idea for it was probably naively innocent at first; perhaps like a way to get over modesty like one tries to get over stage fright, by building a tolerance through exposure to the situation which causes the apprehension. But in this case, “exposure” became the actual “treatment” technique which was chosen! Exposure of kids’ naked bodies.}

^{The Realist is somewhat familiar with the basis of Program as it was originally conceived by the Yanks some years ago, but it’s been ignominiously discredited and has now been terminated on the other side of the pond. Four years ago, using a web server shielded from U.S. government censorship, an anti-Program group published articles which told readers how the Program rules were misread, misinterpreted, or even totally ignored, with the result that a social education program which was intended to help teens overcome any excessive modesty and improve their relationships with their peers became transformed into an ordeal of coercion, humiliation, sexual abuse, and yes, even terror.}

^{In your moral code, Jane, and likely your family’s too, public displays of overt sexual activity are repulsive and being coerced or forced into performing sexual acts publically is immoral. Your viewpoint is shared by plenty of people but unfortunately those people had no voice in making the policies of the National Program Committee.}

^{From reading the Yanks’ anti-Program site, The Realist learned the proper way to interpret laws and rules, including the rules which are contained in the Program booklet. The key to a law or rule is the meaning of the words used. If a word or term is used in a rule, and even in a law, if its meaning isn’t specifically defined in the rule, then the word or term’s meaning is the plain sense of the term—not what the authorities claim it means. Jane, you told The Realist that your head teacher chose to define the term “foreign object” so that it meant neither “foreign” nor “object,” therefore allowing his interpretation of the rules to force you to put your fingers into your vagina.}

^{If you look at any dictionary site on the web, you’ll find definitions that give this meaning or something close: “Foreign” means “originating elsewhere” or simply “outside the body.” Since we are dealing with the body; that’s what the Program is all about; we checked medical sites. One we found said, “In medical terms, a foreign object is something that is in the body but does not belong there. Foreign objects may be inserted into the body accidentally or intentionally.” According to accepted medical terminology, then, fingers are definitely foreign objects if they are put into the body—they aren’t intended to be there.}

^{Since we are also dealing with a legal situation, that is, we are interpreting a rule, The Realist also consulted some legal sites. Amongst many sources which could be cited, we found this one on a well-regarded British legal site: “The code defines a crime known as ‘sexual penetration with a foreign object’ and includes, as examples, insertion of a finger into a woman’s vagina against her will and coercion of a person to use a foreign object like a dildo or finger to penetrate their own anus or vagina.” We’ve shortened the list of examples to show only the two of them that apply in your case.}

^{The Program rules do mention self-masturbation, but that can be achieved by external means, which you did comply with in the Reasonable Request. You were well justified in declining to do the more intrusive method.}

^{Jane, you didn’t ask about another of your head teacher’s claims but it caught our eye. This is the term “sole judge” as used in the rules. You told him correctly; the rules say that “the participant is the sole judge of the reasonableness” of the Request. It doesn’t qualify that term anywhere, as, for example saying something like, “subject to the review of an official” or “pending the later decision of a teacher.” The term “sole judge,” The Realist found, is a well-known term in the law and its legal meaning is “the person with the final decision.” By definition, the sole judge of something cannot be overruled.}

^{So, Jane, the answer to your question is this: by forcing you to use your fingers to masturbate internally, your head teacher is committing a felony. The Human Sexuality Promotion Act, which created the Program, has no exemptions in it for officials that shield them from violations of laws which prohibit the forcing or coercing of sexual activity.}

^{Our message to our readers is clear. Words and terms mean only what a dictionary says they mean. Other sources, like medical sites and legal sites can reinforce or clarify the meaning more precisely. The Realist has frequently urged in this blog that children not participate in the Program at all, but if you do, be sure you know your rights and challenge any attempts to define words to mean something other than their plain, dictionary meaning. And if your rights are violated, you should complain to the police authorities who can be relied on to help.}

“Nice, guys,” Kevin praised them. “That really does cover the ground, geez, you got medical and legal in it too.”

“Yeah, that was Amelia’s idea,” Jeremy said proudly. “I wonder how this will shake up the Program people.”

Soon Jeremy left for home, but later that evening, he called Amelia.

“Hey darling, what’s up? Not that I don’t want to talk...” she answered and then listened for a while. “Wow, really? ... Yeah, I’ll tell them ... Bye, sweetie, love you.”

She went out to the main room where Denise and Kevin were working on their coursework.

“Jeremy says that Hanford called his mom again. The people who have been complaining to him about the blog are really, really angry now. You know how we said people should call the police? Well, they’ve been doing it. All evening long, too. Jeremy said Hanford told his mom that there’s been some sexual assault complaints filed against teachers in a number of schools and the teachers are contacting the Program officials and demanding help from the government. Wow, did that really happen fast!”

Kevin smiled, “Yeah, that was pretty fast. There must have been some very irate parents wanting to get back at some teachers for what the schools did to their kids. This might make our meeting at your school in two weeks with those Program Committee people kind of interesting.”

“Ugh. That’s something I’m not looking forward to,” Amelia groaned.

She was cheered at school the following day when she heard plenty of chatter among the students about The Realist blog posts. Amelia learned that the tabloid newspapers had printed reports of police inquiries into claims of sexual abuse lodged against some teachers and school officials in a few London schools. The reports also spoke of rumors of parental interest in organizing class-action lawsuits at a number of schools.

The following week started off quietly but as the week progressed, interesting developments began to occur. First, on Tuesday, Kevin met with Hanford to discuss the material that he and Denise planned to present to the Program Committee. Jeremy continued with his meetings with Amelia’s anti-FGM girls’ group, discussing their campaign, brainstorming topics for articles, and going over articles they had written to polish them for publication on the Realist blog. Then on Wednesday, as Amelia and Jeremy traveled to school, Jeremy told Amelia that he had gotten a disturbing message on his blog; a message from a girl who had reported a new Program abuse.

“And it looks like this abuse shows that some of the Program rules actually violate some existing laws, darling,” he told her. “We need to write up a response. I’d like your take on what she says, so can I come to your flat after school?”

“I’ll text Denise to get permission, sweetie,” she whispered.

After school the two arrived at Amelia’s flat and Jeremy pulled out his laptop.

“Okay, here’s what we need to work on,” Jeremy told her. “Our blog article will be in response to a message from a year eleven girl who refused to take part in a classroom demonstration. She objected to doing the demo since it was so intrusive. I’ll let you read her message.”

Amelia read it. “Ohmygod,” she gasped. “Oh, the humiliation that poor girl suffered.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that some of the things they did to her are totally illegal. Look at the article I started writing while I look up the laws that might apply,” Jeremy told her.

About fifteen minutes later, Amelia showed Jeremy her revision of his draft of the article.

“Jeremy? I thought you had condensed the girl’s message too much. Your version didn’t express her shock and humiliation—it didn’t come through in your summary. I changed it to speak in her own voice. Is that okay?”

Jeremy looked at the article.

“Oh, darling, it’s much better than my version.”

^{The Program Breaks U.K. Laws? Yet Another Program Human Rights Violation}

^{Realist: I got put in the Program even though my mum and pop didn’t want me in it but they were too frightened by my head teacher’s threats and told me if I got selected, I’d have to do it. For the first day in it I hid as much as I could and wouldn’t let anyone touch me and refused to do any requests. I have very long hair and used it to hide as much of my body as I could. The head teacher called me to the office at the end of the day and told me that I would have to put up my hair and he would have my teachers get me to cooperate.}

^{The next day, in biology, the teacher called me for a demonstration and I was horrified when he told me what it was. To measure the volume of my vagina! First, I’m a virgin and still have my hymen. Second, I told him that I wouldn’t let anyone stick objects in my fanny. He told me that he was using water, which wasn’t an object, and wouldn’t do anything to break my hymen. I argued with him and he showed me the thing he wanted to use to kind of push the water into me to do the measurement, it was like the bulb of a big turkey baster. I grabbed it and threw it across the room and ran out.}

^{I went to the media room and sat there crying and the head teacher must have heard I was there, because he came in with another teacher. I hadn’t put up my hair, so he told me I would be punished for that and also my refusing to do the demo. They CUT MY WONDERFUL HAIR OFF. And put handcuffs on me and told me I had to go back to class.}

^{I was in shock, but I didn’t want to go, so I managed to sneak away from the kid who was supposed to watch me and then I hid where I wouldn’t be found, behind some props on the auditorium stage. It was difficult to move with the handcuffs and awfully uncomfortable. When the final bell rang, I waited a while until I was sure all the kids had gone home and then snuck out to the office. The head was very angry, he lectured me for a while, but finally unlocked me and gave me my clothes. He told me that I’d be handcuffed for the rest of the week and have to spend the following week in the Program handcuffed too.}

^{It’s been four school days now and I haven’t gone back. I told my mum and pop that I won’t go to school any more. Realist, what can I do? Please help me!}