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I want to take this opportunity to thank all of the people who have sent me comments on my story.
Most of them were from people who, like me, were disturbed by all the non-consensual touching in many NiS stories. I wouldn't go so far as to say that all such stories are bad. "The Magnificent Mysterians" by DrBill is a very good story that takes a realistic look at the effects of the touching policy. That work also inspired me to make some of my changes to program rules; I wouldn't have made the switch to "Program students may use the bathrooms associated with their own gender" without it.
I also had one person inform me that California now considers cheerleading a competitive sport, not an activity. However, I based the choice for my story on Biediger v. Quinnipiac University.
Personally, I don't care what choice others may make about cheerleading being a sport for their stories. In my story, however, I can't see school officials making the claim to Program officials that cheerleading is a sport so soon after the Dudek ruling went against them. Cheering will remain an activity instead.
I posted the first part of my first story on Friday, and already it has over 2,000 hits. I'm surprised.
I know that most NiS stories include the requirement that participants accept all "reasonable" requests for people to touch them. In my story, NiS participants are able to refuse any request they want. I did not make this decision lightly.
While the NiS program is generally limited to high schools, we have to consider that this is only four grades out of the thirteen in a K-12 program. What do schools teach K-4 students about touching?
I googled "Good touch bad touch" and clicked on the first link that came up. It explains that there are good reasons for teaching young children that any touch that makes them feel uncomfortable is a bad touch. I have a difficult time imagining that, even in a universe where the Naked in School program is widespread, the central administration would be willing to enact a touching policy in high school that is diametrically opposed to the one they are trying to teach in elementary school.
Also, I believe that sex-positivity includes letting people know that they have the right to say "no" when they don't want to do something.
How do I reconcile this position with the basic NiS premise? Well, we know schools have dress codes. I can imagine bureaucrats determining that, while they cannot control students' bodies, they can control what students wear over those bodies, and therefore students lacking clothing is something completely different from students submitting to bad touches.
This is not too farfetched in the world I've created. I already had officials take a fourteen-year-old girl with female genitalia and XX chromosomes and classify her as a boy. The distinction in preceding paragraph is more reasonable than that decision.
If you don't like the change I made to the pamphlet, tough.
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