Chapter 6

Roger and Cynthia had been threatened with being forced to disrobe in Monday’s class and half expected to see one of the guards waiting in the room, but even the teacher was not present. Students were gradually filtering into the room and soon everyone was seated. Then Miss Mason appeared with Mr Cirota trailing behind her.

“I see that you’ve disobeyed my instructions about your proper appearance in this class,” she said to the twins.

“Ma’am, there’s nothing improper about the garments we’re wearing,” Cynthia retorted, somewhat angrily. “We told you yesterday that our being naked was not going to happen.”

Mr Cirota broke in. “You have flouted the school’s Program rules and the federal Program law and I have the authority to insist that you comply with the Program rules.”

“Mr Cirota, you’re flogging a dead horse, as my dad likes to say. There’s absolutely no way you will get us to participate. You saw what happened when you tried using physical force. The enforcement people you called in, two were arrested and the third was sent packing this morning. Mr Davis threatened suspension but then realized he couldn’t do that. Can’t you see that we will not participate, and neither will any students from Marine families, from what I’m hearing,” Roger said, glaring at Cirota. “It’s your move, sir.”

“Young man, your future is at stake. You won’t graduate or go to college...”

“Please stop. Don’t spout empty threats at us,” Cynthia exclaimed. “We already addressed that threat with Mr Davis. You can’t block our college admission or get our scholarships withdrawn and you must know that. Scare tactics won’t work on us. Just admit that you’re powerless to enforce the Program—hey students, see the empty threats the Program official resorts to if you don’t participate? When you get selected, just ignore it; don’t cooperate. They can’t use force anymore and the graduation threat is just that—an empty threat.”

The classroom broke out in applause and Cirota stormed out of the room.

Then Miss Mason looked at Cynthia and Roger, shaking her head.

“Okay, well, the first unit for this term is supposed to be the ‘Psychological Basis of Eroticism,’ a boy and girl participant was scheduled to be part of this class, and the planned demonstrations involved the methods and techniques of producing sexual arousal in boys and girls. Without naked subjects we can’t cover that topic, which included a research component to be done with the class’s weekly Program participants as we went through the term. The unit’s purpose was to link the prior personal sexual experience of each boy and girl with the appearance of their sexual organs, how the boy and girl responded to arousal, and how quickly they achieved orgasm with various kinds of stimulation.

“I suppose we can do a part of this using Mr and Miss Denison since nudity isn’t involved with the series of questions that are involved. Please come up to the front of the class and sit in these chairs now, and I’ll begin the questions.”

Roger looked at Cynthia and back at Miss Mason; then he shook his head. “Ma’am, if we do that, we’ll be implicitly acknowledging that we’re Program participants who just happen to not be naked,” he said. “We are not, repeat not, part of the Program and respectfully decline being singled out as a demonstration subject. What’s the nature of your questions and why is a Program person required to answer them?”

“I said that they were to see if the physical development of the boy and girl could be correlated to their prior sexual activity...”

“But you don’t have a naked subject for correlation, so what’s the point of the exercise? What kind of questions are they, anyway?”

She turned on the projector and flipped to a slide. It read:

Masturbation, Solo
Age when began
Number of times performed (daily/weekly)
Techniques used for arousal

Masturbation with Participant Age when began
Age and sex of first contact

Oral Sex Age of first contact
Age and sex of first contact
Frequency performed in last 90 days

Sexual Intercourse Age of virginity loss
Age and sex of first contact
Frequency performed in last 90 days
Number of partners to date

Anal Sex Age of virginity loss
Age and sex of first contact
Homosexual experience
Frequency performed in last 90 days

There were gasps from the class as they read the list and many students were red-faced in embarrassment.

“Ma’am, do you seriously expect that anyone will answer the questions in that list?” Roger exclaimed.

“Well, answering questions like these is a requirement of the Program curriculum I have to follow.”

“Everything there is intensely private. Even if someone were to answer them, how do you know the answer is true?” Cynthia asked in amazement.

“I have to assume your complete honesty. This is a research topic, after all,” she said.

Cynthia responded, “I’m blown away. Tell me, would you answer those questions about your own sexual experience for the class right now as you expect us to do?”

“Absolutely not! And this topic isn’t about the teacher. That’s an impertinent question, young lady.”

Cynthia nodded, “My point exactly. You won’t answer them. Neither would I, and neither would anyone in the class, too. Why don’t you try a possibly more valid experiment? Have everyone in the class take a blank sheet of paper and ask them to answer the questions anonymously, only marking down their sex. To make it go fast, everyone should refer to those questions on the screen as 1-a, b, c; 2-a, b. Like that. People should just write down their answers using a number or a few words. Then see the responses you get.”

Mason thought for a few seconds and then agreed; kids spent a few minutes writing. Then the sheets were collected. She sat down at her desk and began going through the papers. Then she looked up.

“This is useless. Almost all of these say ‘none’ or an equivalent negative, except for a few that are deliberate falsifications, like this boy’s answers that say he lost his virginity at age six and has 823 lifetime partners.”

Her comment resulted in in much laughter from the class.

“See? Also, you don’t even know if a boy wrote those answers, do you?” Roger said, frowning. “If you can’t get straight anonymous answers, what makes you think an embarrassed, humiliated person will give you true answers? In my case, if you were to ask me any of those questions, I wouldn’t even bother to lie. I’d say ‘none of your business,’ I’m curious about how questions like those—with such personal detail—are supposed to be related to psychology. I’m not challenging the idea that sexuality is important in psychology; sexuality is part of everything in our culture, it seems. It’s in TV, movies, concerts, sports, advertising, everywhere. You can’t escape being exposed to it. In this class I would expect that we would cover the effect of that exposure on kids’ development.

“I’m not sure yet what I want to study, but I think it’s in the education field. I’m good at sports and like teaching at my judo gym. So that’s why I decided to take this class. I saw that psych classes are needed in college for education degrees. But those questions of yours—I don’t see how answers to them could help understanding sexuality. Those are just about a few random events in a person’s personal life. And about correlating the answers to how a person’s sex organs look, I learned in biology that bodies develop at different rates based on genetics, and except for muscles, little else in the body’s development is affected by usage, visibly, anyway. Miss Mason, please help me understand what this is supposed to be about.”

“Mr Denison, that’s a valid question. My only response is that I’m following the federal curriculum guide for this class and that’s where this topic comes from. We’re required to use that curriculum as part of the Program exposure for you students as you explore your individual sexuality and part of that exploration is to cover your sexual history. The next step after those questions are answered is supposed to be an investigation of your personal attitudes and emotions in your sexual explorations. I’m well aware of the personal privacy issues that these questions challenge, but the Program is supposed to get you students past the idea that sexual behavior is a private matter. Participating in the Program is all about expanding your sexual horizons and sharing your experiences with the others in the class.”

Cynthia had been shaking her head. “No, I think that the only kids who would want to talk about their personal experience with stuff like that would be abnormal themselves—isn’t that part of what’s called ‘exhibitionism’? It seems to me that the effect of the Program would be to reinforce sick and abnormal behavior while making kids who are more modest feel the need to be even more secretive. That’s a very unhealthy result. Isn’t there any way to cover your class without using those awful Program materials? Like the way you taught it last year?”

“Yes, it seems I’m forced to do that, since it appears that we may not have many subjects while we are covering this unit. All right, next time we’ll need to go to the core curriculum but for today, let’s begin by discussing when a child begins to become a sexual being. In childhood development...”

The class settled down as the lesson began to develop; Cynthia grinned and winked at Roger at their little victory.

A wide-eyed Ayame, who was sitting next to Cynthia on her other side, whispered to her, “Oh my. In Japan we could never talk to a teacher like that...”

After the class was over, the teacher asked Cynthia and Roger to stay, and Ayame waited for them while they spoke to the teacher.

“Can I use your first names?” They nodded. “So, Cynthia, Roger. I know I’ve been hard-nosed and demanding about your participation and about the Program in general, but the truth is that we teachers are being compelled by the school—by the school district—to follow all the federal rules, whether we agree with them or not. I’m not allowed to say what I personally think about them, but I will tell you that I prefer to teach using academic materials rather than ones developed by bureaucratic committees. That’s all I can say about this, so please don’t spread that around, okay? Tomorrow I’ll have more traditional materials to teach from. See you then.”

As they left the school, they discussed Miss Mason’s admission.

Roger mused, “I wonder how many of our other teachers feel the same way as she does? I’ll bet that many are disturbed about how the Program is interfering with both the classroom behavior and with their teaching their subjects. And you must have noticed that Davis kind of gave up on the hallway Requests after this morning. Maybe this resistance movement will work, after all.”

“Yeah, but I guess the real test will be what happens next Monday when they pick the new group,” Cynthia responded.

As soon as they arrived home and walked in the door, their mom called to the twins.

“Dad just called and asked if you were home. He was going to text you but tried here first. He wants you to go to the JA office in HQ and meet him in fifteen minutes—you know where that is? ... and you can bring Ayame; he said that would be a good cultural lesson for her,” she laughed.

“Okay, Mom, then we need to leave now because parking’s tight there. See you later.”

The trio entered the headquarters building and found their way to the JA office just as the twins’ dad arrived and they greeted each other.

“Kids, this meeting is about two things. You’re involved in both—relax, you aren’t in any trouble,” he said when the kids looked alarmed. “They heard about the enforcers’ visit this morning and then I relayed Cindy’s idea about the constitutional challenge. That was an awesome idea, kid,” he said, grinning proudly at his daughter. “They want to talk about those things.”

In the office conference room they were introduced to the officers there, Lt Col Wheeler, the head of the base Judge Advocate unit, and Capt Donelley, an assistant judge advocate.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Denisons, and my congratulations on your judo championships,” Wheeler said as he shook their hands. “And welcome to the United States, Miss Asano. I hope that this episode in your school doesn’t give you a poor picture of our country’s culture.”

“No, not at all,” she murmured politely and bowed her head.

“First, I’ve assigned Capt Donelley as your advocate, representing the Marine families who have their children in the high school. General Markus has been in touch with Corps and it appears that there’s kind of a ruckus now between the Pentagon and the civilian agencies over how this Program nonsense is affecting military discipline and morale. As the Program is being introduced in schools, it appears that many servicemen and women with high school kids are putting in for reassignment to overseas units and the disruption is causing administrative problems.

“So the Corps and the other services now are formulating rules about their families’ students’ participating, but the federal Program office is attempting to get Congress to legislate against any military rule changes. Right now, the ball is still in the hands of the local commands. That brings us to this morning’s events involving the two of you.

“Program ‘Enforcers,’ as they’re so colorfully called, went to your school to try to coerce you into participating. It appears that they try to use physical force to get students to submit and even make schools use restraints like handcuffs with kids who use their hands to cover themselves, idiotic things like that, but in your case, their attempt to try to use force backfired. First, you were able to defend yourselves and second, our MPs arrested two of them. However, when the third enforcer returned to his office and reported what had happened, their officials apparently called their federal headquarters to complain and General Markus received a call from the Program agency’s director.