"Take it easy!" he cautioned me, then went on. "No, I don't. You've very pretty. It's not just me; everyone thinks so. What if you weren't? Then it would be pretty bad. What if you were that freshman girl who was so terrified she had to go to a psychiatrist? She's going to have to do it all over again another week, too. How about that? But she'll be all right, too. She'll get over her problem, and some day she'll be glad she did it. You're fine right now, Karen. Not that I think it's easy, for you or any of the girls; it's clearly not. But you're fine." --Mike, Karen Naked in School
"It's perfectly natural," Miss Hooker explained to the class. "While the specific factors which affect Karen are societally influenced, her reactions to them are built in to her, and all women, through evolution. A creationist might say they are designed for human women by God. The discomfort of shame is a societal influence, but the arousal she is experiencing as a result of it, and of her own exposure and helplessness, is a basic human instinct. Research during recent years has filtered down to the local school district level, including our own, and is now affecting policy. It affects your lives, as well, and this demonstration will help all of you to use that research." --Miss Hooker, Karen Naked in School
Oh, yeah, she said it had something to do with us learning to treat girls as something other than simply sex objects, to learn to harness our natural energies, to behave more maturely, to become comfortable with our bodies, blah, blah, blah. I was so shocked I was hardly listening. --Carl, Carl Naked in School
That led to a discussion of what this whole program was about - how it was seen as a way of ending sexual exploitation in all forms. By becoming more comfortable with our bodies and sexuality it would diminish sexual tensions and decrease sexual abuse. --Carl, Carl Naked in School
She nodded. "It's in the brochure they gave you. There are going to be a lot of changes as the program advances and more students have taken part in it," Mom went on.
On the other hand, I could see, too, that he was less than ecstatic at the idea of having to share me with the rest of the student population for the rest of the week. And how would he react the first time I had to respond to a "reasonable request" from someone? -- Beth, Beth Naked in School
The last time these students had been in this room, they had been given an assignment to write about their brothers' or sisters' week in the nude in school. The school board had thought about introducing The Program in the Middle School in mid year. After reading their reports, it was decided that they would wait until the new school year. -- Dee, Naked in School, Dee's Story
It was a good question. Mrs. Jacobs had us debate it for a bit before giving her own answer. While men and women now had equal protections, society had come to recognize their fundamental differences not as inequalities as our grandparents had, but as simply differences requiring balanced but tailored treatment.
To me, it sounded a little fishy; but that was the spin they were putting on it. I was wondering how they managed to justify the laws letting only women over 21 be nude, or even something as simple as only boys being able to demand relief.
Mrs. Jacobs went on to discuss the Great Society measures of the 1960's. How the liberals of that time had chosen to take small steps -steps which could be torn down one by one as society was gripped in the fear of AIDS and a growing conservative backlash. Already there was talk of a 'New Great Society'. She showed us a few slides of congressional debates. This time around a strong radical left movement had gone straight for the throat of things; shooting for the most extreme of measures they could find and pushing it through in a time of euphoria over a new sexual revolution. The aim, as Mrs. Jacobs saw it, was to finally break the back of America's puritanical roots. "Even if a conservative movement takes hold again; they will be unable to reverse the clock on a change so drastic. Free love isn't just a mantra anymore; it's become the law of the land."
-- Alandra Naked in School"Well, that's the intention." Mrs. Jacobs said. When Ms. Magante left she added "and the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
-- Alandra Naked in SchoolSo, what I did, is I moved it. The original concept is intact, but I moved it to a different school. What I figured is, if something like The Program came into being in the type of world that Karen Wagner introduced, it’d have to start up in other schools, right? My tale takes place at Westport High, a school in a city about 50 miles away from Central. The success of The Program has caused other neighboring school systems to implement it. My tale takes place about 10 years after Karen initiated The Program at Central. The program has been implemented for two years at Westport, and it has not gone particularly well. My story takes place at the beginning of the school year of the third year of the program—a last-ditch effort to see if Westport can make it work as well as Central had. Jared and Amanda, two Juniors, are picked to start the program that year.