Light green background: Reader comments | Blue background: My response
From: PeregrinF
I just finished the story. I'd been thinking of reviewing it, as it is an interesting take on NiS and every well written. I notice, also, that it's gotten good scores.
However, while it's marked as completed it doesn't feel that way. For one thing, "some sex" is indicated, but I don't really see it in the story, and the characters are left heading for gym, with more action implied. [--Just saw that I had only downloaded half of the chapters... Get back to you soon.]
I had the feeling that you might be familiar with my work. Kevin is also a great, strong character. I like your take on The Program. Your exploration of the legal issues is fascinating, and leads me to suspect you may be a lawyer. I'm looking forward to Denise's development and the relationship with Kevin particularly.
When I started with Dee Does High School and then Dee Saves the Program I'd intended a plot more like yours. But Dee and other characters took control and the stories went in a different direction. I wanted Worthington do be more of a bureaucratic asshole, but making him just a stupid pedophile was easier and it just went tearing off in that direction.
Good work!
Actually I think I discovered the NiS universe with your first "Carl" story about five years ago, I believe. The NiS concept shocked/horrified me that such a world could exist, since I was so uptight as a kid. I wouldn't even take my shirt off at the beach!
I began looking at the other stories trying to find ones where the hero/heroine successfully resisted; found a few, but they weren't satisfying. If the NiS world were REAL and I had been selected when I was in HS, I definitely would be in prison for killing someone. This was in the 1950s and I had been studying karate for years; I could break bricks and concrete blocks with my hands and feet. My dad loved boxing and tried to get me to learn as soon as he could find gloves to fit me. I didn't like it, so we made a deal--if I could find a fighting sport where I could outmatch him, I could study it. So I did. After a year I fought him wearing boxing gloves and doing karate moves! He could barely touch me but I bruised him all over.
So in school, if someone would have tried to force me to take off my clothes, I would have killed him--no doubt. (As a freshman during my first several weeks, two seniors tried to bully me. I broke one guy's forearm and several ribs and the other guy's shoulder.) So in a way, Kevin is me. And I continued with my martial arts into the Army. So I put some of that in Kevin's story too.
My story really, really tried to be an anti-NiS story. Kevin was going to take on the Program and stop it dead, but just as you said happened to you, the characters just took the damn story over and I was totally astounded at where they took it. I had a completely different plot and direction in mind, but Kevin just took over, put me into a mental hammerlock, and started dictating.
No, I'm not a lawyer, but I do know a lot of legal stuff (my work needed a good background in medicine, psychology, and law). Right now I'm playing with some scenes based on the Kevin story to see if maybe there's another tale somewhere in there.
Anyway, I think your writing is among the best of any of the writers on SOL and ASSTR. You're right up there with people like Russell Hoisington and Nick Scipio, to name some favorites.
Great work, and thanks for the comments.
Well first of all, thanks for the compliments. You place me exalted company. I haven't read much Hoisington. I'll put him on my to-do list. Nick Scipio is one of my personal favorites, too.
A psychoanalyst would probably have a field day with us. In a way we are polar opposites. I got hooked when I read Karen Wagner's first NiS story. While I had some serious issues with it -- the "forced" bondage and abuse -- I found it a real turn on. As a pubescent kid I enjoyed my "nightmares" of finding myself naked in school.
I was a closet exhibitionist as a teenager, if that isn't an oxymoron. My parents would go out and my clothes would come off. I'd even run around outside naked when I didn't think anyone could see. I loved the idea of a nudist colony. When I was an adolescent we were members of a yacht club with a huge salt-water swimming pool with individual private dressing rooms rather than locker rooms. I'd take off my suit in the shower and make a dash for our locker with a raging hard-on, even knowingly exposing myself to a girl on one occasion.
My dad was a pretty peaceful guy. Mom ran the house and I wasn't close to him. They came from Des Moines, IA, we lived in southern California. Sexually a very repressed family. We had boxing gloves but I didn't like them. I had a brother 4 years older and we'd wrestle sometimes, but I'm anything but a fighter. I hated boxing, never took any martial arts, didn't even like contact sports. I was a swimmer and a diver, in fact.
Carl NiS was my reaction to Karen Wagner's story. It tapped right into my personal kink. I see my series as a way of breaking the sexually repressive atmosphere I was raised in.
Kevin and Denise has more depth than almost any story on SOL.
Kevin is a great character. I've downloaded the full story but haven't yet read the last half -- real life does get in the way -- but I'll be interested to see how it develops. Your writing is top notch, by the way. I'm looking forward to seeing more from you.
Review by: Peregrinf
This could be, should be the NiS story to end all NiS stories.
Not that it will be. NiS stories will continue, and most of them will just be more of the same-old same old. How many different ways are there to tell the story of a couple of naive kids stripped naked in school for a week?
But, while it is fantasy, as all NiS stories are, it does offer a stiff jolt of reality, a jolt that might leave you contemplating the feasibility of the whole Naked in School Program.
This is a different and much meatier NiS story than usual. It has a plot. It has a hero -- and what a hero! -- and villains, and damsels in distress -- and what damsels! It has a plot. It has lots of action -- physical, sexual, social and political -- and lots of stuff worth thinking about, lessons in law and civics, psychology and sociology, right and wrong.
It also has sex, but it takes about 20 chapters to get to it. Don't let that discourage you, the lessons come first and they are worth learning, and thinking about. It may feel a bit dry and dense when the legal arguments get a bit thick. They are well worth paying attention to in spite of that, because on that hangs a good bit of the plot.
Once you get past chapter 20 the sex comes in, in the last 19 chapters, and the scenes are well written and hot and explore a healthy range of enthusiastic activities. You'd have to be pretty delicate for there to be anything to squick you, but plenty to arouse you.
You could consider it a well earned reward for soldiering through all that comes before. That's the foreplay, I guess I could say. But it's fair to say that getting there is half the fun.
Technically the story is almost flawless. It is grammatically correct and almost completely free of typos (I think I saw at least one but was too busy reading to flag it) and homonyms, and the style is comfortable and readable.
Numerical Scores given:
Plot : 10
Quality: 10
Appeal : 10
From: zitqhile
Did not need a reason to reread it, but this adds a good reason for the third time. [In response to my blog that I updated the story.]
From: hotpass
Just finished Kevin and Denise.
I really liked how you made your version of the program supportive. I appreciated the novelty of the NIS stories (and there are some great ones), however when students were coerced or for some reason ended up having sex they did not really choose voluntarily, I felt a sadness, sometimes anger. Thanks.
From: Roy
I realize that you wrote this some time ago. I had stopped reading stories with a NIS component.
However while searching for something else this story popped up. After reading the description of your nis stories I decided to give it a shot. I enjoyed the story and your writing. However, the basic premise requires a larger suspension of belief than most science fiction. Having been a teenager at the beginning of the sexual revolution and being very active in supporting the activities of m three children while they were in high school I cannot see any benefit from a program like this in a public school setting.
I think this will be the last nis story I read.
Thanks for your fine work.
Roy
I have to agree with your concluding point. When I discovered the NiS stories more than six years ago, I hated the underlying premise so much that I stewed over what to do about how I felt about those stories. So a couple of years ago, I set out to write about how a kid who encountered the program worked to kill it off. But my characters took over the plot of my first story so thoroughly that I had to stretch the telling into a trilogy to show why the NiS premise is so absurd on lots of levels -- legal, political, moral, ethical, psychological, whatever. In short, I tried to kill off the NiS program stories by my own storytelling. I suppose in reading only the first story, you wouldn't see how I tried to do that.
The primary reason the NiS stories so affected me so much is that there actually IS an element of historical truth in the premise. It really happened, in a limited way. Back in the 1950s, when I was in high school, many U.S. high schools did have a naked in school program--swimming classes. Boys were REQUIRED to be naked in swimming in many high schools. In some schools, girls were too but nowhere as much as boys. Swimming was in segregated classes, obviously. (By around 1979, naked swimming had been abolished in schools all around the U.S.) As a high school kid, I so hated the idea -- I was incredibly modest, never even went shirtless at the beach -- that I found ways to avoid swimming classes and managed to graduate high school without ever taking swimming. When the school discovered this a couple of months before graduation, they tried to withhold my graduation (they couldn't--wasn't a state academic requirement for graduating. Ha.). But the nonconsensual/coercive nature of naked high school swimming must have affected me deeply enough that when I encountered the NiS stories, just the idea of public nudity in a school was so troubling that I had to respond somehow.
So to your point -- apart from that limited example of the authority of schools to require pupil nudity in a kind of public setting, you're absolutely right about the NiS stories needing a suspension of disbelief. They need a HUGE suspension. Virtually everything in the plots of those stories could NEVER happen in any conceivable universe--so they aren't even "science" fiction -- or even "speculative" fiction. Fantasy, maybe. To my mind, the stories are figments of a bad dream, a nightmare, the dream of a vulnerable person being naked in public, especially as a shy kid in a school. Such dreams are supposed to represent the ultimate in a personal feeling of insecurity. But the fact that there are over 150 stories written using that premise must mean something. What, I don't know. What I do know is after I wrote my three stories, I felt better, like St. George slaying the dragon. I felt like I slayed the idea of anything like the NiS program being conceivable, even in fiction.
Did I actually do that? Who knows. But it's good to hear from someone who feels kind of like I did about the NiS premise.
Anyway, thanks for your kind words about my storytelling.
I have decided to try your next story, Roger and Cynthia. Only up to chapter 17 but still reading. While this may happen later or would have lead your story in a different direction I can't help but believe that the Japanese consulate in California would have been very interested in a federal government sponsored kidnapping of one of there citizens.
Roy
From: Steve
Score = 5-Wow
Thank you for a great story. I appreciate you taking the humiliation and abuse out of naked in school stories!! please write more!
You have a very interesting take on the NiS genre and I am very much enjoying your stories. Thanks for the interesting stories. Thanks for sharing your talent on SOL.
Review by: burka_oz
I can remember reading that first story in the NIS - Naked In School genre. Can't remember how long ago it was, just that the MC was called Karen and her story was all about humiliation and forced sex rather than the romance that was possible. Since then countless NIS stories have been posted, here and elsewhere. Countless versions of the themes have appeared.
One that really struck me (Disclaimer: which I helped edit) was "Allison and Emanuel: Naked In School" by Dinspiration, and the MC's developed ESP communication such was the intense love that developed between them.
Some have been stories where the abuse and humiliation were only thinly disguised. I didn't enjoy those.
Others developed great Romantic stories and really showed up the Program in a good light.
So I started to read a story (current at the time of writing this) where the Program was being introduced in Alaska and they were able to revolt against it and get it to be shut down. Looking forward to seeing this tale develop.
Thus I started to look into other stories by "Ndenyal" and found this to be the start of his NIS tales.
What a tale. The Program has been infiltrated and corrupted. Humiliation and Abuse were being encouraged by so-called Program Officers. Even legitimate medical excuses were being disregarded. Enter the MC and a new student, new even to the USA. He had entered the country only a few days before. He had no idea about the Program but he was soon able to bring about several monumental changes in how the Program was managed and run.
Along the way, his serious medical problem and the medical problems of his program partner were well on the way to being resolved by the time we get to the end of the tale.
This tale takes the NIS genre into the realm of turning the Program into a Loving experience such that people wanted to participate. They were looking forward to their time in the sexual limelight.
I found the tale well written and while the MC had amazing ability it is not all that far-fetched.
So, back to the review. My advice is to read this story and gain a new perspective on the NIS Program. By the end of the tale, you will better understand the original goals of the Program that were corrupted into a Program that took away the student's basic right to privacy.
There is a great plot and you will find twists and turns that you will not be ready for. 9.
A technical score of 8 shows that I didn't find a thing wrong with it. No Grammar problems, word choice was all fine. It was just a good story to read.
Lastly, Appeal to the Reviewer was a solid 9.
I really enjoyed how the Author took us through the Program week with all that was going on in the life of the two MCs.
Now, just before you go off and read this great tale, Bookmark the Story Page for "Ndenyal" and work your way through his NIS stories as I will now be doing.
https://storiesonline.net/a/Ndenyal
https://storiesonline.net/s/24722/emma-comes-in-from-the
Numerical Scores given:
Plot : 9
Quality: 8
Appeal : 9
From: Ralph
Thanks for writing a very thought provoking story in the "Naked in Schools" universe. Kevin and Denise were central characters that were easy to relate too. You had Kevin tell the story so well. I look forward to reading your other two stories.
Thanks for taking the time to write.
From: Mr.Wolfskill
WOW! What a great story, this has got to be my favorite story in the NIS story line. You have done a wonderful job and should be very proud of yourself. I also want to take a min to thank you for sharing your wonderful talent with me, and all of us here on SOL, so Thank You !
From: Donald
Score = 5-Wow
Loved it!! I was expecting something something extremely scathing at first, but as I continued reading, and laughing at quite a few of the political and bureaucratic jokes, I realized that wasn't your intent at all. Had me reading in the middle of the night in my travel trailer 😄. And the sex stuff was erotic too. Don't know if all that medical stuff actually is true, and don't care enough to check Google either. It added to and made the story.
Thank you for sharing your work with us! It was a true pleasure to read.
From: Robert
Great story as a big fan of NIS-stories this story is one of the best anti-NIS story I read, well done.
From: Bill D.
You did really well with this first book, bringing it from a totally different perspective. I have read most of the NIS series and found most of them interesting. I did follow Dee through her entire program. Your introduction of other NIS participants is also a novel approach. I look forward to your follow on book.
From: nakedjuggler
I gave this a score of 1 & i want to justify this to you. I enjoy the reluctant nudity, slightly forced sex & (usually) burgeoning relationships between partners that take place in this universe. It's a fantasy universe. Why write a story set in an existing universe that totally opposes everything in the universe? It's just going to piss everyone off who enjoys the stories.
I guess you don't understand what FICTION is, then. In major part, it's the exploration of alternatives. You want everyone to believe what you believe in and have no tolerance for those who believe otherwise. It would be a sad, sad world if everyone thought as you do.
And you're wrong about the NiS universe, too, and how other writers approach the topic. Fortunately they don't suffer from your "blinders" mindset.
From: Mike C.
Score = 5-Wow
Entirely believable Remember you must love your country but you're government is optional.
From: spwnie
It's a bit too black and white - the good guys are all pure and noble while the NIS supporters are all venal idiots. NIS is interesting because of the balance between the alleged personal enlightenment it can bring vs the obvious exploitation the students suffer.
K&D was an awesome story, btw.
From: Ian D.H.
Thank you for this story. I am about half way through. It appears to me to be well written and I don't see much in the way of grammatical or spelling errors. Best of all, I am enjoying the story.
From: David
An exceptional story, well written, easily read and assimilated! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
From: LittleFreida
You wrote ... “Um, I can’t run if they’re bouncing! They really hurt and I can be injured!”
Yours is one of the very few NIS stories even hinting that for some girls, gravity is not your friend. Pam also touched on this a little with a big breasted anti-NIS teacher.
You wrote ... "There’s another law principle that says that all headings and titles are descriptive and not proscriptive."
Too bad you are not a lawyer. I would make you read my gripes about odious EULAs, and that's most of them, then ask you questions.
You wrote ... "I don’t have any particular modesty issues, except the idea of public masturbation and groping makes my skin crawl."
Here is my honest personal view, assuming a friendly NIS environment,
Day One. After the first set of students set the tone of this school's NIS experience, Randall is as thrilled as any (clothed) boy about the new program. On the second day of the Program he overhears his male classmates talking about every little fact and rumor from Program activities as they hear stories of what happens in the higher grades and they discuss how the relief situation will apply to them.
Boy-1: “Can you believe it? I’m going to get a handjob every day!”
Boy-2: “Not me! I’ll get a blow job every day!”
Boy-3: “Pffffffft. You guys are pikers, its full on sex every period for me!”
As the week rolls on, Randall is enthralled with the NIS activities. He sees what goes on with the relief sessions, and looks forward with increasing anticipation to the time when his own turn will come.
[ God help me, I want in! ]
This is a backward look, after about 50 years. No telling if I would have been like this at the time.
You wrote ... "I assumed that Raymond just wanted to talk about my graduation credits, but just to be careful, I got out the voice recorder and slipped it in my tights unobtrusively."
A little bit of real world intrusion here, but that can be considered to be wiretapping. Oddly, a video with no sound is NOT wiretapping.
You wrote ... The leases were paid up for a five-year term by bitcoin transfers. No way to trace that.
It may be difficult, or need a government to do it, but not impossible.
Just now finished re-reading the story. Very enjoyable. At the end, having the President host the meeting with the kids Kevin saved was nice.
Thanks for the comments.
I like strong characters, especially strong women. So my stories are filled with them.
I'm sensitive to the problems that women with large bosoms have. So I wrote that into my story. My wife had large breasts and she was given light gym classes in high school, because back then, bras gave inadequate support for vigorous activities.
I'm not a lawyer but my family is loaded with them. In my profession and community work, I had to know a lot about the law--both corporate and civil. So I know a lot about the law. I even wrote an article on negligence for a law journal and gave some seminars on the topic. So I'm quite familiar with things legal.
Actually there are ways to transfer funds anonymously--including with bitcoin. Going into details would have slowed down the story.
Wiretapping laws actually differ from state to state. In most states, it's not illegal to record a conversation if one party is aware of the recording. Obviously the one recording it is aware. And in the case of a face-to-face conversation, federal law, which has added "presence" coversations to electronic ones, allows recording if one of the parties in the conversation permits it. State laws generally follow this doctrine as well. So it's totally legal to record a conversation you have with someone. It's illegal for a third party to do so without having legal authority such as a warrant.
I'm glad you enjoyed the story. Hope you'll read the others. That's where you'll find my version of an enhanced "sex-ed" program to promote understanding and sensitivity between sexes.
From: nycamper
Great story!!
Thank you!
From: Hal K
Perigrinf pretty much made writing any further review of this story gilding the lily. Well written, interesting characterizations, interesting non-stock high school students, and an interesting twist on the criminal aspect. And all the sex loaded at the end. Of course for western men tantric sex is already passe, we are now into the age of ROPO, which stands for roll off pass out.
I do have one issue, "I have an elderly aunt, she's 68" That is really offensive and if it weren't for my arthritis, cataracts, bad hearing, and aching prostate I would throttle you for the insult. Elderly? How dare you sir. Please keep writing,
Hey, thanks for the comments. I think that Peregrinf's comments were awesome and wrote him my thanks.
You know, I told Kevin he'd get me in trouble for that offhand comment. I saw my 70th year to many years ago myself, and ditto for the sore joints, cataracts, uncertain gait, and other weaknesses of the flesh too delicate to mention. But he just told me to just shut up, this was HIS story, and write what he dictated. What a bossy teenager.
Well, Kevin is "only" 16 yo and to him, and plenty of other teens, anyone on the other side of 30 is ancient. As my grandkids like to joke with me--"Grandpa, tell us again how you used to have to hide so the dinosaurs wouldn't eat you." Hmmm. Maybe they're not joking....
From: Chris C
score = 5
Very good indeed and thoroughly enjoyable, Thank you
From: David D.
great story. wish you could add more chapters to it. like to see what they do as they get older
From: Chris C
score = 4
quite a story very good
From: David C
Brilliant story - please keep writing more stories
From: Gordon C
This wonderful story has caused me a couple of very late nights.
Both enjoyable and thought provoking.
From: Jeff
score = 5-Wow
From: Trauts
I've finished reading this story, the full 39 chapters this time and have rated it AWESOME. This is one of the top stories I've read on SOL at this time (out of 1500 or thereabouts). I absolutely love it!
Thank you! I predict much success in your future and look forward to reading more of your stories.
From: Captain
I haven't read all of you NIS story yet. Is it all anti-erotic? It sounds like a campaign against a fantasy. You do know that NIS is fictional, right?
Is there some kind of rule that SOL stories must be erotic? Please let me know where that rule can be found.
Did Lewis Carrol think that Alice's Wonderland was real when he wrote those stories? Did Herman Melville not know that the albino whale Moby-Dick was fictional? Or that Samuel Butler thought that Erewhon was a real place? (In case you don't know the last example, Butler's Erewhon parodies the conventions of his Victorian society.)
I'm not saying that my work is anywhere near the works of those masters. But they all begin with a premise rooted in the world known to their readers and construct a fictional framework using principles of logic derived from that original premise.
Tell me, when you go to a movie, do you watch the story as it unfolds and think (or say) "I can't believe this! None of that stuff could ever happen!" Engaging in fiction, in print or screen, requires a "willing suspension of disbelief" according to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, where the reader (viewer) places himself into the hands of the narrator and allows himself to be moved along with the flow of the story, which, for its characters, is absolutely real. If it weren't, then all fiction would fail.
In my story, Kevin is, in fact, anti-Program. Are you saying that stories like that have to be banned from the genre? Is there a law to that effect somewhere? If you don't like the idea, no one is forcing you to read them. But please don't imply that someone else doesn't have the right to write them.
Thanks for the reply.
No, there's no rule. I find the NIS idea erotic and would like to read more if they're like Wagner, Peregrinf, etc. Of course I know it's fiction and understand the fiction concept. You are a very good writer and you're doing a good job of it. I'm not saying writing like yours should be banned; I just won't be interested.
Ok, then... You were just reacting to my own take on the NiS universe. But it seems that my own vision isn't shared by my story's hero, Kevin. He has his own ideas.
I know you've given up on me, but before you give up on Kevin--and since you coincidentally mention PeregrinF--why don't you look at his review: to see what he thought of the story...
Fiction comes in many forms and many surprises await the patient. Hope you'll give it another chance.
From: Bill D.
This was a totally different approach to the NIS series with each author taking a slightly different view. It was a great read and you did a great job. I hope to see more of your work.
From: fr.dad
Excellent effort! I hope you will write more like this.
From: David L.
Excellent story - loved it and stayed up way to late to finish it
Review by: Vitruvian Manuel
Two words: Fucking awesome.
The Bad:
Technical problems with law and the roles of various law enforcement divisions. Protagonist is a bit too special. Psychological seems to happen too quickly and suddenly. Program partners, as usual in the universe, fall in love.
The Good:
3D characters. Likeable protagonist. People have real problems. Presents the natural local outcroppings of national problems. Technical soutions to computing issues are nearly feasable (close enough for a fiction story, at least). Wonderful contrasts between opposition to the Program and an internal need to participate for others' sake. Lovely arc of trying to improve the program.
The Last call:
If you like the NIS unitverse, read this. If you are curious about problems that could occur in the NIS universe, read this. If you know what the NIS universe is, read this. IF you don't, read some other NIS stories, then read this. 😄
Numerical Scores given:
Plot : 9
Quality: N/A
Appeal : 10
From: Ron P.
Very good story! I look forward to more from you.
Thanks for Writing!
From: Craig S.
Just a note to say I enjoyed your story and its take on the NIS program. I found the story to be well thought out and smoothly written. It was long but not excessively so and the story moved right along.
Thank you for expending the energy to do the work I know writing can be. Thank you, too, for freely sharing that work with us here on SOL. We, the readers, appreciate it.
From: griswolf
I enjoyed your NIS story. Interesting stuff about both the main characters' sexual difficulties, though I do wonder if Kevin's therapy you described is real.
NIS universe depends on some serious disbelief suspension, but even past that, I found it hard to accept girls losing their virginity on the cafeteria table and similar. I do like a bit of sex in a story, but this one went past my own level of preference. My issue, not yours.
I admit to skimming toward the end: I had liked the "meat" of the story, but from about the point where K and D had actual sex, it seemed to become partly a wish-fulfillment fantasy, partly a stroke story... just seemed to go on a bit long.
I see that this is your first SOL entry: Great job technically (no surprise from what your author's page says). You might also be interested in the Swarm cycle and the Damsels in Distress universe. Like NIS, both offer a great place to set stories. I imagine that, like fanfic, they are a good place for a new author to start.
Thanks for freely sharing your story. I enjoyed it.
Thanks for the feedback...
All the medical parts are real. The medical conditions Kevin has are real. The therapeutic treatment of muscle spasms using tiny needles a la acupuncture is well documented and has been used successfully to treat spasms in the pelvic floor muscles. The only made-up part was my extending the (real) TENS treatment to the dorsal penile nerve, but the TENS treatment is real and is quite useful in reducing unwanted nerve excitation and pain and could theoretically be used to treat some forms of PE (if someone could develop a functional penile sleeve). The technology for doing that exists.
You're obviously correct in pointing out that this is a fantasy. But in this fantasy world, where nudity in schools is required and the society has become intensely sexualized, it's not such a stretch to realize that in such an NiS world, cultural mores have become so altered that boys and girls will be quite uninhibited as a result. Think of the intensive stimulation, touching, visual cues, and other sexual signals among a group of high school adolescents whose hormones are running rampant and the risks of pregnancy and STDs are nonexistent. In such cases, I assure you that a cafeteria deflowering is gonna happen. I noticed that in lots of other NiS stories, there's a similar breakdown of societal mores (of our own society's, that is).
Do you recall what happened at the Woodstock Festival in Bethel, NY in 1969? Public nudity and public sex were rampant. This is what happens when inhibitions break down and the people in the area become involved in encouraging the participants. It's basic psychology that when the proper conditions allow, unexpected events occur.
And since this was the first fiction story I've ever tried to write, I kind of let the characters get away from me and do what they wanted to do. I just gave them free rein and let the story flow, wondering where it was going to wind up. Not where I planned, anyway. It was a real lesson for me in writing and I discovered a lot about character management by the time the story came to an end. I didn't feel like rewriting the parts that were "over the top" even though I thought they were a bit contrived and artificial. I decided to post the story and see what others thought and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, but two other readers did comment about the sex. Too much, they thought. Others thought not enough. Oh well...
I've looked at the "Swarm Cycle"; another person suggested it too, but I tried reading a few and didn't care for the stories. I don't much like the premise and I don't like writing about fictional devices that have no basis in modern science (galactic travel, alien beings, etc.). "Damsels" appears to be more of the same. Good sf needs a top-notch author, one with a great imagination who can draw the reader into the story and make him ignore the science-fantasy part. I'm nowhere that good (and neither were the authors I read), so I stopped reading after a dozen or so pages on each story. But thanks for the suggestion.
And thanks for the comments!
From: Darkcecil
I'm liking the story, and make no mistake, your writing is far better than mine will ever be. I just want to say that your protagonist is difficult to relate to because he's too perfect; he's handsome, rich, ripped, polite, articulate, intelligent, studious, and he's a black belt in two disciplines to boot. Characters need to have some sort of flaw, like shyness or something, to keep them grounded. The hero worship every other character piles on him adds to the issue, I think. Also how every adversary immediately backs down from his flawless retorts.
Glad you like it. It IS a fantasy, after all, and Kevin turned out to be an idealistic caricature.
The story has a lot of autobiographical elements, though, and kind of idealizes my own youth. As a high school kid I was:
Handsome: not really, just reasonably ok in appearance, I guess
Rich: family was not rich, just well off
Ripped: no, but very tough
Polite: very
Articulate: very
Intelligent: very
Studious: very
Black belt: not formally (I learned karate in the mid 1950s), but I became quite proficient and did need to use it defensively
Interactions with adults: just like Kevin. Got my way lots of times. I did approach challenges "from a position of strength."
Hero worship: I was admired (by some--particularly the troublemakers), but it likely was because of the chaos I caused and got away with doing.
But I was also an overbearing, superior personality type and not at all likable as I tried to make Kevin. I got into lots of trouble in school by openly challenging teachers--and principals too--but was always able to talk my way out of it by doing exactly what Kevin did--getting the person boxed into logical arguments where I could twist their words and use their own arguments against them. But they couldn't retaliate because I was always very polite and respectful in my interactions. And I did sometimes take on injustices committed against others. My parents were forever telling me to cut it out because they were tired of getting calls from the school about me, but had to agree that my arguments were proper when I explained the issue. I was indeed a strong-willed, idealistic kid with a way overdeveloped sense of justice.
They say truth can be stranger than fiction. Kevin would have been appalled at what I did as a teen.
When I got to college and tried it there, I quickly got my wings clipped. That's when I grew up.
I wasn't going to answer your message, but then I felt the need to explain how my story "atones" in some way for my "misspent" youth. That's why Kevin is so perfect--I gave him all the characteristics I wished I had as a teen.
From: Pete S
A good first try at an NiS story. I've followed NiS for several years - and I thought it was moribund.
I'm a grey-beard, so my opinions probably don't reflect those of the main audience for NiS stories. I read the story for the plot and drama, finding the 'erotic' details an unwelcome distraction. I don't want stroke-story stuff, I have a good memory for my own sexual adventures!
My complaint seems to be that you need to decide more clearly where the emphasis lies - plot or porn. No SoL reader should object to erotic stuff per se, but many prefer sexy drama rather than in-and-out details.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
From: fholin
I make a sort of habit of trying to profile a writer as I read anything...even the newspaper. As I got into your wonderful NiS thing, I did it. Please let me know how I did.
I'm very sure that you're male.* It's most likely that you are an academic at some level...not only because you mentioned writing textbooks, but the general tone, accuracy of syntax, spelling, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if you were a lawyer, but I'm not as positive as I should be. I am fairly sure that you're not in medicine (I am) although you blew a few factoids around. (By the way, it's the "solar plexUs" with a "u", not an "i", and it's the "transverse pudendal muscle." You called it "...pudendum..." I suppose that there in an anatomy book around that uses that term, but none of my 4 or the internet does.) You may very well be a social scientist of some sort or a psychologist. It wouldn't astonish me to discover that you had roots in Great Britain (no American kid ever uses the term "darling.") Anyway...
*Very little erotic fiction is written by women, no matter what nom de plume they use. The best I've ever read is to be found at asstr.org. Click the "Authors" tab, go to the "J" page and look for Janey Urquhart. If you start with "Janey's January" I predict that you'll read the rest. She's the only other author I've ever written a fan mail to.
Well, you've got some things correct. I'd give you a passing grade, anyway--a D+ or C-. ;-)
Male: Yes
Academic: Yes (obviously, since I mentioned writing textbooks, etc.)
Lawyer: Not an attorney but have written several extensive legal articles and am a trained parliamentarian
Medicine: Taught in three medical schools but not a physician--I'm a biochemist and microbiologist and have a strong background in human anatomy/physiology
Psychology: Very knowledgeable in the field
UK terminology: I consciously used UK terminology when speaking in Kevin's voice (he grew up under British schools' influence). You'll find plenty (e.g., ring up, mobile)
Typos: You caught "plexus" (that was a u/i finger-slip). I wrote: “Down the penile suspensory ligament and along the transverse perineus muscle..." it's called the "transverse perineus" in at least two of my anatomy textbooks (I have twelve). The "-eus" ending typically means "muscle" and I added the word "muscle" as an afterthought as a layperson's explanation. Also, from Google, which shows that term used (two of hundreds):
Review Questions for Human Anatomy: A Program of Study ...https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1850707952
P.W. Tank - 1996 - Medical
Bulbospongiosus muscle Superficial portion of the external anal sphincter Superficial transverse perineus muscles Pubococcygeus muscle Colles' fascia WW ...
Anatomy to Color and Study - Page 5 - Google Books Result https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1560535679
Raphael Poritsky, Ray Poritsky - 2003 - Medical
3-Perineal artery (branch of internal pudendal artery) 4-Branch to superficial transverse perineus muscle 5-Perineal artery in superficial perineal space; this ...
Ah, well, not too bad. At least I would graduate. Oh, and I had deduced that the setting was probably in the Carolinas before you let that cat out of the bag. I don't know quite how I came up with that, however.
The perineus/perineum/perineal thing is interesting. The stuff I looked at all used the adjectival form. I guess I should have looked harder.
Let me know if you read the "Janey" material. If you do, you'll discover that her (assumedly fictional) husband is a newly tenured professor at a college in the Boston area.
Yes, I know of her writing. I seem to recall reading "Janey's April" (based, I think, on Sandman's "French Kisses") and "Janey's September." The titles "Janey's (something)" do sound pretty familiar anyway, so I must have read several. Good writing.
Not sure how you would have figured out the Carolinas setting after only about 1300 words (that's the initial scene in Fletcher's office in Ch 1). I mentioned that Aunt Helene lived in NC just halfway into Ch 2 after covering Kevin's childhood background... When you read that it probably didn't register then, but when my descriptions became vaguely reminiscent of the Research Triangle area, you picked up on that.
Btw, there are lots of folk who would take issue with your comment that "Very little erotic fiction is written by women." There are plenty of female erotica authors--few of the women on this list are pen names: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authors_of _erotic_works
If you look at amateur sites like Literotica, you'll see that plenty of authors there identify themselves as female and their plots, orientation, and literary approach are all female-centric. See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-woolfall-/post_5419_b_ 3755826.html
From: Ed
It has been a long time since I have been totally captivated by a story as much as this one. Even the sex which didn't come in till chapter 25 was done tastefully and within the confines of the story. Well done!!
From: glangenwalter
score = 5-Wow
Thank you for the story - I really enjoyed it! I liked the depth of the plot, and your dialogue was completely realistic. I'm hoping you'll write and post more stories here.
From: Owen
score = 5-Wow
Thank you for writing this, I really enjoyed reading this story, as much for the story itself, as for the erotic side of it.
From: Graham
score = 5-Wow
Really enjoyed the read.
The story was terrific, the sex was amazing too.
But, I wanted to know more about Kevin all the way through.
Will you continue the story at all?
From: ptaggart
Well done story. I believe you did a great job tying the together the good and the bad of this universe in an entertaining story.
From: Don
I think that I have read every NIS story posted on SOL. This one surely has done nothing that can say that it does not deserve to not be included. Interesting, exciting and very readable. More please, much more.
Thanks much.
From: MooseBreath
About Chapter 10.
I realize that this was written and posted several years ago, I even read it the first time several years ago. But, one thing I must make sure that you are aware of is that most high school seniors do not start the year at age eighteen. In fact, due to when and where I started first grade, I spent most of the first two months of my senior year at the grand old age of sixteen. If I had arived on my due date instead of almost three weeks early, it would have been 2.5 months instead of seven weeks.
Great story in any case. Thanks!
Youe reader,
Moose
No, they mostly don't start at 18 but a lot do become 18 during the fall term. I don't recall exactly but I don't think I mentioned a lot of kids starting as seniors at 18 in the story. Perhaps one or two. According to the U.S. Census, the median age for high school grads from 1960-90 was in the range of age 18.6 to 19.4. This means that the youngest to turn 18, based on that average, had their 18th birthday in December-January. I graduated at 17.7 years, but a lot in my class were closer to 18.3.
On the other hand, a friend's grandson just turned 16 and he's graduating next June. So with skipping grades and holding back, there's a huge age range.
There's also the practice of parents red-shirting their kids to start school older, a practice which was fairly common in the 80s and 90s but not so much now.
Thanks for your comments.
From: Ken
To say that I enjoyed the story would be an understatement! It is one of the finest's naked in school stories ever written. You brought up some problems in some of the other stories that I thought made them seem too far out. Thank you very much for an awesome story please do more writing Ken
From: Timothy
Score = 4
I really enjoyed reading this. The first 28 chapters or so were absolutely riveting! I'll admit that it bothered me a little bit when Kevin decided to voluntarily strip when the new week began, as did Denise. It bothered me more when they voluntarily engaged in the varying sex acts. They fought tooth and nail against the program only to become the biggest supporters of it (their version of it, but still) and ended up making people *want* to be on the program. Great work, though.
Thanks for the feedback.
You know, I really had a hard time with keeping Kevin and Denise under control! I personally am strongly repelled by the humiliation and non-consensual elements in most NiS stories and I fully intended that this story highlight that bias. Some of the story is mildly autobiographical, in fact; I was just like Kevin during my HS years, frequently challenging my teachers over academic and classroom management matters. And I was so persuasive that I was never punished, because I could box the adult into an impossible situation. Also like Kevin, I took martial arts training, and on one occasion, as a freshman, I incapacitated two senior-class bullies, inflicting multiple broken bones. But if I had been forced to do something like NiS, I would have resisted with deadly force! Yes, I could kill with my hands, feet, and arms. At least the bricks and wood planks I practiced on didn't survive my strikes. And I had severe body-image issues--my parents were never able to get my to take my shirt off, even at the beach. I didn't lose my modesty until I got into the Army.
Anyway, as I mentioned, Kevin took over the story, and his being so incredibly strong-willed, I just sat back, let the words flow from the keyboard, and let myself be led into areas I never intended the story to go in. I've always heard of how many authors describe how their characters took over the writing of the story. It's true. While writing, I actually became Kevin. Or maybe the Kevin inside of me came out and took over. In any event, I was disturbed about how he changed at the end just as you were, and that's one of the morals of this story--and a warning too.
The warning is about the psychological effect of being forced to re-evaluate and alter your own moral compass in the face of tremendous societal pressures, and in Kevin's case, his empathy for others being forced into coercive situations led him to do things that he found personally repulsive. I hope my writing brought out his ambivalent feelings about his two public sex acts. But I intended that their private romance develop slowly in a voyage of mutual discovery, and I hope that that part of the plot worked better for you.
From: Richard S
Thanks for posting the html version. I did get to read it and enjoyed it very much. Isn't there always a But? The story makes other NiS stories difficult to write. It looks to me like the program is very close to being ended. Perhaps you can write another story in the new political framework, perhaps not using the same characters to see how it works now the changes have taken hold. Or not, maybe some other school district's experience may be different. Your characters were very special, not normal everyday students. What would joe or jane average's experience be? Maybe not interesting. Probably depends on the students, teachers and administrators around them. Or maybe their parents?
From: Sam
Score = 5-Wow
This series is outstanding. You really made the characters come alive and seem real. It was like a great book that I couldn't put down.
From: Don W.
Score = 5-Wow
Thanks for the great story. It took a while to get going but was certainly worth reading. I look forward to reading more of your writing.
From: Timothy
I know we spoke just the other day, but I just thought of something else. I know the last chapter ended with "the end", but if it's not truly the end, maybe you'd like ideas on how to continue the story.
Maybe the principal or someone else could find out there was a lot more going on than anyone knew about. For instance, maybe Mr Wilbur was only insistent on the kids getting naked because he wanted to get them to have sex as a demonstration, but really he was selling child porn online for big money and by these 2 not doing it, he was losing a lot of money.
Maybe the gym teacher, Miss Williams, was seeking young men who were well hung because she was running a service for women who had husbands who weren't interested in them anymore. Those who were tall, handsome, muscular, athletic and well hung were prime candidates. She needed to find out just how hung Kevin is/was.
Maybe the male gym teacher (I can't remember his name) was interested in the female students being nude because he could check them out to his satisfaction and if he could arrange it, have sex with them since they couldn't get pregnant.
Maybe they could even implement a teaching or administering naked program. Or perhaps they could just make is to that everyone went naked all the time?
As I said before, though, the story is awesome as it is. I wish I could write so well but writing like this just isn't my forte. I do appreciate your sharing. I'm looking forward to more of your writing should you choose to do more, especially if it's anything like this.
From: Dave.S
This is one of the best if not the best story I have seen by a new author here. But since you have written many other works in other areas perhaps that explains it. Congratulations on your efforts.
The whole thing is the rules are often ignored when an 'evil' administrator is appointed, which seems to be 99% of the time . Perhaps the solution is to require Program Administrators to be licensed & certified childhood counselors, not political hacks as is the case most of the time?
From: Fuzzy &co
The whole thing is the rules are often ignored when an 'evil' administrator is appointed, which seems to be 99% of the time 🙁. Perhaps the solution is to require Program Administrators to be licensed & certified childhood counselors, not political hacks as is the case most of the time?
Program pamphlet "The Law"
http://www.asstr.org/~NIS-Admin/program/NiS_Program_Pamphlet.html
Local Program officials may make exemptions for students unable to participate in the Program. These exemptions will not be given lightly and will be limited to matters of health, impending relocation, excusable absence, diplomatic status, international treaty, prior participation, and matters to be determined by the national board.
The rules DO provide for medical as well as legal exemptions.
Resonable Requests:
the rules again provide clear definition of what is and isn't 'reasonable'
[[if a 'naked' says its not reasonable it is not reasonable]]
It is up to the individual Program participant to determine what is reasonable, given the following guidelines:
A student is only required to comply during school hours on school grounds or while engaged in a school activity on or off campus. If a school activity runs to after school hours the student must still participate while 'present for' or 'part of' the activity.
[[this one is often abused by evil managment]]
The Program Participant is the sole judge of the reasonability of any request that involves physical contact. Any attempts to coerce the participant into physical contact beyond what the participant finds reasonable will result in disciplinary action by the school administration in accordance with the judgement of local Program officials.
Posing and other acts which entail no touching are always required to be agreed to if they will not interfere with other school activities.
[[again 'encouraged' isn't required ]]
Participants are strongly encouraged to allow touching for the purposes of education and promoting a sexually aware environment. School administration may create incentives for students who do so at the judgement of local Program Officials.
[[absolute requirement]]
No student shall ever be required to insert a foreign object into any bodily orifice as a part of a Reasonable Request or Classroom Activity.
No student is ever required to submit to oral sex or penetration with a sexual organ as a part of a Reasonable Request.
No student is ever required to have their freedom of movement restricted as a part of a Reasonable Request.
Students do not have to comply with a request while eating lunch or using the restroom. There is an exception to this if the student takes longer than half the lunch period to eat or longer than 5 minutes in the restroom (up to three times per day). Beyond those limits they must follow Reasonable Requests.
Participation in The Program shall not be construed by others as license to abuse the Participant. Attempted sexual assault will still be met with the full weight of criminal law.
[[which never happens]]
[[By the way, whatever you claim you are, to me you're still a superhero! And not a man from Mars, you're just too real."]]
Not Mars, Barsoom. He is John Carter.
Shows up out of no where and is an instant 'reluctant hero'.
You mention the "Program Pamphlet." I used that doc as the starting-off point for Kevin's school's pamphlet; most authors in this universe appear to use some modified version of that standard one. But you need to also look at this page:
http://www.asstr.org/~NIS-Admin/program/NiS_Program_Philosophy.html#RR
and especially look further down at the "Dystopian Reasonable Requests" section. In fact, that whole page covers the "utopian/dystopian" dichotomy present in various authors' interpretations that range the gamut between the happy-go-lucky Program (Carl and Beth stories--PeregrineF) to the dark, moody, and threatening Program (Alandra--Tenyari). But even PeregrineF, with his light-hearted take on the Program, gave us the most evil Program official possible in "Dee Does High School" where the official, Douglas Worthington, is a pedophile and rapist.
That's what's so great about this universe. It's so incredibly flexible.
From: Fuzzy &co
[["I think that's because you've lost contact with your essential self. Sometimes when people go into shock, they kind of do something, uh, let's see, I think it's called 'disassociation' or something like that. They step away from their essence and become almost like a second personality that observes events in a disinterested manner. I'm putting it really poorly, but I think that's approximately what happens."]]
yes, exactly. True MPD/DID is just a more complete separation of ego states. The idea is to 'preserve' the 'first born child', usually by being hidden behind a dissociative barrier.
From: Roger
Score = 5-Wow
Quite a story with outstanding writing. Even with small amount of erotic content it was a "page turner"
From: David.usm
I have read this story and is now one of my favorites of all the NIS stories.