Sometimes the mothers and sisters of Brewer had to pinch themselves. Was this really happening? Here in Brewer, in 1956? It was like a dream come true, a fantasy brought to life. It made everyday existence suddenly more exciting.
Yes, you had to pinch yourself. Because it was now normal that when young men 18 or 20, or even older, got into trouble at home, school, YMCA, church- even at the police station- to subject them to full bodied nudity. In front of females. And the fellas just obeyed. Blushing and shamed to be sure but...(this was hard to believe) they were obedient. They were submissive.
This new standard had taken off, like wildfire.
Perhaps it was the influence of Dr Speight at school medical examinations. Since her arrival all examinations of boys were done in the nude. Mothers had sometimes been involved, and girls at the school had got glimpses. They had been thrilled by the sight of embarrassed, stark naked 18 year old males from their classes. Boys they knew. Oh, those boys were soooo humiliated...
By coincidence, at the same time, there comes along Brewer's most prominent citizen Miss Reilly who celebrated full nude punishment with weekly parties at her home, the grandest in town. There privileged mothers got to see how boys might be stripped and spanked. They had also seen naked males in the garden working off punishments- fit young men in their 20s, with Elvis hairdos or crew cuts in trouble with the police- and been served drinks by them, thrillingly.
They were all women subject to thoughts and yearnings, itching lusts and restless dreams and nagging fantasies. Curiosity about young male bodies. A desire to see their own sons stripped. In short, they were certain to start applying this new discipline at their homes. "The most fun you can have, as a mature age woman," became the standard patter. And seeing a son stripped was sometimes a reward for all you had suffered from a former husband.
Male modesty did not stand a chance.
Then there was Miss Cuff's musical in which boys were near naked: the front flaps on their loin cloths had got shorter and the rear flaps had vanished altogether. The miracle was that boys obeyed this teacher in whatever she asked. It seemed submissive obedience was one of the most delicious things about all these exercises in Brewer: the boys just blushed and trembled and obediently removed their clothes as required and offered up their rears for punishment. Mothers couldn't believe it, this compliance.
"Mine is so...dutiful, about it," said one mother, delighted. "Even with his sister and cousin watching. Dutiful."
"Oh, mine too," agreed her companion. "Even with his grandmom looking on. I thought he'd revolt but no...mysterious really...so acquiescent."
Ever present was another ingredient. Nobody spoke about it too openly but this was the question of inadvertent erections- always hilarious, educational, too, as biological case study and, delightfully, an intensification of the boy's humiliation. But Sarah Maitland's writings, quoted by Dr Speight and Mrs Reilly, legitimised this exposure and made it respectable as punishment. Dr Speight quoted the English writer:
"Total clothing deprivation with the ritual of undressing, or having disciplined young males remove their clothing themselves, mirrors the findings of my years of research in boys' schools in India and the Caribbean. Their nudity brings boys back as they entered the world- naked and under female control. For 18 year olds, emerging from puberty and challenged by adolescence, the role of penile exposure and involuntary erections cannot be underestimated.
"It is hard for females to grasp the depth of a boy's shame at being exposed nude, suffering- the verb entirely apt- an involuntary erection, especially if in front of his mother and other females such as an aunt, cousins or sisters. The combination of such acute shame with the pain of a spanked posterior delivers in every case a splendid measure of passive obedience. When male passiveness is met with maternal or female dominance in a setting of full body nudity- total clothing deprivation- the male aggression subsides into a submissive, gentle temperament, respectful and mindful of women."
They were enticing words.
Even with Miss Cuff's musical- the rehearsals continuing 18 months, a permanent feature of community life- it was impossible to remember a rehearsal where male sex organs had not stuck boldly out, shoving a flap to one side and presenting a teenage engorgment for the delighted inspection of the female audience.
The question in every household was: with our boys so duteous, why not push the limits a bit further? It would mean more to talk about with other mothers and more invitations to Mrs Reilly's and...well, more female excitement at male expense.
The boys were suborned and docile. Why not?
Mark was one of the victims.
Gone were the days when he winced at girls being shown the photograph albums of him at nude swim meets. Now those photos were forgotten- except when his sisters might take them to parties of their friends, to show off their brother's charms. Now it was the real thing. Now he was liable to be stripped, just because his mother wanted to make a point. Stripped on her command- say, once or twice a week.
He hated, for example, having to model that loin cloth Indian costume when his mother had guests, with ladies going ohh and ahh as he stood in the living room. Yes, standing, eyes downcast, knowing the head of his broad, white penis fell well below the tip of the cloth. Yes, they could see his glans in the puckering foreskin. And the eyes of his mom's friends were laser-ing right at it. Her friends, and Amelia, the Negro maid, as she served the cake and coffee.
The end of his penis, and his scrotum too. Yes, his ball sack- that also hung lower than the flap, dragged down by the weight of the balls inside. Imagine, his mom and her friends were getting to see them! And to see him all shaven down there, like the other boys playing the role of Indians. He could hardly believe it!
And when the ladies had had their fill, chirping about how splendidly strong he looked ("Look at those biceps!") and how it must be fun to be in the school musical and how much their own boys liked it, all the while staring at his exposed cock head and scrotum, his mother would slyly ask him to turn around. He would protest ("Aw Mom!") but she would insist. And the ladies then gasped and giggled at his totally revealed ass cheeks...and oohed and aahed. Him standing presenting his bottom, staring at the painting of Yosemite on the wall.
And when he scowled or grimaced and asked to be able to go, he knew what his mother was going to say, and he hated hearing it. She was going to say that boys in Brewer were all going naked, all households were doing it. It was the new disciplinary code. She said yes, all these mothers- the ones looking at him this moment- applied it to their own naughty boys. At which some of the ladies might coo and murmur their agreement...
...and then, as on one terrible occasion, his mom might teach him a lesson by whisking the loin cloth down his muscular thighs, drawing it over his knees and allowing it to slither down this calves. He could hear the gasps. "Oh fuck!" he would think, horrified, facing female stares head on. And the ladies were silenced by all they then saw: one of Brewer's most athletic 18 year olds stripped completely naked by his mother. Confirming, of course, that he had been shaven down there. And what a lot down there there was to see.
"Smooth..."
"No hair yet?"
"No, they shave them at school, if they play Indians. The girls help with that."
"Smooth as a statue!"
Which left him squirming. He saw Amelia, in her maid's frilly apron and cap, standing behind the ladies and smiling her big white teeth as she too took in the sight.
"And you didn't circumcise him, Moira?"
"No, his father's insistence. Leave him in his natural state..."
There were clucks and murmurs.
"As long as it pulls back easily," said one.
"And as long as he keeps it clean," warned another.
All eyes were on his foreskin, he knew. He squirmed, tried to twist away.
"Don't wriggle like that. All these ladies have seen their sons in the same condition."
The same condition.
Oh, that made him feel so diminished.
Right now they sat there, silent, taking him in...perhaps comparing him with their own boys.
Shit, he hated that!
He disliked those evenings when he was ordered to appear in the kitchen- yes, naked- as punishment for some offence. So on such nights he had to carefully strip in his room and walk down the hallway in his birthday suit, hoping to avoid his sisters and Amelia, often with his penis parallel to the floor bobbing in front- and in the kitchen he would have to quickly wrap around his middle that teensie weenie cotton apron- red floral pattern on white background with red ruffles- to sit down and have dinner with his mom and the girls.
He had to suffer their teasing compliments about how the apron looked "ravishing" on him- the red ruffle knotted over his shoulder- or how wearing it and nothing else made him "cuter than a bug's ear" and questions about how he would feel if girls from school could see him now. "Gosh! I bet you would hate that!"
He knew that during the meal at the small table of the kitchen dinette one of them would dive down to the patterned linoleum and notice his tent pole pushing up the cotton skirt of the apron and exclaim "Mom! Mark's got himself excited again!"
He would grimace and blush and his mom would say something like, "Well, he'd better control himself before I get him to do the washing up." The girls would beam at this. Which he would have to do- tenting in his groin or not- and showing off his ass cheeks while standing at the sink, his sisters fluttering around giggling that the red flowered apron "left nothing to the imagination."
