“Do you know what castration is, Ethan?” I asked the youth seated across my desk.

“Um, yeah, I guess,” he answered, clearly uncomfortable with the direction I was going with our chat.

“Tell me,” I ordered. A teacher had sent the fourteen year old to my office in retaliation for disrupting his class. It had happened before and I’d had an earnest discussion with the boy, and now it was time to take things to a slightly higher level.

“Uh, I think that means an animal getting its, uh, balls cut off,” he finally answered.

“That’s close,” I replied. “But actually. It applies to people as well, and includes other methods of destroying the testes, not just cutting them off.” I pulled my dictionary from the desk drawer and slid it across to him. “Here, look it up.”

“Okay, here it is,” he said a few minutes later.

“I want you to read it, out loud,” I ordered, “But first, slip your right hand into your pants and grab your testicles.” His face immediately turned red with embarrassment, but he finally slipped his left hand under the edge of the desk and fumbled around. “Got’em?” I asked, sinking to his level of speech. I couldn’t touch the kid but I could sure as hell intimidate him, and in a private school I had a lot more latitude than would be permissible in a public school.

“Yeah, uh, I mean yes Sir,” he finally answered.

I finally had his attention. “Okay, start reading.”

“Castration is the removal or destruction of the testes,” he read slowly.

“Keep going,” I prodded.

“It is commonly used in animal husbandry to improve the quality of meat and to reduce aggression, and is also done to pets to curtail reproduction. It was widely used at one time on human harem guards and opera singers, and is still used in some cultures as a means of punishment. It is also sometimes used in treatment of certain medical and mental disorders.” He finished reading and slowly raised his head.

“Good. Now I want you to spend the rest of this period in the library thinking about castration and the ramifications- you can look that word up too- of disrupting class again.” Nowadays he could log on to the Internet and know all about castration in just a few minutes, but in 1971 the only resource was the library and it contained little information on the subject.

“Yes Sir,” he said, rising out of his chair.

“One more thing, Ethan,” I added.

“Sir?”

“ Your barn door’s open,” I said, pointing to his open fly, gaping skivvies and visible patch of hairy skin.

Every educator lives for The Moment, that instant that he knows he’s connected with a student, when a previously incomprehensible algebra equation suddenly makes sense or when an English Lit pupil suddenly grasps the beauty and genius of the Bard. The Moment makes the hours of drudgery we spend lecturing to dolts bearable. My job as Dean Of Boys focuses on administrative issues like disciplinary and attendance and involves only occasional teaching, so The Moment usually occurs when I reach a problem kid and straighten him out, and I firmly believed that I’d just reached Ethan White.

He was back in my office a month later, again for disrupting class. I took a few minutes to stare at the boy seated across the desk from me. It usually intimidates them a little when I do that, but the tactic seemed to have little effect on Ethan. He sat calmly scanning the diploma and other personal certificates that I hang on my wall to validate my authority. He had a kind of surly go-to-hell expression on his face, and the fine black shadow of an emerging beard darkened his upper lip and chin. He’d need to start shaving soon, something that I didn’t need to do until I was eighteen. He was more physically mature than most of the other freshmen, and my locker room duties had revealed that his genitals were also larger and probably more sensitive than those of his peers, and his self-assurance was an indication that he was no longer a virgin. “Do you remember what we talked about the last time you were here, Ethan?” I challenged.

“Uh, yes sir,” he stammered. Good. At least I had his attention.

“I sent you to the library to research castration, particularly as a means of punishment as it might apply to someone who continually disrupts class. Is that right?”

“Yes sir.” Now he had crossed his legs and was squirming uncomfortably as if his balls were in fact in jeopardy.

“Castrating a person for disrupting class would be absurd,” I said. “The real problem here is your refusal to accept authority. I don’t like to pay taxes, but I do it because the law compels me to. The same thing goes for obeying the speed limit: Do it or suffer the consequences. Right now you don’t see any harm in disrupting class, but the real harm is that you think you are above the law, so as to speak, and that the rules don’t apply to you. It’s just a short jump from ignoring policy and disrupting class to ignoring the law and stealing cars, burglarizing homes, and perhaps even committing heinous crimes against people, some of which may be punishable by castration,” I informed him, hoping he wouldn’t ask just what he might do to warrant getting his balls hacked off. “I want you to write a short essay about the problem we have here,” I challenged “Be specific about how the problem can be solved, and also list appropriate punishment for the miscreant if the problem continues. Have it ready no later than Friday.”

The Problem At Weston Academy

By Ethan White

The biggest problem we currently face at Weston Academy is that the Dean of Boys is a pervert. He obviously has a fixation with testicles, particularly those of the boys in his charge. He has repeatedly threatened me and several of my classmates with castration, and I firmly believe that he will someday carry out these threats on some hapless individual unable to defend himself. He also lurks around the shower room, apparently seeking gratification by watching naked boys, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he also practices sodomy.

There are two ways this problem can be solved: The easiest way would be for him to be immediately dismissed and sent to a place where there are boys to provide temptation. The other way would require him to voluntarily submit to surgical or chemical neutering so as to render him harmless.

Punishment must be considered if he continues to offend, and the punishment should consist of removal or destruction of his testes, i.e. castration. His castration could be carried out at no cost to the school by willing student volunteers, who would break into his house, overpower him and tie him up, then remove his testicles by whatever means is expedient in regard to the amount of pain desired to be inflicted. Forcing him to witness the violation of his wife could further enhance the punishment, if so decreed.

The essay was an epiphany for me, and I finished reading it for the third time and sat back in my chair, suddenly lost in The Moment. “Honey,” I told my wife over the phone. “Pack your bags. We’re going to take a long vacation. In fact, we may never come back.”