“1984”.

That was a long time ago now.

But apart from the date Orwell hadn’t been so far off the mark! Every street corner had cameras sending images back to police central surveillance units. Your every move was tracked: on public transport you had to use a pre-pay card… my granddad remembers when these were introduced and told me that they seemed like a good idea at the time. No-one considered it a problem that those same cards logged every journey you made and tagged it to images from the “anti-crime” cameras on every bus and train. Car charging had been introduced soon afterwards: now every journey you make by car is logged by those sensors they put in the road. There was a central database with the details of every man, woman and child – a plethora of information on every aspect of every life in the country. Couple that with anti-terror legislation and the framework was in place for absolute control of the population.

All it took was for a charismatic individual to come into office and wield the power at his control.

And the voting system provided that! “Hung parliaments” had become the and there were a lot of people who started arguing for the “good old days” of strong government that the proportional representation system couldn’t deliver. All it took was one mishandled “national emergency” and the MP’s were happy to vote for a new system: the party with the most votes were given 60 percent of the MP’s even though only a minority of the population voted for them.

And then there were more “national emergencies”: financial meltdown, global warming, over-population, various threatened pandemics, etc, etc. Each emergency gave the new right wing majority government the excuse to delay elections: the fixed term parliament was extended, then extended again, and again. Twenty years have now passed since the last election. And in that time the state has made more and more use of the instruments of control we had all allowed to be put into place.

Don’t get me wrong: I am not even sure if there was an election tomorrow that the present government would be booted out: their propaganda machine, the “spin doctors”, are so good at their jobs! They provide convincing arguments to support all the draconian measures and control they exert over every aspect of our lives: it is all for our own good!

I moved from primary school to secondary school when I was eleven, as did every other child. School uniforms were provided by the state: parents approved of that because they didn’t have to pay for them (directly, at least!). I didn’t approve of it. The Uniform arrived by courier two weeks before the start of term (following my visit to the school shop to be measured) and included everything I was to wear, even horrible white y-fronts! And don’t think for a second that you could get away with wearing your own underwear – if you got found out you would be caned (“Good discipline is the core of a good society!” was the slogan they used when the brought corporal punishment back into schools!)

And hairstyles were also controlled: school rules dictated a maximum hair length of 1cm for boys and that all girls had to have their hair tied in plats. This was for health reasons, apparently. But more than that there was an ongoing government health campaign against allowing any body hair to grow to more than 1cm in length, including pubic hair! It was not yet mandatory for adults to remove their pubic hair, though most did… which only goes to show the power of propaganda! Pubic hair, we are so often told, harbours all sorts of nasty germs.

With school children, however, it was a different situation completely: schools enforced conformity and any young person found with pubic hair over 1cm in length was caned.

I attended the barber before my first day in school to get my “big school” crew cut. My hair was cropped short soon enough, and I walked towards the door leaving my mother to pay the barber as usual when the barber said, “Not yet sonny - got to check that you don’t have any hair more that 1cm long!”

“Surely not!” my mother responded. “Look at him! How can you think he has any pubic hair yet?”

“Sorry – I am not going to loose my license just ‘cause a kid looks small!” the barber retorted and pointed me towards a flimsy curtain in the back corner of the shop. I pulled the curtain around the “cubicle” as best I could (considering that it wasn’t actually long enough to close without leaving a gap) and pulled down my trousers and pants. “OK” I said timidly.

I needn’t have wasted my time trying to close the gap in the curtain because the barber just pulled the curtain right open and bent down to stare at my genitals. As did everyone else in the shop! My hands instinctively went to cover my modesty but as I moved them the barber gave them a sharp slap and said, “Stand still!”

I stood their for what seemed like an eternity, although it reality it was probably only a few seconds. The adrenaline rush caused by my embarrassment made my cheeks go bright red and also, unfortunately made me desperate for a piss. I was afraid I was going to wet myself there in front of everyone and struggled to hold it in… which had the unfortunate side effect of making my tiny prepubescent penis inflate like a balloon.

So there I was. Pants around my ankles and fully erect for all the world to see! And no, I didn’t have even the first sign of pubic hair at the time!

And so I started secondary school.

The first few weeks went by quickly: most of the was time spent learning the school rules, sometimes the hard way! A sharp cane on the hand was the favoured method of correcting errors.

About a month after the start of term there was a buzz going around the school. Apparently the “School Medical Services” had arrived.

The “Meds” visited all schools once a year and all students were given a full medical check-up. But to school boys the Meds meant just two things: compulsory circumcision (“Health reasons”) and, for the unlucky ones, having your balls cut off (“Prevention of over-population and eradication of aggressive or anti-authoritarian behaviour”)

Now, being a pre-pubescent eleven year old I didn’t really understand the significance of castration. But I was well aware of what circumcision was. Some boys were circumcised privately before starting secondary school, mainly because they wanted their son to have a looser circumcision than the state Meds provided: the Meds were notorious for cutting off as much skin as they could, leaving the head of the penis looking like a button stuck straight onto the abdomen! It was meant to be cleaner this way but it made pissing down into the toilet difficult (most boys have to lean forward over the toilet and stick their backside to get it to point down) and it also made erections quite painful.

Yet most parents, mine included, left the circumcising to the Meds. “We’ve already paid for it in our taxes” my dad said to me. “Why should we pay for it twice?”

Sometime after morning break a nurse came to the classroom door and spoke quietly to our maths teacher, Miss Jones. Miss Jones then told all the boys to stop work and line up at the door, before we were led down to the playground where three very large lorries were parked. The lorries were brightly painted in identical style, each had the smiling face of a nurse on the side and the logo of the Government Health Department in one corner.

We were led to the back door of the first of these lorries. Inside was a waiting room with a bench running down each side and another up the middle. There was plenty of room for all sixteen of us, and this waiting room only took up the back section of the lorry!

We were told to strip to our underwear (all, of course, those horrible white y-fronts!) and to wait for our names to be called.

One by one my classmates were called into one of the two consulting rooms at the front of the lorry and the door firmly closed behind them. Those who had been circumcised privately before starting secondary school came back out within a few minutes looking quite happy, having just had a routine medical check. But most were in there for ten minutes or more, and came out walking very carefully with their legs apart, often holding their crutch. Some tried to smile bravely at the rest of us, others came out with red and swollen eyes.

My name was called after about an hour. I was told to remove my underwear and was weighed and my height was measured. There followed a series of routine checks (spine, mouth, abdomen, etc) with the nurse saying things to her assistant who scribbled them down on a form.

Then the part I knew was coming and had dreaded for so long! The nurse felt both of my testicles, rolling them between her fingers then reached for my penis and pulled back the foreskin. “Prepuce removal required” she said, and the assistant scribbled on her form.

The exposed head of my penis was then pushed into a round clamp and the foreskin pulled over it as hard as possible so that the clamp ended up down at the base of my penis, and my penis was pushed into my body. The assistant then put another clamp over the top and pressed a button. I felt the second clamp heating up for a few seconds then the assistant squeezed a leaver and my whole body was filled with searing pain. I screamed and tried to move but I was held down tightly by the nurse. Within seconds the first clamp, covered with my foreskin and most of the skin for the shaft of my penis, came away in the nurses hand. The second clamp was them removed and through bleary, tear-soaked eyes I looked down at my penis.

Not having started puberty my penis was small anyway. Now it had almost vanished! All I was left with as a little acorn stuck directly above my tightly clenched scrotum. I was expecting to see blood and gore: in fact there was none. The nurse released me and I poked my penis to the side. It wouldn’t move much as it was too tight but under the rim of the head I could see was a dark line where the clamping machine had cut the skin and sealed it back together.

And that was that. Underwear back on and into the waiting room to put my uniform on. I tired to be one of the brave ones, smiling at my mates as I came out. I am not sure how convincing I was!

Once a year, every year, the Meds came to my school. They never let anyone know when they would be coming (I guess because they didn’t want kids being kept off school for the day!)

The next year our medical examinations were routine – in and out in a matter of a few minutes. The following year, however, Peter and Silvio failed to come out of the consulting room door after going in. We had all been back in class for an hour before they were both brought back together by a nurse. Both were red eyed and walked in with their heads hung low.

I was good friends with Peter – we played football together after school most days. As soon as we were released at lunch time everyone crowded around both Peter and Silvio trying to find out what had happened to them. Neither said anything, but all of us knew. They had had their balls cut off.

After school that day Peter didn’t want to play football and was hurrying home, but as we were now alone Peter finally started to talk. He told me how they had done all the usual medical check stuff but at the end they had given him an injection in the arm. Whatever it had contained had made him feel like he was floating and happy and like he couldn’t be bothered to argue about anything. He wouldn’t say much more, just that they took him to another van (or “Mobile Medical Unit”!) and that they had cut off his balls.

I asked if it hurt (!!) but strangely Peter said it didn’t hurt as much as the circumcision had. He said they injected some sort of pain killer before they did it. I couldn’t resist asking him if I could have a look at what they had done. Peter stopped, and looked straight at me. I thought he was going to shout at me or even hit me, but he didn’t. He looked up and down the street then stepped behind a tree. He pulled the front of his trousers and underwear down with his head bent over and just stared at this empty crotch.

Peter had started puberty. He had a small patch of bristles above his stubby penis where he had started shaving and his penis head was much larger than mine (even though it was still stuck to his belly because of the tight circumcision). His scrotum was clearly visible beneath his stubby penis head: just an empty, deflated bag of skin with a small slit on either side held closed with a few stitches.

“Why you?” I asked. “Did your mum want it done?”

“No she fucking didn’t!” he spat, and handed me a form he had been given.

“Dear Parent(s) Guardian(s)”, it read.

“You will be pleased to hear that Under Section 23(a) Part (b) of the Prevention of Over-population and Eradication of Aggressive or Anti-authoritarian Behaviour Act 2023 your son has been selected for an orchidectomy. This minor surgical procedure has been carried out today by the School Medical Services Mobile Medical Unit. We are sure that you will be very pleased with the improvement you will notice in the behaviour of your son and that you will be excited by the knowledge that your son is likely to achieve far greater academic success as a result of this procedure.

Please ensure that the scrotum is washed with warm water (avoid soap) for the next week to ensure that the minor wounds heal as quickly as possible.”

And that was that. No balls.

Mind you, Peter was mouthy to the teachers sometimes, especially Mr Grant. In fact I would go so far as to say Mr. Grant hated Peter. I wondered whether it had been Mr Grant who had put Peter forward for the chop? Probably.

I decided there and then that I would never be mouthy to any of the teachers. Especially Mr Grant!

And anyway, I came from a middle class family: my dad was a civil servant. Peter’s dad was mostly unemployed and scrounging off the state. Or that is what my dad says anyway. When I told me dad what had happened to Peter he said it was probably for the best. At least Peter would have a chance to get some qualifications, unlike his father. And anyway, being a scrounger tends to run in families so at least Peter wouldn’t grow up to produce hundreds of scrounging brats of his own!

It was a few weeks before Peter told me what had happened in detail. He said they had given him an injection in his back and that his body slowly went numb from the waist down. There had been some strong men in there and they had held him down on a raised bench. A strap had been put around his chest and another around his waist to hold him down on the bench then two men lifted up his legs and spread them apart and pulled them up towards his head so that his genitals were exposed. His legs had then been held in place in straps. He said he then watched as a nurse pulled his balls out as far as she could before placing a chord around his scrotum and tightening it. She then took a scalpel and slit his scrotum down one side before squeezing one testicle out of it. He said he remembered her stretching the testicle away from his body until the chord that held it was stretched tight, and said that that was the only time he felt anything during the whole procedure: a dull ache deep in his stomach. He said that as she pulled his testicle he saw his penis start to pulse and that that within seconds it was standing erect from his body further than he had ever seen it before. It was surreal: like watching some sort of film, he said, because he couldn’t feel anything much at all. Then the nurse cut the chord holding his testicle as close to his body as she could and his penis stretched itself out even further.

The nurse had then slit the other side of his scrotum, and after squeezing that testicle out again stretched it away from his body. This time his penis started to pulsate and for the first time in his life he saw his deformed mushroom of a penis squirt cum all over his stomach. He said he remembered hearing the people around him laughing when that happened. Still his penis pulsed and the nurse, still holding his last remaining testicle, gave it another pull, this time hard enough that he felt it quite clearly. Again his penis squirted out cum all over him. “And again?” the nurse said looking at her assistant. “Go for it!” her assistant laughed. So the nurse tugged his exposed testicle again. And again. Peter said he didn’t know how many times she did it, but she kept going until nothing more came out of his penis, then without any ceremony she picked up her cauterising scissors and cut the chord joining him to his last testicle.

He was left in the same position, legs splayed above his head, while the assistant put the stitches in the cuts in his scrotum before his was untied and moved to a bunk where he drifted off to sleep. He awoke an hour or so later, his head having cleared of the drugs they had pumped him with, and was escorted back to class, the note having been stuck in his hand as he went.