The teachers said they couldn’t control themselves around the girls.

 

The Breaking Point

The teachers said they couldn’t control themselves around the girls, so we flipped the script on them. It started three weeks ago when Alyssa Terry ran out of Mr. Cortonhorst’s class crying again.

This was the fourth time this month at our supposedly progressive LA school, and we all knew why. Alyssa had just finished getting sick when she told us how he’d commented on her yoga pants, saying they were inappropriate for a learning environment while staring directly at her camel toe.

The thing was, I wore the exact same brand of athletic tights for wrestling, but apparently they were only a problem with Alyssa. Principal Van Debette called an emergency assembly that Friday.

She stood at the podium, lips pressed into that thin line that meant someone was about to get steamrolled. She announced the new dress code to maintain a professional learning environment and minimize distractions for our faculty, emphasizing that last word like it physically hurt her.

“Tight athletic wear is now banned,” She said.

The girls around me deflated. Deedee, who lived for her morning runs before school, muttered something unrepeatable under her breath. Alyssa just stared at her hands.

“This is for your protection,” Van Debette continued, and I swear she actually believed it.

“We need to ensure our teachers can focus on education.” She said.

“Did she just say the teachers can’t control themselves?” Tyrone sitting next to me whispered.

Mr. Cortonhorst and Mr. Creeperson were standing against the wall, pretending to be happy about the new rule. That night, I actually read the new dress code Van Debette had posted word for word three times.

It never said student; it just said girls must not wear form-fitting athletic wear that could distract from the learning environment. I screenshotted it and sent it to the boys’ group chat.

“We wear the same stuff for sports every single day,” I typed.

“Bro, are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” TJ responded first.

Flipping the Script

Before we knew it, the plan formed itself. If the teachers couldn’t control themselves around athletic wear, then we’d give them something to really not control themselves around.

Monday morning, I pulled on Alyssa’s exact outfit. It was the same fitted athletic tank the volleyball team wasn’t allowed to wear anymore.

My football buddies did the exact same. Tyrone wore his sister’s old gymnastics leggings, and TJ squeezed into compression shorts that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

We didn’t know what to expect when we walked in, but it wasn’t total silence. The first person who gave a reaction beyond the bug-eyed stare was Alyssa.

When she saw us, her eyes actually filled with tears, but the good kind. It was the kind that meant someone finally understood exactly what she was going through.

Even the woman teachers who hated us were now looking at us with a weird sense of pride. Principal Van Debette’s face when she saw us was a masterpiece.

This deep purple color was creeping up from her collar, her mouth opening and closing like Nicocado Avocado downing his tenth meal of the day. But what could she say? We were following the dress code.

Testing the Limits

The real test came in Mr. Cortonhorst’s class. There were twenty-two boys in athletic wear that would have gotten any girl sent home.

He kept trying to look anywhere but at us. Let me tell you, watching him squirm was deeply satisfying.

His voice cracked three times during the lecture on the Revolutionary War. By lunch, half the male population was in yoga pants.

The football team even showed up to practice in their compression gear and refused to change.

“It’s what we wear under our uniforms anyway. Unless you’re saying there’s something distracting about it. Did the underage girls distract you dressed like this, sir?” Our captain told Coach Creeperson.

Coach Creeperson’s face went red, then white, then red again. We were doubting whether or not we were doing the right thing, but that’s when we heard Mr. Cortonhorst in the hallway talking to Coach Creeperson.

“Thank goodness for this new rule. I was starting to think I’d have to request a transfer. You can see everything through those yoga pants, even the outline of their underwear.” Mr. Cortonhorst said.

He trailed off when Creeperson coughed uncomfortably. The next day, Van Debette made an announcement on the intercom.

“The dress code is meant to protect students from unwanted attention,” She said.

“Unwanted attention from who?” I asked her when she called me into her office.

My purple leggings—yes, purple—seemed to personally offend her.

“You know exactly what you’re doing,” She hissed.

“Following the dress code,” I said as I pulled out my phone and showed her the screenshot.

“It says right here,” I added.

“This isn’t what it means, and you know it,” She said.

“Then what does it mean? Why are these clothes only a problem on girls? Why can’t your teachers control themselves?” I asked.

She actually flinched at that. Good.

The Investigation Begins

Wednesday was when things got serious. Alyssa’s mom was on the school board, and Alyssa had been documenting everything.

She recorded every comment and every girl who’d been told her body was too distracting for grown men to handle. The wrestlers showed up to their match in protest, asking why them being topless didn’t violate the dress code.

The tennis team filed a formal complaint that their uniforms showed their knees. The school board scheduled their meeting for three weeks out, which meant three more weeks of wearing these purple leggings to school every single day.

My thighs chafed, and the elastic waistband left marks on my stomach. But quitting now would hand Van Debette exactly what she wanted.

It would be proof that this was just some stunt instead of a real protest about a real problem. So, every morning, I pulled on the same outfit and walked past the same staring teachers.

I watched them try to figure out what to do about twenty guys dressed exactly like the girls they couldn’t stop commenting on. Thursday at lunch, a girl with a notebook approached our table where me, Tyrone, and TJ were eating.

She had press credentials hanging from her neck, the official school newspaper kind. She introduced herself as Lucille Ko and asked if she could interview me about the protest for the paper.

My stomach dropped. An interview meant my name attached to this whole thing in print permanently, where colleges and future employers could find it.

Tyrone kicked my shin under the table and pointed out we were already pretty visible walking around in athletic wear every day. I agreed to talk.

Lucille pulled out her phone to record and asked about how the protest started, what we wanted to accomplish, and whether we expected the school to actually change anything.

I explained about Alyssa running out of class crying. I talked about reading the dress code word for word and noticing it only said girls.

I explained deciding that if athletic wear was so distracting, then the teachers should have to deal with it on everyone. She took notes while I talked, asking follow-up questions about whether we planned to keep going and what we wanted Van Debette to do differently.

The interview took twenty minutes. She thanked me and said it would run in Friday’s paper.

That night, I barely slept, imagining how my parents would react when they saw my name in print talking about teacher objectification.