A GOOD STRIP-SEARCH STORY by Joe Doe Personally, I'm not that interested in "realistic" stories. For example, a story about a hooker given a routine search by a heterosexual police officer doesn't interest me. But, if the hooker is really an undercover police detective, and she is being strip-searched in front of a class of young male officers because of a paperwork glitch, and if a despised rival performs the search, NOW I'm interested. I also don't like stories that are true accounts of real people being injured or harmed; this is about fantasy, not reality. To me, these are the elements of a good story: 1) The victim should be innocent of any crime that would justify her stripping. [This is open to interpretation. See my comments on this point in "Joe Doe: Master Storyteller." -- C. L.] 2) Events should conspire against the victim to gradually remove her control over the situation; she isn't strip-searched because she is a hardened criminal; she is stripped because of a series of trivial mistakes or unlikely coincidences. 3) Her predicament may be arranged by a rival, or by a malevolent authority figure abusing his power, or it may be totally accidental. But, no matter how bizarre the circumstances, she is quickly powerless to resist. 4) The victim may consent to some or all of her search, and she might become aroused by some aspects of it. But she should also find the whole procedure deeply and intensely humiliating. 5) The victim should be powerful, successful, and intelligent. She should fully appreciate the injustice of the outrageous indignities she is subjected to. If the victim tries to use her superior power or intellect to avoid stripping, she'll be thwarted by her inferiors. 6) The perpetrators should enjoy the search and go out of their way to make it as humiliating as possible. They should be of a lower social class or be a rival seeking vengeance. In a way, the strip-search is a role reversal. 7) The ending should imply that there are still more indignities to come. ****************************** To me the gold standard for a strip-search story is "Marcy's First Time" by Dudley_3. It contains an intelligent victim who is stripped of her dignity through a series of misunderstandings and trivial errors. Marcy is a female graduate student who is unjustly strip-searched by a bunch of lazy and possibly malicious civil servants. She is a journalist, not a criminal, and has done nothing to deserve the humiliating treatment she receives at the hands of the bureaucrats. But events conspire against her: She isn't familiar with the procedures. When the Orientation Officer drops Marcy off in the Reception Area, the matron is on the phone, so he can't explain what he has (and hasn't) told Marcy. (Tough break, Marcy!) Marcy gives the wrong answer to a seemingly innocuous question about seeing the prisoner alone. The matron is too lazy or indifferent to explain the ramifications of Marcy's careless answer. Marcy sits in the room for some time, but no one bothers to let her know what she is waiting for, or what is about to happen to her. The matron forgets about her until the last moment, and then hands her the box "almost as an afterthought" and without the slightest explanation. The matron's negligence cuts off Marcy's last possible escape route. A confused Marcy accepts the seemingly innocent plastic box and follows the other inmates. With this action Marcy accidentally triggers the commencement of her own strip-search. Marcy doesn't comprehend the box's sinister purpose until it's too late (a nice touch). The matron seemingly neglects to tell the other guards that Marcy is not just another powerless prisoner there to be strip-searched. This last point is crucial because it seals Marcy's complete loss of control. Even if Marcy tries to back out at this point, it is likely that no one will believe her and she will be strip-searched anyway. Accidents, miscommunication, and bad luck conspire to form a chain of events that gradually strip her of control. She is quickly trapped in a situation where resisting just makes it worse. Marcy is a beautiful young professional woman searched by blue collar civil service employees. The story hints that the guards don't help Marcy because they don't want to: they taunt her about "wanting to go first," then they strip her, yell at her, make sarcastic comments, and leave her naked and in embarrassing poses for an extended period of time. The guards clearly relish their power over her, and they use it to their advantage. Although excited, she is also keenly aware of the injustice of the situation; these people didn't explain the rules, and she hasn't committed any crime. Marcy is an innocent woman who is paraded through a series of indignities for the amusement of others. The degree of consent is irrelevant; the key element is not consent, but power and humiliation. Although Marcy has toyed with the idea of exposure, the game gets quickly out of hand, and Marcy realizes she is going to be strip-searched whether she likes it or not. On one level, Marcy is excited by her exposure, but she is also fundamentally helpless and deeply humiliated. Marcy savors her loss of power. She lets her boyfriend decide whether or not she will be strip-searched in the future, and leaves herself totally at his mercy. (Fortunately, he has no mercy.) It is a resolution that allows the author to hint at other humiliations yet untold. By the way, I don't mean to imply in any way that these events didn't really happen; all I'm saying is that, like all good writers, Dudley_3 arranges the facts in such a way that he creates a masterful story. Also note that, although Marcy is a real person, she was not really hurt, and indeed "the victim" eagerly goes back for more. Although it may be a true story, the facts themselves are less relevant than the way the story is told. The story is about a series of bizarre circumstances leading to a successful professional's transformation into a helpless victim. This is a perfect strip-search story. Strip-search stories are more about the victim's feelings than the search itself, for the search is just a mechanism. Another example I'd highly recommend is Marlissa's 2-part story, "Wages of Sin," about a Yale-educated yuppie art dealer who is forced by her enemies to become a stripper and a prostitute at a seedy club. It doesn't contain a strip-search per se, but there is plenty of non-consensual stripping and humiliation, and it contains all of the elements I've described. I also like Cole's stories. A malevolent force (the coach) uses, creates, and combines unlikely situations (a closed locker room, no towels, the arrival of the janitors, student interns, missing keys, the need for physical exams) to totally humiliate his victims. The victims should NOT be minors (that is 100% WRONG), but otherwise the story is nearly perfect. I tried a variation on some of Cole's ideas in one of my stories, but his version turned out better! Here are some other story ideas I have. I don't know when, if ever, I'll get around to them. [In fact, he did all of them.] BREWBOTTOM: A plucky new warden decides to go undercover as an inmate, but she is quickly exposed and.... [This had several sequels.] A COMPLETE DEMONSTRATION: High school principal Debbie volunteers to help her husband by working at the police convention trade show. She finds herself strapped down, half-naked, over a bench as a "demonstration model" for a company that sells strip-search products. Just when she thinks it couldn't get any worse, one of her delinquent seniors arrives and decides he wants a COMPLETE demonstration. HOUSE CALL: He was a janitor when she fired him, so, when he showed up at her house claiming to be a medical technician sent to perform her insurance exam, Louise was surprised. But there were more surprises to come.... TREATED LIKE AN ANIMAL: When major celebrity (you decide who!) decides to pose for a PETA ad campaign, she knows there will be some small amount of tasteful nudity involved. But, because of a clerical error, she is accidentally dropped off at a photo session for "SPREAD BEAVER" magazine. MAULED AT THE MALL: She's the new head of security, and she catches a shoplifter on her first day. But the idiot mall guards end up strip-searching HER while the CRIMINAL watches. [Joe eventually did this story and posted it as "Mall of Justice."] MARCY'S BAD STROKE OF LUCK: When an errant keystroke on a computer terminal transforms her into "Marc," poor Marcy is turned over to MALE guards for her strip-search. She tries to explain the mistake, but, rules are rules. If you are looking for a story heavily inspired by Marcy's adventures, try my story "One Question Too Many." I borrowed some of my favorite elements from Dudley_3's story to create a new tale of an "accidental" search. The milk carton, for example, is practically a character in the story. The story's ending emphasizes the journalist's feelings of helplessness and anxiety as she carefully inspects each humiliating detail of the exam area that will soon be used to degrade and expose her. But, as I said, a good ending should imply that there are more indignities to come. Edited by C. Lakewood