Shockingly underused setting: Upward Bound

[HeyYoureThatGuy]

So Upward Bound is a federally funded educational program aimed at low income, first-generation college students. It tries to prepare them for college through a multi-part plan. One of those parts is a summer program that takes high school students and puts them in a college setting, away from home, weeks at a time. Dorm room living. Dining hall meals. College like classes. And also a much better version of sex ed than I received in my high school. (I wouldn't have made it to & survived college without them.)

Buuuuut, a little google-fu, reveals only one story even mentions it in passing.

It's a place where horny teenagers are overseen by a small staff of underpaid and overburdened people pulling double-duty as teachers and camp counselors. Let's just say shenanigans were aplenty. Now, I'm not model material. I was, and if I'm still honest with myself, still am, very awkward. And I was given multitudinous opportunities to have all sorts of crazy sex.

Like... did no one else attend this program? Did they have vastly different experiences there?

I'm just wondering why it's not used more as a setting here.

 

[HeyYoureThatGuy]

Oh, and when I say better sex ed, I mean I left the seminar with a big ass bag of condoms, dental dams, and lube.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

Oh, and when I say better sex ed, I mean I left the seminar with a big ass bag of condoms, dental dams, and lube.

Wow. That's definitely different. Usually, sex ed in the US means a focus on abstinence, some efforts to scare people with diseases, and more of a biology class than practical information.

 

[HeyYoureThatGuy]

They were focused on ACTUALLY preparing you for college life.

 

[SimonDoom]

They were focused on ACTUALLY preparing you for college life.

How rare.

Sounds like a great setup for a story.

In fact, it could be a setting for a multiple-story universe.

 

[NotWise]

I'd never heard of Upward Bound. I knew about Outward Bound, but that's different.

 

[HeyYoureThatGuy]

I'd never heard of Upward Bound. I knew about Outward Bound, but that's different.

Often when I talked about it with people they said, "Do you mean Outward Bound?"

Outward bound is more known I guess.

 

[Voboy]

I'd never heard of Upward Bound. I knew about Outward Bound, but that's different.

This. My reaction to the thread title was, "huh. That's right! Outward Bound could make an interesting story setting..."

I've never heard of Upward Bound at all, and I know a lot of people who work in education.

If you're gobsmacked by the dearth of stories set there, go ahead and write one! It's what I usually do when I have a question like this.

 

[HeyYoureThatGuy]

If you're gobsmacked by the dearth of stories set there, go ahead and write one! It's what I usually do when I have a question like this.

Oh, it's in the works.

"Names have been changed to protect the not so innocent."

 

[MelissaBaby]

I wrote about being 19 and downward bound, I guess that's not quite the same thing...

 

[oggbashan]

One of my uncles, a director of a travel company, set up in the late 1950s an adventure holiday company for children from age 12 to 18. It still exists.

I can't write on Literotica about what happened at those holidays but they were a financial (and other) success.

 

[KeithD]

Still in high school connotes still underage, which may be why this hasn't been used much, if at all, as a setting at Literotica. I've written several using summer college internships as a setting. In fact the contest one I just submitted has this element in it.

 

[HeyYoureThatGuy]

Still in high school connotes still underage, which may be why this hasn't been used much, if at all, as a setting at Literotica. I've written several using summer college internships as a setting. In fact the contest one I just submitted has this element in it.

Senior year young adults, 18+, were the ones given the most leeway. More hijinks. There's been a lot of high school stuff on here. But, yeah, I can see why some folks might skirt it for that reason.

 

[KeithD]

Senior year young adults, 18+, were the ones given the most leeway. More hijinks. There's been a lot of high school stuff on here. But, yeah, I can see why some folks might skirt it for that reason.

Yes, yes, we discuss that weekly here at Literotica. First, not all are eighteen when they start college (I wasn't). Regardless, any high school reference can be taken at Literotica as playing the underage card--and often is. I was just giving a possible response to why you haven't seen it much at literotica--as well as pointing out that such programs are being offered in similar programs at an older age--like I have done as recently today in a submission.

 

[jaF0]

One of those parts is a summer program that takes high school students and puts them in a college setting, ...

It's a place where horny teenagers ...

Cain't touch dat.

Not on Lit.

 

[SimonDoom]

Cain't touch dat.

Not on Lit.

Sure you can, if they're 18 or over. There are tons of stories on Literotica just like that.

 

[KeithD]

Sure you can, if they're 18 or over. There are tons of stories on Literotica just like that.

Yes, you can, but, as I noted, doing so can be taken to be playing the underage card. Anything combining high school with sex can be--and often is--playing the underage card. And some of it, in fact, doesn't pass muster with Literotica submissions.

The question was why there isn't more of that. My response was to the reluctance to go there for this reason. Whether or not it can be done here, there's a natural reluctance to doing so. Any reluctance at all would be a possible answer to why there's less of it than one would otherwise think.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yes, you can, but, as I noted, doing so can be taken to be playing the underage card. Anything combining high school with sex can be--and often is--playing the underage card. And some of it, in fact, doesn't pass muster with Literotica submissions.

The question was why there isn't more of that. My response was to the reluctance to go there for this reason. Whether or not it can be done here, there's a natural reluctance to doing so. Any reluctance at all would be a possible answer to why there's less of it than one would otherwise think.

I think the way you deal with it in this situation is you make it a program for those who've just graduated from high school, before they go away to college. It's pretty easy in that situation to say they're all over 18 and make it plausible.

 

[Jamie_and_Lisa]

Wow. That's definitely different. Usually, sex ed in the US means a focus on abstinence, some efforts to scare people with diseases, and more of a biology class than practical information.

There are two terms for adults who promote AO for their kids.

Grandma and grandpa.

 

[KeithD]

I think the way you deal with it in this situation is you make it a program for those who've just graduated from high school, before they go away to college. It's pretty easy in that situation to say they're all over 18 and make it plausible.

Sure that's the way you'd do this. It's not what the question was, though. I responded to what the question was.

 

[Jamie_and_Lisa]

I wrote about being 19 and downward bound, I guess that's not quite the same thing...

MFAR might be the best story we've read at Lit.

Our HS Shakespeare teacher (he taught the Bard regardless of what the syllabus said) told us that all great art stems from pain. (This also explains our own rather low scores nicely.)

 

[Voboy]

Cain't touch dat.

Not on Lit.

You couldn't possibly be more wrong.

Again, OP, I think the reason you don't see this setting is shown by all our responses: few people seem to have heard of this program.

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

Yes, you can, but, as I noted, doing so can be taken to be playing the underage card. Anything combining high school with sex can be--and often is--playing the underage card. And some of it, in fact, doesn't pass muster with Literotica submissions.

The question was why there isn't more of that. My response was to the reluctance to go there for this reason. Whether or not it can be done here, there's a natural reluctance to doing so. Any reluctance at all would be a possible answer to why there's less of it than one would otherwise think.

I was 19 when I greduated HS. My daughters class had 76% of students over 18 at graduation. It's not uncommon nor is it "playing the underage card". It's life. Most people have sex in or before HS.

 

[NotWise]

You couldn't possibly be more wrong.

Again, OP, I think the reason you don't see this setting is shown by all our responses: few people seem to have heard of this program.

Another reason may be that Upward Bound starts in eighth grade. I couldn't tell from the Wikipedia article linked in the OP whether they offer a post-graduation summer program.

That doesn't mean he couldn't invent one

 

[HeyYoureThatGuy]

Another reason may be that Upward Bound starts in eighth grade. I couldn't tell from the Wikipedia article linked in the OP whether they offer a post-graduation summer program.

That doesn't mean he couldn't invent one

They called it Bridge year. It was only for a smaller group of really dedicated students. Don't even have to invent one. And, at least at the one, I went to, it was a co-ed living situation.