Rectal temperatures in Stephen King's latest, 'The Institute'

So I'm currently reading King's The Institute (published last September), and I'm only about a fifth into it but this morning I was surprised to stumble upon that bit:

"No shots today, but I had that damned ass-temp," she said. When she saw Luke's puzzled expression, she smiled, which caused another tear to roll down her cheek. "They take our temperature rectally."

The others were nodding. "No idea why," George said, "but it's humiliating."

I guess I wasn't so much shocked at the mention of teenagers getting rectal temps in a novel as that being in a mainstream *and* contemporary book. For some reason, I would have imagined this as being more plausible decades ago, what with today's political correctness and all. But then, it's still Stephen King, after all.

Just thought I'd share this find.

Otherwise, the book is pretty great so far!

Apparently this is a hot enough topic to be mentioned in several novels and movies.

That sounds like a cool book to read.

I started to post here about enemas in literature but realized that was off topic. WIKI had a list of book’s referencing enemas but I didn’t find similar references to RTs.

Interesting book. I’ll have to read it

Several of King’s novels have references to RTs and suppositories.

In Salem's Lot a dead guy gets his temperature taken by the medical examiner.

In the Dead Zone, the protagonist in a coma briefly wakes when a nurse slides a cold thermometer into his rectum.

King wrote some horror poetry. In one of the poems he references suppositories that burn.

I've read some summaries of the book. If I understand it correctly, it's about children with special capabilities being sent into some kind of secret government institute where they are subjected to harsh demands and discipline.

In such a context, one can expect gratuitous humiliation designed to make the children compliant.

A few facts from history :

* Apparently, some of the Guantanamo inmates were subjected to forced suppositories for giving them some drugs.

* Some reform schools for girls from the 1950-60s in France imposed some rather gratuitous humiliations on the pupils, including virginity exams, using toilets with no doors, and public inspections of the cleanliness of panties.