Reading the news these days is difficult because it so often reads like an old Lampoon gag. How many stories about boys being expelled for finger guns can you read before you start to think the schools are run by madmen?

This is one of those times when I’m left wondering if it is not some sort of elaborate gag.

Los Angeles police descended on Venice High School on Friday, arresting nine students in connection with a series of sex crimes that began more than a year ago and involved at least two female classmates.

All but one of the arrests were on campus; authorities were attempting to locate five other students. The investigation began after a parent reported the allegations on Tuesday.

As detectives investigated, they discovered at least one photograph showing sex acts, according to law enforcement sources. A photo that appears to show two teenagers engaged in a sex act has been circulated on social media. Allegations involved both consensual sexual acts between minors and coerced acts, which complicates the case, police said.

My first read registered “sex with minors” rather than “sex between minors.” Since the story is about arresting students, I went back and read it again, thinking I missed the part where the students were middle-aged men. Nope. They just arrested boys for having sex with their female classmates.

The alleged crimes include sexual assault and lewd acts with a minor. Although the incidents date back to 2013, Smith said, most occurred in the last two months — and as recently as this month. Sources said that several boys were present during at least some of the incidents.

Authorities provided few details about the allegations and declined to identify the boys who were arrested because they are minors, all between the ages of 14 and 17. Sources in law enforcement and at Venice High said some of the boys are members of the high school’s football and basketball program.

Someone better alert Steve Sailer. Haven Monahan has replicated and turned up in his local high school.

The allegations, they said, involved a group of male students working together to pressure girls into having sex. The boys were accused of making verbal threats and threatening the girls’ reputations, according to one of the sources.

In other words they just arrested boys for doing what boys have been doing for 50,000 years or more.

L.A. Unified Supt. Ramon Cortines said the students’ parents had been notified and crisis counselors were on campus to assist any other students.

“This is a painful moment for Venice High School and this district,” he said in a statement. “I want you to know that no sexual misconduct of any kind by students or staff will ever be tolerated in L.A. Unified.”

“We’re pouring all our resources over there today and for the next couple of weeks to make sure every child over there feels safe,” said school board member Steve Zimmer, who represents the Westside school. “Our crisis team and our psychiatric social workers are on site ready to provide services to every student who is affected by this, indirectly and directly.”

The fact that a school system has a “crisis team” and psychiatric social workers should be the place to start when historians dig through the rubble of our culture.

This will not end well.