This paper explores "the 5 cm rule", a regulation around student contact discovered during an investigation of the sexual culture of schooling with 16-19-year-olds in New Zealand. Implemented to stem "inappropriate and unwanted" touching, it stipulates that students must maintain a physical distance of 5 cm at all times. It is argued this rule represents a contemporary type of biopower which forms part of the sexual culture of schooling. As a technique of corporeal regulation it is characterised by a "loose" exercise of power, that allows for student resistance while producing subjects' "docility-utility" (Foucault, 1980). The paper contends that the rule contributes negatively to "the sexual culture of schooling" by constituting student sexuality as "unruly" and "problematic". This stipulation also prescribes a set of gender relations that are inhibitive of mutually negotiated and pleasurable corporeal experience. (Contains 1 note.)