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Speaking truth to power, yet again...

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Jim Bowery

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Mar 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/30/97

[ Article crossposted from alt.conspiracy,alt.politics.economics ]
[ Author was Jim Bowery ]
[ Posted on Sun, 30 Mar 1997 00:20:25 GMT ]

To expand a bit:

The Federal Reserve creates money by creating debt owed by the
US government -- debt backed by the full faith and credit of
the US government. Such debt is paid primarily by collecting
taxes. Taxes are collected by the IRS. The IRS can bypass
bankruptcy protection and place people in de facto debtor's prisons.
Once in prison, debtors to the Federal Reserve's actions are
subjected to a variety of forms of abuse -- the most common of
which is rape. More rapes are committed against men in our
prison system than against all women in free and prison society,
combined, every year. These rapes usually take the form of
anal intercourse. Of the various sexual transmission modes for
HIV, anal intercourse is the most efficient. Rape increases
the efficiency of HIV transmission by causing physical trauma
which tears the victim's flesh thereby creating a more effective
point of HIV innoculation of the victim. HIV infection in the
prison system is much higher than in the general public. Rapists
are generally considered "psychopaths" and particularly in prison,
being abused can predispose one to psychopathically abuse others.
3 out of 4 prison rapes are committed against young men whose
primary ancestry is north and west of the Alps by men whose
ancestry is primarily south and east of the Alps, even though
those N&W men make up less than 40% of the prison population --
it is therefore "racist" and a cause of the formation of "white"
supremacist gangs in prisons. It is also men of such ancestry
that are most likely to be placed in prison for nonpayment
of the taxes that back the Federal Reserve's credibility.
Private debt collection agencies cannot avail themselves of
such horrendous incentives with anywhere near the facility
of the Federal Reserve's collection agency: The IRS. Wealthy
individuals who don't want to think about where to place their
money to accrue interest are therefore more likely to place
it with the Federal Reserve than with any private sector
counterpart.

Now, which assertion most needs further expansion/references?

PS: Please note the words "currency" and "conspiracy" never
appear in the above argument. Remember that when responding.
--
The promotion of politics exterminates apolitical genes in the population.
The promotion of frontiers gives apolitical genes a route to survival.
Change the tools and you change the rules.
--
The promotion of politics exterminates apolitical genes in the population.
The promotion of frontiers gives apolitical genes a route to survival.
Change the tools and you change the rules.

Jim Mork

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Mar 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/30/97

I would expect virtually all the sodomizing by African prisoners to be
of other Africans. That is the pattern in the larger culture. I see no
reason for black-on-black violence to suddenly change at the prison
gate.

Errol Hess

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Mar 31, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/31/97

jabo...@netcom.com (Jim Bowery) wrote:

>Once in prison, debtors to the Federal Reserve's actions are
>subjected to a variety of forms of abuse -- the most common of
>which is rape. More rapes are committed against men in our
>prison system than against all women in free and prison society,
>combined, every year.

Interesting. Can you substantiate this?

>3 out of 4 prison rapes are committed against young men whose
>primary ancestry is north and west of the Alps by men whose
>ancestry is primarily south and east of the Alps, even though
>those N&W men make up less than 40% of the prison population --

Please substantiate this apparently blatantly racist statement. If
you can cite a trustworthy source, Friends will listen. Otherwise, I
believe you're another racist conspiracy theorist.

Errol Hess

Guy Macon

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Mar 31, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/31/97

(thanks again for helping us to control crossposting. Much appreciated.)

Very good point about HIV transmission.

In article <jaboweryE...@netcom.com>, jabo...@netcom.com said...

>Now, which assertion most needs further expansion/references?

This is an interesting statistic. Where did you get the figures
on this? Is this from interviews, reported rapes, or where?

Maybe someone here knows if there are any Friends organization
working to stop prison rapes. Are we doing anything about this?

Jim Bowery

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Mar 31, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/31/97

My sources on the prevalence and ethnic bias of prisoner rape are "You Are
Going To Prison" by Jim Hogshire, and the documents "A Million Jockers,
Punks, and Queens: Sex among American Prisoners and its implications for
Concepts of Sexual Orientation" and "Prison Sexuality" by Stephen
Donaldson which can be found at:

http://www.spr.org/docs/prison-sex-lecture.html
and
http://www.spr.org/docs/prison-sex.html

By the way, when I brought these estimates up on alt.pagan in the context
of the formation of white supremacist gangs in prison, my message was
cancelled by the person who is now moderating the soc.religion.pagan
newsgroup. He claims that I am discussing this issue so much because I
desire to be raped by a black man. An associate of his, Dan Holzman,
challenged me to produce references to back up these estimates when I
reposted them to a newsgroup on rape. Mr. Donaldson was a frequent
poster to that newsgroup and I referred to his work with "Stop Prisoner
Rape" as well as Hogshire's book on prison survival. Dan Holzman then
asked Mr. Donaldson to step forward and either confirm or deny my
estimates. He did neither, but he did, shortly thereafter, appear on
National Public Radio with Margot Adler discussing his use of the
Internet to fight prisoner rape. On that day, the Quaker woman who had
been holding his organization together died. A few months later, Mr.
Donaldson died of AIDS, reportedly contracted while he was raped in prison.

Mr. Holzman claims to be personal friends with "Star" (Starhawk) and
Margot Adler.

Jim Mork

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Mar 31, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/31/97

Even more interesting is this page:
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/92-7247.ZS.html

The statistics seem to be from Stop Prison Rape, Inc, an association of
former inmates who claim to be victims of prison rape. The academic
support for their claims apparently is scanty because prison authorities
just aren't that interested in knowing the scope of misbehavior on
premises for which they have responsibility. So percentages have to be
suspect. But any extent of such a phenomenon is a concern for decent
citizens.

Errol Hess

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Mar 31, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/31/97

jabo...@netcom.com (Jim Bowery) wrote:

>My sources on the prevalence and ethnic bias of prisoner rape are "You Are
>Going To Prison" by Jim Hogshire, and the documents "A Million Jockers,
>Punks, and Queens: Sex among American Prisoners and its implications for
>Concepts of Sexual Orientation" and "Prison Sexuality" by Stephen
>Donaldson which can be found at:

>http://www.spr.org/docs/prison-sex-lecture.html
>and
>http://www.spr.org/docs/prison-sex.html

I looked up these sites, and got the same message:
"DNS Name Look Up Failure... The named host probably doesn't exist."

Errol Hess

Jim Bowery

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Mar 31, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/31/97

A Million Jockers, Punks, and Queens

Sex among American Male Prisoners and its Implications for Concepts of Sexual Orientation

by Stephen Donaldson February 4, 1993

Since October, 1824, I have visited most of the prisons on two routes, between Massachusetts and Georgia, and a large
number of Prisons besides, in the New England States and New York....and I have found melancholy testimony to establish
one general fact, viz., that boys are prostituted to the lust of old convicts.....The sin of sodom is the vice of prisoners,
and boys are the favorite prostitutes....."When a boy was sent to Prison, who was of a fair countenance, there many times
seemed to be quite a strife between old grey headed villains, to secure his attention. Numerous presents were given for this
purpose; and if it could be obtained, no art was left untried, to get the boy into the same room and into the same bed. A
strong attachment would immediately seem to follow. Meals and every dainty would be shared together, and they would, in
many cases, afterwards, seem to have an undivided existence. They would suffer the most severe punishment, rather than
criminate their mate...in any thing." Nature and humanity cry aloud for redemption from this dreadful degradation. -Rev.
Louis Dwight, broadside of April 25, 1826

Writers of fantasy going back to Lucian in the 2nd Century have occasionally described societies composed of only one gender, in
which all erotic endeavor is necessarily directed towards the same sex. In such an environment, homoeroticism is not only "normal"
but normative. Tonight I am going to describe such a world to you. It is, however, no fantasy.

The society of prisoners in the United States, which has the world's highest and steadily increasing incarceration rate, could
conceivably be described as the world's largest gay ghetto. It is also of interest as a society in which sexual acts and longterm sexual
pairing between men who are generally considered to be heterosexual are not only common, but are validated by the norms of
prisoner society.

This society is a closed, interconnected and rapidly growing gulag or archipelago of a little over a thousand prisons holding about
800,000 sentenced adults; about 3,500 jails (that is, city and county detention facilities for those too poor to make bail or serving
short misdemeanor sentences) holding nearly 450,000 adults at any one time (and experiencing about 9 million admissions a year);
and 2,900 juvenile facilities holding over 80,000 juveniles. About 95% of the inhabitants of prisons, 91% of the inhabitants of jails,
and 80% of the juveniles are male, all of them confined in sex-segregated housing. These institutions, holding well over 1.2 million
males as I speak, continually transfer prisoners back and forth and are thus socially interconnected.

The demography of American prisoners shows marked differences from the general population, and these differences are crucial to
any understanding of prisoner sexuality. The median age in the prisons is 28, with nearly three-quarters under the age of 35 and hence
in the most sexually active and physically aggressive time of life. Median number of years of school is 10, with about two-thirds not
having completed high school. Prisoners are generally members of the underclass and working class. Nationally, non-Hispanic blacks
constitute 46% and are the dominant group in most states, non-Hispanic whites are a fractured minority at 38%, and Hispanics are
13%. The demographic data for jails are comparable, but with a significantly lower median age of 25.

Considering the numerical significance of the prisoner population, not only at any one time but in terms of the enormous cumulative
number of American males who have experienced the subculture of confinement, it is remarkable that the sexuality of prisoners has
barely been examined by academically-affiliated scholars. Remarkable, but understandable: the walls exist as much to keep civilians
out as to keep the prisoners in, and academics are generally more interested in studying middle-class people like themselves.

There are also significant additional barriers to research on prisoner sexuality. Outlaws, to begin with, are accustomed to secrecy and
resistant to prying. Without exception, all sexual activity on the part of prisoners is prohibited by disciplinary codes in each
institution, and these codes, unlike state and federal sodomy laws, are frequently enforced with punitive sanctions, including solitary
confinement, loss of "good time," and denial of parole. Thus prisoners have every reason to deny such behavior to outsiders they do
not trust, and since outsiders are given direct access to prisoners only when approved by the authorities, they are generally presumed,
often correctly, by the prisoners to be hostile. Try to imagine that in the midst of a tax dispute you are called down to an IRS office
for an interview by a bureaucrat who asks you if you have ever cheated on your taxes, how often, and when. If you had, would you
give an honest answer under such circumstances?

Researchers on their part have often sought to apply their own middle-class concepts and language to same-sex activities rather than
take a fresh look at the phenomena. A good example of this is the oft-cited but highly misleading study by Peter Nacci and Thomas
Kane of homosexuality in federal prisons. The federal employee doing interviews asked prisoners: "Have you had a homosexual
experience in prison as an adult?" The middle-class researchers think this refers to any same-sex involvement, but the lower-class
prisoner thinks he is being asked about passive behavior, since he does not consider penetration of another male to be a
"homosexual" act; he may be fucking his cellmate every night but will truthfully, as far as he is concerned, answer "no." And many of
the researchers and interviewers have been employees of the authorities whose main purpose appears to be to justify existing policies
of blanket sexual prohibition rather than to understand actual behavior.

Determined investigators can, however, overcome these obstacles and do useful research, especially if they are able to enlist partners
on the inside who are themselves prisoners. Thus University of California sociologist Wayne Wooden was able to team up with
prisoner Jay Parker to produce the only comprehensive survey of sexual behavior in a prison, published in 1982 as Men Behind
Bars: Sexual Exploitation in Prison. Comparable studies have yet to be done on jails and juvenile institutions.

Another possibility is to have an academically-trained researcher be a prisoner himself. An investigator can be placed incognito in a
prisoner population by a warden and retrieved a short time later. Other writers have been locked up after being charged with an actual
crime. In my case, I have experienced pre-trial detention in local jails in four separate jurisdictions without being convicted of a
crime, and in addition have served four years as a sentenced prisoner in a total of five federal prisons; my most recent incarceration
was for eight months in 1990 for the administrative parole violation of leaving the country. I therefore bring considerable personal
experience and observation to this presentation.

In addition, I have been involved with penological questions since 1973 as an activist and peer counselor on prisoner rape issues;
since 1988 this has been as president of a small national organization founded in 1979 and now called Stop Prisoner Rape. I am
currently working on the third phase of a prisoner rape education project funded by the Aron Diamond Foundation. Although rape is
a crucial factor in prison sexuality, and dominates what literature exists on sex in confinement, I will not have time to examine it in
detail in this lecture. I will attempt, instead, to provide a phenomenological perspective on patterns of prisoner sexuality and then
take up some conceptual questions. [8-9 mins]

Phenomena

Confinement was not always the preferred mode of dealing with crime; until the 19th century execution, banishment, or corporal
punishment were more common. Jails were frequently sexually integrated, and prisoners were allowed to have sexual visits from
members of the opposite sex. The earliest document on same-sex activities in confinement in America is the broadside from Louis
Dwight, reprinted in Katz, which I quoted at the beginning. Dwight's report, allowing for terminological change, could have been
written yesterday.

The first American penitentiaries were set up as solitary confinement facilities, but this caused so many prisoners to go insane that
the practice had to be abandoned. Reports from the rest of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century indicate that the system of
prison sexuality has changed remarkably little over the decades and centuries.

How widespread is sex among prisoners? For reasons already cited, it is difficult to document the incidence and frequency. Wooden
and Parker received 200 responses to a random survey of Vacaville, a low-medium-security California prison (which, it should be
noted, was specially designated to receive homosexuals and therefore had a somewhat higher than usual proportion of them). They
also emphasized that their study underreported instances of sexual coercion. It must be kept in mind that these figures apply only to
incidents affecting the prisoners while in that particular prison (thus omitting, for example, previous rapes in jails which induced
their victims to "voluntarily" pair off for protection once in the prison). Wooden and Parker reported that: 65% of all prisoners had
engaged in sexual activity in that prison; 19% were currently "hooked up" or paired off as part of an ongoing sexual couple; 14% had
been sexually assaulted. Of self-described heterosexuals, 55% reported sexual activity. The heterosexual activity figures were broken
down into 38% of whites, 81% of blacks, and 55% of Hispanics. The median age of Wooden-Parker's respondents was 29. Since
observers unanimously agree with Wooden and Parker's statement that "prison sex...remains by and large a young man's game," we
must assume that participation rates among prisoners under 30 would be much higher than for the total sample. All of this accords
with my own experience.

Of the self-described heterosexuals, 12.8% reported they had experienced penetrative oral sex and 8.3% penetrative anal sex more
than ten times since coming to that prison; 10% were currently hooked up. Married heterosexuals who received conjugal visits were
more, not less, likely to participate in sex with other prisoners. Nine per cent of the hetersexuals had been raped; 7.8% of them had
been anally and 5.7% orally penetrated, but white heterosexuals were 2 to 3 times as likely to have been penetrated than black
heterosexuals.

All of the self-described bisexuals and homosexuals reported sexual activity in that prison. Of the self-described homosexuals, 63%
had been pressured for sex while there (breaking down into 82% of white homosexuals, 71% of Hispanic homosexuals, and 49% of
black homosexuals), and 41% had been violently raped while there. 88% were currently hooked up. The homosexuals indicated that
71% had been charged with sexual activity under the prison disciplinary code, and 35% were involved in prostitution. An eyeopener
for some gay consumers of pornography featuring jailhouse sex may be the report by 77% of the homosexuals that they had better
sex "on the Street" and by 78% that they were "looked down upon and treated with disrespect by other inmates."

Other writers on the subject have produced a wide range of estimates as to the percentage of prisoners engaging in sexual activity, but
most commonly these estimates run in the 30-45% range; Herbert Thomas represents the maximum estimate at 80-90% after three
years in a maximum-security prison. I should note that a major limiting factor on participation rates everywhere is the unavailability
of passive partners, and that most prisoners who do not participate in sexual acts for that reason still participate in the sexual system
by making verbal remarks and attempting to induce others into a passive role. This sort of homoerotic flirtation is so widespread as
to be the norm for prisoners in their 20s, who form the bulk of the population.

By all accounts sexual activity is more common in juvenile institutions, big-city jails, and maximum-security prisons (where men are
serving longer sentences) than in a low-medium-security prison such as the one studied by Wooden and Parker. The figures cited may
be a bit much to digest all at once, which is why I have included them in a handout, but it should be clear that sex among male
prisoners is common, that race is a major factor, and that large numbers of heterosexuals are forced into a sexually passive role. The
number of heterosexuals engaged in frequent penetrative sex roughly matches, and in fact is limited by, the number of passive
homosexuals and involuntarily passive heterosexuals.

A considerable amount of literature has been written in scholarly style, though without much rigor or objectivity, concerning sexual
behavior in prisons; very little, in contrast, has been written about jails or reformatories. Much of this literature is fraught with
controversy, and the views of penologists, often concerned more with institutional control and abstract theorizing on "the problem of
homosexuality" than with actual behavioral patterns, tend to differ both normatively and descriptively from prisoner accounts.
Penologists reflect the concerns of their employers, who usually seek to minimize aspects of life in their institutions which would
arouse public indignation, and who are usually hostile to all forms of sexual contact among prisoners. The statements by Nacci and
Kane that "from a managerial standpoint, the long-standing lover relationship is especially dangerous" and that "an infusion of
morality"-defined by them as "a sense of immorality and sinfulness regarding homosexuality"-"is required" and the conclusion of a
penological paper of the late 1980s that "greater efforts to deter...consensual homosexual activity" are needed, are not untypical.
Armchair theorizing, remote from the actual behavior which is supposed to be its subject, is endemic to the formal literature.

Accounts written by prisoners or exprisoners have usually taken the form of autobiography or fiction, and these also tend to draw
veils over areas which might reflect unfavorably on the writer in presenting himself to the general public, such as rape and
homosexuality. Heterosexual former prisoners also tend to remain silent concerning their sexual experiences in confinement when
conversing with people who have not shared that environment, former "punks" being most loathe to disclose anything about their
humiliating sexual role. Robert N. Boyd wrote from a gay perspective on the California prison system in Sex Behind Bars (1984).
The only systematic account from a punk's perspective can be found in Donald Tucker's "A Punk's Song" in Anthony Scacco's 1982
anthology, Male Rape; I recommend it. A thirdperson novel which has dealt candidly with prison sex, based on the author's
experience in the California system, is On the Yard (1967) by Malcolm Braly; a play by Canadian exprisoner John Herbert, Fortune
and Men's Eyes (1967), made into a movie in 1971, revolves around sexuality in a Canadian reformatory.

There are, I note in passing, numerous gay pornographic books and videos featuring an incarceration setting, but it is obvious that
very few of them were written by former prisoners and they are generally wildly inaccurate in depicting sexual reciprocity.

The prisoner subculture fuses sexual and social roles and assigns all prisoners accordingly. Feminist analysis would note this as a
patriarchal trait, and I would add that in my experience confinement institutions are the most sexist (as well as racist) environment in
the country, bar none. As R. W. Dumond noted last year, "prison slang defines sexual habits and inmate status simultaneously." This
classification system draws a rigid distinction between active and passive roles. The majority, which in this case is on top in all
senses, consists of the so-called "men," and they are defined by a successful and continuing refusal to be sexually penetrated. A single
instance of being penetrated, whether voluntary or not, is universally held to constitute an irreversible "loss of manhood." The "Men"
rule the roost and establish the values and behavioral norms for the entire prisoner population; convict leaders, gang members, and
the organizers of such activities as the smuggling of contraband, protection rackets, and prostitution rings must be and remain "Men."

It is important to realize that whether a Man is sexually involved or not, his status is sexually defined. A Man who is sexually active
(in both senses) is called a "jocker." (A note here: although the term "man" is universal in prisoner slang, other terms vary
considerably from one region to another and in some cases with time. Since I do not have time tonight to go into linguistic usage, I
will pick the most commonly understood prisoner term and use it here to the exclusion of all others. The term "jocker" was well
established at San Quentin in 1925.) If a jocker is paired off, he is a "Daddy." If he engages in sexual coercion, he is a "booty bandit."
Men almost always identify as heterosexual (in a few cases bisexual) and the overwhelming majority of them act heterosexually
before and after confinement.

The following description is a generalization, and it should be kept in mind that exceptions to these patterns do exist, but variances
from one institution to another tend to be quantitative, meaning higher or lower levels of coercive pressure, sexual involvement,
couple formation, gang influence, and official disapproval rather than taking other paradigms or patterns of sexuality.

The sexual penetration of another male prisoner by a Man is sanctioned by the subculture, is considered a male rather than a
homosexual activity, and is considered to validate the penetrator's masculinity. "Manhood," however, is a tenuous condition as it is
always subject to being "lost" to another, more powerful or aggressive Man; hence a Man is expected to "fight for his manhood."
Before the AIDS crisis, Men (especially blacks and Hispanics) under middle age traditionally were expected to be jockers; if they
showed no inclination to demonstrate their manhood through sexual conquest their status as men would be questioned, which would
make them targets for demotion. Certain groups, such as Mafiosi and the devoutly religious, could escape such suspicion. Since
AIDS awareness has become widespread, Men who are not inclined to be jockers have acquired another excuse.

Below the class of men in every way is the very small class of "queens." These are effeminate homosexuals. In jails, many of them are
street transvestites charged with prostitution. They seek and are assigned the role of females and referred to exclusively with feminine
pronouns and terms. They have "pussies," not "assholes," and wear "blouses," not shirts. They are always sexually passive, and in
prisons are unlikely to make up more than 1 or 2% of the population. They are highly desirable as sexual partners because of their
willingness to adopt "feminine" traits, and are highly visible, but the queens remain submissive to the "men" and in accordance with
the prevalent sexism may not hold positions of overt power in the prisoner social structure. They are often scapegoated, involved in
prostitution, and are frequently viewed with contempt by the Men and by the staff, assigned to the most undesirable jobs, kept under
closest surveillance by guards, and harassed by homophobic keepers and kept alike. In some institutions, including Rikers Island,
queens are segregated from the general population and placed in special units, often called "queens' tanks." There they are often
denied privileges given to the general population such as attendance at the recreation hall, exercise and fresh air on the yard, library
visits, chapel attendance, hot food, etc. Jails may put them in full-time lockdown, the equivalent of solitary confinement.

At the very bottom of the structure is the class of "punks," to which I was assigned. These are prisoners who, to use Wooden and
Parker's defintion, "have been forced into a sexually submissive role," usually through rape or convincing threat of it. Most frequent
in urban jails and in reformatories but still common in prisons, gang rape (and the common threat of it) is the principle device used to
convert Men into punks, and thus rape has an important sociological aspect. The vast majority of punks are heterosexual by
preference and history, though some are gays or bisexuals who rejected the "queen" role but were forced into a passive role anyway.
They are for all practical purposes slaves and can be sold, traded, and rented or loaned out at the whim of their "Daddy." The most
extreme forms of such slavery, which can also apply to queens, are found in the maximumsecurity institutions and some jails.

Punks tend to be among the youngest prisoners, small in size, inexperienced in personal combat, first-timers, are more likely to have
been arrested for nonviolent or victimless offenses, to be middle class, and to be white. Given the unrelenting demand on the part of
the jockers for sexual catchers and the small number of queens available, the proportion of punks tends to rise with the security level
of the institution: the longer the prison term, the more risks will be taken by a booty bandit to convert a Man into a punk. Bigcity jails
and juvenile institutions are also considered to have relatively high populations of punks. The total population of queens and punks
is rarely high enough to meet the demand for sexually passive prisoners, however, and this imbalance of supply and demand is a key
to understanding the social dynamics of relentless competition among the men, who in rough joints are in danger of "losing their
manhood" at any time.

Although both groups suffer at the hands of both the Men and the keepers, relations between queens and punks are often tense, as the
queens tend to look down on the punks as weak while trying to recruit them into their own ranks, a process which the punks resent,
though some may succumb to it over the years. Punks desperately try to hang on to vestiges of their original male identity and thus
resist the feminizing process promoted both by the Men and by the queens; upon release they usually revert to heterosexual patterns,
though often with the disruptions associated with severe male rape trauma syndrome. Longtime punks undergo an adaptation process
which may leave them functionally bisexual after release; some "come out" or surrender to the feminizing pressure and become
queens. An umbrella term encompassing both queens and punks is "catcher."

A macho gay male who comes into this system with considerable fighting ability may attempt to pass as a heterosexual jocker, since
the only evidence of heterosexuality required is a pin-up on the cell wall. If it becomes known that he is "gay," however, he will
immediately be consigned to the queen role, and if he resists that may fall into the punk category. There is no niche in the prisoner
structure for a sexually reciprocal or masculine-identified gay man such as we see in our androphilic communities. In a rural jail or
minimum-security prison he may succeed in fending off such pressures, but in any other confinement environment the entire
institution would be against him and he would have to survive repeated combat.

In ongoing sexual relationships, a Man is paired or "hooked up" with a catcher; no other possibilities, such as a reciprocal gay pair,
are tolerated. But This one relationship is not only tolerated but sanctioned by the prisoner subculture, and virtually all catchers are
required to pair off for their own protection. Vulnerable prisoners commonly learn this fact of life in jails or juvenile institutions
before they first arrive at prisons and seek to "hook up" as soon as possible after arrival in order to preempt further gang-rapes. This
fact is vital to interpretations of incidence studies of rape in prisons. These relationships are taken very seriously, as they involve an
obligation on the part of the Daddy to defend his partner, at the cost of his life if necessary, and on the part of the catcher to obey his
Man. Catchers are required to engage in "wifely" chores such as doing laundry, making the bunk, keeping the cell clean, and making
and serving coffee. Due to the shortage of catchers, only a small minority of jockers succeed in entering into such a relationship, and
the competition for available catchers is intense, sometimes violent.

The impetus manifested by the jockers to form pairs is remarkable in light of the many disadvantages in doing so, for the Daddy not
only risks having to engage in lethal combat on behalf of someone else and hence suffer for his catcher's blunders, seductiveness, or
good looks, but he also greatly increases his vulnerability to administrative discipline by raising his profile and increasing the
predictability of his prohibited sexual activities. The fact that so many jockers seek to form pairs rather than find sexual release
through rape, prostitution, masturbation, etc. is strong testimony for the thesis that such relationships meet basic human needs which
are related to, but not identical to, the sexual one, such as a need for affection or bonding.

Prisoners serving long terms are often looking for a companion to "do time" with; such jockers tend to rely less on aggression and
more on persuasion in their search for someone to "settle down" with, but they are often not above arranging for a confederate to
supply the coercion needed to "turn out" a punk for this purpose.

Sometimes the Daddy role is actually a collective, so that a catcher may belong to a group of jockers or to a whole gang. Ownership
of a catcher tends to give high status to the Daddy and is often a source of revenue since the jocker, who is often without substantial
income, can then establish himself in the prostitution business. These relationships are usually but not always exploitive and they
often result from aggression on the part of a booty bandit, though the Daddy is often a third party. The catcher may or may not have
consented before the jocker "puts a claim" on him, though often he is able to choose from among jocker suitors if he acts quickly.

"Freelance" or unpaired catchers are uncommon, since they are usually unable to protect themselves and are considered to be fair
game for any booty bandit. Usually, a rape or two is sufficient to persuade an unattached catcher to pair off as soon as possible. A
catcher who manages to break free from an unwanted pairing is called a "renegade," and he is usually quickly claimed by another
jocker.

Pair relationships are based on an adaptation of the heterosexual model which the prisoners bring with them from the Street; the use
of this model also validates the jail relationship while confirming the sense of masculinity of the jocker and undermining that of the
catcher. The Men tend to treat their catchers much as they habitually did their female companions, so a wide range of relationships
ranging from ruthless exploitation to romantic love are encountered.

Emotional involvement by the Daddy with his catcher is less common than with his women "on the Street," but it is far from rare;
longterm prisoners may even "get married" in an imitation ceremony to which the whole cell-block may be invited and which may
take place in the chapel. A littlenoted emotional significance of the relationship for most Daddies, however, is that it becomes an
island of relaxation away from the constant competitive jungle, with its continual dangers and fears of exposing anything which
might be considered a "weakness," which mark social relations among the Men. Confident in his male role, the Daddy can allow
himself to drop the hard mask which he wears outside the relationship and express with his catcher the otherwisesuppressed aspects
of his humanity, such as caring, tenderness, anxiety, and loneliness. The total dependence of a punk on his Daddy for protection and
social interaction induces psychological dependence which also can facilitate emotional involvement. Thus long-term prisons exhibit
the remarkable phenomenon of two men, both heterosexual by preference and identity, involved in sexually expressed love affairs
with each other. Incidentally, this aspect of sexuality led Peter Buffum to one of the all-time howlers in the literature, when he
suggested that "the line officer might serve to reduce prison homosexuality by providing one outlet for inmate affectual needs."
When prisoners love guards, there will be parties for the KKK in Harlem and Pat Robertson will write a column for The Advocate.
That's almost as good as the woman who read about quasi-familial relationships in women's prisons and looked to see if there were
similar nonsexual relationships in men's prisons. In an article published in The Prison Journal in 1989 she found them, too, and
cited as evidence for "father-son" relationships equivalent to the "mother-daughter" dyads in the women's prisons the male prisoner
slang terms "Daddy" and "sweet kid" (a common synonym for punk).

Sexual reciprocation in these relationships is rare, and when it does occur, is kept very secret. Some Daddies will go so far as to
masturbate their punks, but even that is uncommon.

Another noteworthy variance from the heterosexual model is that the Daddies tend to be considerably more casual about allowing
sexual access to their catchers than they would with regard to their women on the Street. The catchers are frequently loaned to other
jockers out of friendship or to repay favors or establish leadership in a clique or gang, and are commonly prostituted. Unlike women,
the catchers won't get pregnant by another man. It is very important, however, for a Daddy to retain control over such access to his
catcher.

The punks, who retain a desire for an insertive role which they cannot find in sex with jockers, sometimes reciprocate with one
another in a mutual exchange of favors, giving each a chance to temporarily play the "male" role which is otherwise denied them.
These situations account for most of the cases in which a survey shows both active and passive behavior by the same person. The
queens ridicule such exchanges as "bumping pussy," revealing an incidental disdain for lesbianism.

Only a small minority of the jockers succeed in obtaining possession of a partner; these tend to be the highestranking Men in the
prisoner power structure, so possession of a catcher is a status symbol. The remainder make use of prostitution if they have
resources, join in gangrapes, borrow catchers from friends who control them, use a catcher belonging to their gang, or do without.

Many of the reasons for such involvement go beyond the necessity of relieving the sex/intimacy drive, though I will add before
leaving the subject that those armchair theorists who claim that sexual deprivation is not one of many factors in prisoner rape, as
distinguished from rape in the community, are mistaken. One major reason for jockers' involvement is that aggressive sexual activity
is considered to validate masculine status and hence tends to protect the Man from attempts to deprive him of that status. There is
considerable peer pressure in many institutions to engage in "masculine" sexual activity because it also validates such activity on the
part of other jockers, who remain aware that the American establishment and many staff members consider their behavior
homosexual and are therefore defensive about it even if they themselves reject that notion.

Other motivations are not as directly sexual: deprived of power over his own life by the regime of incarceration, a jocker often seeks
to stake out a small arena of power by exerting control over another prisoner. The existence of such an island of power helps the
jocker retain a sense of his own masculinity-the one remaining social asset which he feels the administration cannot take from
him-because of his identification of power and control with masculinity. For an adolescent prisoner, this motivation is often even
stronger, as he has few other means of acquiring "manhood." Furthermore, involvement in prohibited sexual activity is an act of
rebellion against the total institution, hence a demonstration that the institution's control over that person is less than complete and
that he retains some measure of autonomy. Finally, sexual activity serves to demarcate other power issues: a gang or ethnic group
wishing to assert its dominance over another may do so by seizing one of its rival's members and turning him into a punk for their
own use. This is most commonly done by blacks against whites, and forms a symbolic attack on the manhood of all whites, who are
said to be "unable to keep their bitches;" it is thus the source of much of the racial conflict and tension in confinement.

Researchers have yet to examine the effects of the AIDS crisis on prison sexuality. By my own before-and-after observation of
federal prisons, homophobia has risen, especially among whites, the status of queens has fallen, virgin heterosexuals are more highly
prized, fewer jockers are hooking up, and much of the sexual behavior has become more covert. Daddies are getting more possessive
about their catchers, particularly when it comes to anal sex, and prostitution is down. One would expect rape to increase under these
circumstances. Increasing numbers of institutions are circumventing their bans on condoms, but in all but a few systems they remain
contraband and most administrators refuse to allow them on the grounds that this would be "condoning homosexuality," something
they apparently consider worse than the death of prisoners.

Sexual activity in confinement may take place nearly anywhere; the expectation of privacy which prevails in other circumstances
gives way to necessity. Furthermore, it is often to a jocker's advantage to be seen engaging in "masculine" sexual activity by other
prisoners, enhancing his reputation as a Man. For these reasons, sex is often a group activity with participants taking turns standing
"lookout" for guards or shooing away uninvolved prisoners from the area being used.

While disciplinary codes in American confinement institutions are unanimous in outlawing all sexual activity, the major effect of
these codes is to ensure that sex takes place outside the view of the guards; a secondary one is often to discourage protective
relationships as an alternative to rape. Furthermore they inhibit catchers from enlisting the aid of administrators in avoiding rape
situations, given the fact that such avoidance usually requires pairing off with a protector. The furtive nature of consensual activities
and pairings necessitated by the disciplinary codes also works to dehumanize them and favor the quick mechanical relief as
distinguished from an affectionate relationship.

The severe sanctions provided by the informal prisoner code against informers protects even rapists from being reported to the
administration by their victims, who fear retaliation from the perpetrators or their allies. Officials usually have a general idea of what
is going on, based on reports from informers, but these reports cannot be made openly enough to provide a basis for disciplinary
action.

One promising strategy against sexual assault which, so far, has yet to be tried, would be to legalize non-assaultive sexuality and
encourage the formation of stable, mutually supportive pairbonds in that context, while reserving the full weight of administrative
attention and punishment for instances of coercion. With administrators continuing to regard both rape and consensual sexuality as
problems to be equally ignored or, when acknowledged, eliminated, such suggestions have produced only the standard reply "we can't
condone homosexuality."

The openness of jailhouse sexuality, in spite of disciplinary codes, is one of its more remarkable features. The institution of "hooking
up" which is the heart of the system, and which specifies that any catcher who is "hooked up" may be "disrespected" only at the risk of
violent retaliation from his Daddy, is utterly dependent on general awareness of the details of such pairings among the entire prisoner
population. Virtually the first result of a successful claim being laid on a catcher is its announcement to the prisoners at large; sex is
the number one topic of conversation, and the news that a new punk has been "turned out" spreads like wildfire throughout an
institution. Often such hooking up announcements are visual, taking the form of a jocker continually eating and walking around the
yard or block with a catcher until everyone has seen them together consistently and often enough to conclude that a pair has been
formed.

Under such circumstances, guards and administrators with their eyes open can hardly fail to be aware of pairings. Often, in fact,
housing moves are made to facilitate keeping the pair together; practical experience has shown that this tends to minimize fights and
therefore keeps the general peace, which is the first priority of officials. Thus when a jocker in a double cell acquires a catcher, he
"persuades" his current cellmate to request a move out, the new catcher requests a move in, the catcher's current cellmate is prompted
to request that he be moved out, and the administration approves it to keep the peace among all concerned. Other, more homophobic,
administrators seek to keep a pair as far apart as possible. A particularly dangerous situation is one in which a catcher is bunked with
a jocker other than the one he is hooked up with. For this reason catchers are sometimes celled together.

There is, as may be expected, a wide range of administrative attitudes towards both violent and consensual homosexuality in their
institutions. Consensual activities are accepted as inevitable by some, hunted out and seriously punished when discovered by others,
while most tend to look the other way so long as the behavior does not become disruptive or too open. There are, unfortunately, all
too many reports of administrators indifferent to or even promoting coercive sexuality, even using it to recruit informers.

The uniformed guards, who are more likely to be from the same class as the prisoenrs, often have a different set of attitudes from the
civilian staff. Some of them consider all participants in sexual activity to be homosexuals; some display considerable homophobia
and engage in private witchhunts, trying to catch someone "in the act." Others, especially those with long experience as guards, may
encourage a jocker whom they consider disruptive to get "hooked up" with a catcher on the theory that pairedoff Men are less likely
to cause trouble. Guards are also involved in setting up some rapes and sexual encounters, in exchange for payoffs or for such
diverse reasons as to destroy the leadership potential of an articulate prisoner. [41 min]

Concepts

As long as the sex-segregated prison remains society's answer to crime, the issues of rape and of consensual homosexual behavior
behind bars are likely to persist. So, also, will the conclusion that most sexually active heterosexuals, if deprived of access to the
opposite sex and not discouraged by their peers from doing so, will eventually turn to another person of the same sex, and may even
become emotionally attached to that person. The implications of that conclusion, supported as it is by a considerable body of
experience, for current concepts of sexual orientation and potential, have yet to be explored. For the remainder of my time I hope to
stir up a bit of a hornet's nest by exposing the inadequacies of these concepts, and by criticizing academic writers for a serious failure
to deal with reality.

The ideas regarding male sexual orientation now fashionable among academics have an interesting intellectual history, which I shall
very briefly review. For almost all of European history, starting with the ancient Cretans, popular opinion drew a sharp distinction
between active and passive male same-sex behavior. Most of the world, it should be noted, continues to this day to consider this
distinction of utmost importance. Penetrating a boy or an effeminate adult was and is considered more or less normal male behavior,
and only the penetrated adult male was and is considered odd, abnormal, a bad candidate for marriage and fatherhood, or stigmatized.
To this day our common English slang has yet to develop distinctive terms for penetrative same-sex activity or for same-sex
penetrators.

In great contrast, the religious tradition, derived from the Zoroastrians of Persia, codified in Leviticus and other Hebrew texts, and
passed on to Christianity through Paul, equated both active and passive: "both of them shall die." This religious concept was
incorporated into criminal law when Christian prohibitions were secularized in the 16th Century. Thus when the German movement
to repeal Paragraph 175 of the criminal code, which applied to both partners, was born in the 19th Century, its founders also needed
terminology that applied to both partners. Kertbeny supplied the term: "homosexual," which sounded very scientific despite its
religious conceptual roots, in 1868 as part of an argument against the Prussian law. This word, and its associated concept of
equivalence of roles, was taken up by psychiatrists and intellectuals towards the end of the 19th century and popularized in Germany
by press coverage of the Eulenburg scandal in the first decade of the 20th century. It gradually spread to English intellectuals,
eventually coming to dominate northern Europe.

The term "homosexual" remained nearly unknown in America until the 1920s and 30s, when psychoanalysis became influential
among American intellectuals, who proceeded to spread the word and its semantic reach among the educated middle-class, receiving
an enormous boost from its use by Kinsey, who unfortunately paid no attention to role distinctions. But as late as the mid-1960s it
was still common for middle-class American gays and lesbians to divide people involved in same-sex activities into "butches" or
"trade" and "queens" or "femmes", and while in the working-class the old role-oriented distinction remained standard. The homophile
movement took its cues from the intellectuals, using the term "homosexual" (and later "gay") and blurring role distinctions. Since the
national mass media broke the taboo on discussion of the subject in the wake of Stonewall, these media have featured educated
middle-class discussants and writers rather than members of the working class. Since both the leaders of the gay and lesbian
movement and their religiously-motivated opponents agreed on the crucial question of labeling male penetrative behavior as
"homosexual," they have jointly succeeded in imposing their concept of "homosexuality" on the public discourse of the entire
population.

Nevertheless, there remains remarkable resistance to this concept of homosexuality, which is closely associated with mutual
androphilia, among those Americans whose ancestry did not derive from north of the Alps, and that population includes most of the
lower class and about 85% or more of prisoners. If academics were not so often blinded by their own class prejudices, they would
recognize that their primary categorization scheme based on biological sex of partner is not universally held. In fact, and I wish to
emphasize this, it has no better claim at scientific standing than a classification scheme based on sexual role; both are arbitrary and
have difficulty accounting for those who cross the boundary from time to time, but one has been imposed by elites on a general
population which had held to the other for millennia; one is rooted in religion and law and the other in psychology and daily life.

In the past two decades academics have also become obsessed with another arbitrary and culturally based rather than scientific
concept: gay identity, which is usually though not explicitly associated with exclusive homosexuality. This has led to academic
blindness towards those who, according to Kinsey, constitute the majority of all those who have experienced same-sex activity. We
see it even now in the debate over military policy, which is being framed on both sides as a question of "homosexuals in the military"
although the policy in question actually calls for discharge of anyone who participates in a single sexual act with a member of the
same sex, and has in fact frequently been used to discharge heterosexuals. Because these invisible participants are not politically
mobilized, and in fact are even overtly discouraged from joining gay rights efforts because they reject "gay and lesbian identity," they
are ignored by politicians, activists and academic writers alike. But this no more helps us understand the real world than a disregard
of illegal immigrants helps us understand the economy of south Texas. It certainly will not help in understanding sex in confinement,
where most same-sex activity takes place among males who strenuously and accurately reject any gay identity.

The application of middle-class concepts of homosexuality to prisoners produces much absurdity and little understanding. It leads
writers who ought to know better to designate males who rape males as "aggressive homosexuals" and to argue that conjugal visiting
programs would have no effect on prison rape because these "aggressive homosexuals" would obviously have no interest in sex with
women! It causes Nacci and Kane to ask the wrong question, Kinsey's statistics to be misread, and other writers to engage in fruitless
theorizing over the astonishing number of homosexuals in prison. It produces verbal atrocities such as the term "homosexual rape"
for an offense virtually no incarcerated homosexuals commit. It leads even such a supposed authority as Peter Buffum to lament the
damage inflicted on young inmates who are, and I quote, "the victims of aggressive, sex-driven prison homosexuals" and who later
even goes on to call these punk victims "made homosexuals."

The salient fact that the overwhelming majority of young males in confinement, freed from the fetters of social disapproval, will seek
sexual gratification from members of the same sex, strongly implies that the capacity for male homoerotism is nearly universal, its
suppression a matter of cultural mores and the availability of women. If this be so, and there is abundant data from outside
confinement to support this conclusion, what are its implications for our understanding of sexual orientations and their causes? For
concepts of gay identity and homosexuals as a minority group? These questions remain on the table even if we choose to ignore them
as too uncomfortable for our currently fashionable ideas.

For the majority of prisoners, penetrative sex with a punk or queen remains a psychologically heterosexual and, in the circumstances
of confinement, normal act; the relationships involved are also psychologically heterosexual to them (as well as to most of their
partners, willing or not). These prisoners, who are perhaps more focused on the physical and less on the psychological dimensions of
sexual activity than members of the middle class, insist that the difference between the experience of entering a female mouth and of
entering a male mouth is not significant, that the experiential difference between entering a vagina or female anus and a male anus is
not significant. In all of these cases they are aggressive, thrusting, dominating, stimulating the nerves in their own penis in quite
similar fashion, inserting their energy and themselves into another body, and obtaining orgasms for themselves. A wide gulf, they
insist, exists between such behavior and becoming passive, taking someone inside their own body, providing pleasure and orgasm to
someone else's penis instead of their own. If one is to draw a line dividing sexual behavior into two categories, they argue, it is much
more logical to separate these two radically different experiences than to draw the distinction based on whether one partner happens
to have an unused, uninvolved, and ignored penis or not. The fact that these arguments are made by prisoners rather than by
professors and that they do not advance a political agenda does not make them one whit less valid. Until academics recognize and
address them, one can only conclude that current religiously-based concepts of sexual orientation prevail only because their
advocates are afraid to debate them.

Another area where current dualistic concepts based on legal distinctions fail to address actual prisoner sexuality is that of coercion
and consent. Writers divide all sexuality into that which is coerced-rape and other forms of sexual assault-and that which is
"voluntary." But for the passive prisoner in most acts and relationships, the punk, neither term usually applies. I have coined the term
"survival-driven" as an intermediate category, and suggest its applicability in other contexts, including heterosexual ones, as well.
From the typical punk's point of view, none of his passive sexual activities are truly voluntary, since if he had his own way, he would
not need to engage in them. Many continuing and isolated liaisons originate in the aftermath of gang rape, or to counter the ever
present threat of gang rape. Prison officials and researchers label such behavior as "consensual," and I, too, would treat it legally the
same as consensual activity, but fear on the part of the passive partner is certainly the prime motivation. On the other hand, when a
punk hooks up with someone, forming a long-lasting relationship with a protector, often selected by him from among multiple
contenders, we are clearly dealing with something other than rape or sexual assault, something which exists only because to the punk
it is dramatically different from, and greatly preferable to, rape and sexual assault. Thus we need a third category.

Wayne Dynes and I developed a typology of same-sex relationships which Dynes presented to you in a handout at the very first
meeting of this University Seminar, and which can be found in the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality under "Typology." The
application of this schema to prisoner sexuality is not obvious, though clearly androphilia is not present. The relationships with
queens at least are gender-differentiated, and some of the characteristics of that type are applied to punks as well. But since the punks
are generally the youngest prisoners and the jockers somewhat older, there are elements of age-differentiation involved. Unlike
pederasty, the punk is not expected to mature out of his passive status and become active as he gets older. The preferred age group for
punks suggests ephebophilia, but other significant traits of that type are reversed. Certainly the question of situational homosexuality
arises, since for the jockers and the punks the same-sex activity is a product of a particular situation characterized by the absence of
the opposite sex. Reflecting the preoccupation of academics with questions of identity, however, the situational type has not been
examined in any systematic manner and the possible commonalities of prisoner sexuality with that of sailors, students in boarding
schools, monks, etc., while in some cases obvious, have not been explored. The type that fits most generally, however, is that found
to prevail in ancient Rome: the dominance-enforcement model where the sexual element expresses and symbolizes a previously
imposed power relationship, the desires of the passive partner are irrelevant, the rulers are prohibited from taking a passive role, and
sexual penetration of an adult male is viewed as the natural fruit of conquest. Prisoner sexuality also raises the thorny issue of
socially assigned gender. This phenomenon is well known to anthropologists, and can be observed tonight in New York wherever
heterosexuals pick up transvestite prostitutes for oral sex, but it raises messy boundary questions for feminists and others and is
therefore usually ignored by American academics.

It is a cliché of academic presentations to conclude by urging further research and theoretical exploration. But in few fields is this
standard appeal so richly justified as in that of sexuality in confinement. A million jockers, punks, and queens demand an explanation,
and their numbers continue to soar with every year. Thank you.

Readings on American male prisoner sexuality:

Books

Lee H. Bowker, Prison Victimization, 1980, NY: Elsevier;

Robert N. Boyd, Sex Behind Bars: A Novella, Short Stories, and True Accounts, 1984, San Francisco: Sunshine Press (includes 8
non-scholarly essays);

Peter C. Buffum, Homosexuality in Prisons, 1972, Washington: U.S. Department of Justice (reprinted in Mickley);

Sabine Büssing, Of Captive Queens and Holy Panthers: Prison Fiction and Male Homoerotic Experience, 1990, Frankfurt am
Main: Peter Lang;

Wayne R. Dynes and Stephen Donaldson, ed., Homosexuality & Government, Politics, & Prisons, 1992, NY: Garland (anthology
includes 9 articles on confinement);

Joseph F. Fishman, Sex in Prison: Revealing Sex Conditions in American Prisons, 1934, NY: National Library (exposé);

Bruce Jackson, In the Life: Versions of the Criminal Experience, 1972, NY: Holt Reinhart Winston (chapter: "Queens, Punks and
Studs");

Daniel Lockwood, Prison Sexual Violence, 1980, NY: Elsevier (NY State prisons);

John McCoy, Concrete Mama: Prison Profiles from Walla Walla, 1981, Columbia, MO: U. of Missouri (chapters 6 and 9);

Richard R. Mickley, Prison Ministry Handbook, 3rd ed., 1980, LA: Universal Fellowship of Metropolitain Community Churches
(religious outreach to gay prisoners);

Anthony M. Scacco, Jr., Rape in Prison, 1975, Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas (much material is on juvenile confinement);

Anthony M. Scacco, Jr., ed., Male Rape: A Casebook of Sexual Aggressions, 1982, NY: AMS (anthology includes 16 articles on
confinement);

David A. Shore and Harvey L. Cochros., eds., Sexual Problems of Adolescents in Institutions, 1981, Springfield, IL: Charles C.
Thomas (anthology of original articles);

Gresham M. Sykes, The Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison, 1958, Princeton: Princeton U. (classic prison
sociology; other major studies of prison sociology which included sexuality have been done by Inez Cardozo-Freeman in 1984 and
Donald Clemmer in 1940);

Hans Toch, Living in Prison: The Ecology of Survival, 1977, NY: The Free Press;

C. Vedder and P. Kind, Problems of Homosexuality in Corrections, 1965, Chicago: Charles Thomas;

Carl Weiss and David J. Friar, Terror in the Prisons: Homosexual Rape and Why Society Condones It, 1974, Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill (exposé);

Wayne S. Wooden and Jay Parker, Men Behind Bars: Sexual Exploitation in Prison, 1982, New York: Plenum (recommended).

Jim Bowery

unread,

Mar 31, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/31/97

Here are the SPR documents. Additional references to government studies
are cited in "You Are Going to Prison" by Jim Hogsire.

Prisons, Jails, and Reformatories

Stephen Donaldson Article from Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, Wayne R. Dynes, ed., 1990, NY: Garland Public. For related information, see Stop Prisoner
Rape.

Incarceration facilities have for some time provided fodder for those seeking a comprehensive understanding of the full range and
potential of homosexual behavior. These facilities host social worlds in which sexual acts and long-term sexual pairing between
people of the same gender, who consider themselves and are generally considered by others to be heterosexual ("man"/"punk" pairs),
are not only common but validated by the norms of the prisoner's subculture.

General Features of Incarceration Facilities

Incarceration centers constitute a subset of the "total institution," a category which includes the several branches of the armed forces
and boarding schools. Along with monasteries and nunneries, incarceration facilities are characterized by gender segregation, a
limited interface with the outside world, and an official norm of sexual abstinence. Like other total institutions, confinement
facilities witness a good deal of resistance on the part of their inmates to the regimentation demanded by the institution; such
resistance can take the form of involvement in officially censured sexual activity.

There is a great deal of diversity among institutions holding prisoners sent to them by government as a result of criminal charges.
Probably the most salient differences exist between confinement centers for males and for females, at least with regard to the
prevalent sexual conditions; unless otherwise noted, the account below pertains to facilities for males, who are still nearly 19 out of
every 20 prisoners in the United States, with similar ratios elsewhere. Confinement institutions for the mentally disturbed and for
privately-committed juveniles have been omitted from this article or lack of data. For similar reasons, there is a focus on
contemporary American institutions, which held nearly three-quarters of a million prisoners in the late 1980s at any one time and saw
nearly eight million admissions over the course of a year (mostly short jail lock-ups for minor offenses such as public drunkeness).

Confinement institutions for adults (most commonly 18 or over, though there is considerable variation in age limits) may be divided
into prisons and jails. A prison is a place of incarceration for persons serving a sentence, usually of a year or longer; they are divided
by security level into maximum (long-term), medium, and minimum (short-term) security. A jail, properly speaking, is a place of
detention for defendants awaiting trial or sentencing and for convicts serving misdemeanor or very short sentences. This division,
which is characteristic of modern penal systems, is replicated at the juvenile level with reformatories (going by a wide variety of
names) and juvenile detention centers. Both "prison" and "jail," though especially the latter, are also used as comprehensive terms for
all confinement institutions.

The proportion of the general population which is incarcerated varies enormously from jurisdiction to jurisdiction; the countries
with the highest rates are said to be South Africa, the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the United States. Demographically, the incarcerated
population is overwhelmingly young, with the late teens and twenties predominating, and lower or working class.

Historically, widespread confinement is a relatively recent development, replacing previous criminal sanctions of execution,
banishment, and short times in the stocks and pillories. Imprisonment as a punishment for crime is unknown to the Mosaic law,
whether for sexual or for non-sexual offenses. The first penitentiaries were built in the United States in the nineteenth century and
were soon copied by other countries, although debtor's jails existed for some time previous.

Not all penal systems have sought to banish sex from the prisoners' lives; conjugal visits were common in English jails of the
seventeenth century, while in South American countries today conjugal visits are common and in many places the prisoners are
allowed visits from female prostitutes. Originally, solitary confinement was the rule in the penitentiaries, but so many of the
prisoners became insane as a result that this regime was dropped. Evidence for widespread homosexual activity in confinement is
generally lacking until the twentieth century, handicapping attempts to trace its historical development; there are, however,
indications that sexual patterns similiar to those found today prevailed in the nineteenth century as well.

Sexual Roles in Confinement

The inmate subculture has its own norms and definitions of homosexual experience, which are to some extent archaic: they derive
from the period before the modern industrialized-world concept of homosexuality had become even imperfectly known to the
educated public, much less to the criminal underworld. In general, they seem to reflect a model of homosexuality found in ancient
Rome, medieval Scandinavia and the Viking realms, and in Mediterranean countries into modern times: any man can be active in
the sexually penetrating role without stigma, and does not thereby compromise either his masculinity or his heterosexuality. A male,
on the other hand, who submits to penetration has forfeited his claim on "manhood" and is viewed with contempt unless he is too
young to make the claim, is a powerless slave, or has become sufficiently feminine so as to never raise the claim. A salient difference
with the Greek model is that the sexually passive youths are not being trained to become men, but are expected instead to become
increasingly effeminate.

That this model is not limited to jails, prisons, and reformatories, but is also widespread (if not so sharply drawn or so clearly
legitimized and institutionalized) in the lower class of the general population from which prisoners are drawn, is clear to students of
sexual patterns.

Discussion of conditions in confinement, including sexual mores, is common among outlaws, so that even a juvenile delinquent who
has never been locked up has some idea of the sexual system prevalent among prisoners. The model is introduced in the reform
schools and reinforced in the local jails, so that by the time a convict reaches a prison, he has already been saturated with it and
considers it "normal" for such institutions.

The Role of "Man"

The prison subculture is characterized by a rigid class system based on sexual roles. The majority of prisoners are "men" (used in
quotation marks as a term of jail slang, not as a reflection on the masculinity of such individuals), also known as "jockers," "studs,"
"wolves," "pitchers," and the like. These prisoners are considered to be heterosexual, and most of them exhibit heterosexual patterns
before and after incarceration, though a small number of macho homosexuals blend with this group by "passing." The "men" rule the

roost and establish the values and behavioral norms for the entire prisoner population; convict leaders, gang members, and the

organizers of such activities as the smuggling of contraband, protection rackets, and prostitution rings must be "men."

Sexually, the "men" are penetrators only; a single incident of being penetrated is sufficient for lifelong explusion from this class. The
sexual penetration of another prisoner by a "man" is sanctioned by the subculture and considered to validate the "man's" masculinity.
"Manhood," however, is a tenuous condition as it is always subject to being "lost" to another, more powerful or aggressive "man";
hence a "man" is expected to "fight for his manhood."

Middle-aged and older "men" are most likely to abstain from sexual activity while incarcerated. A minority of the younger "men" also
abstain, but most of the young "men" who have been incarcerated for a significant amount of time will take advantage of any
opportunity for sexual relief, despite its necessarily homosexual nature. The latter, however, is not recognized by the prisoner
subculture, which insists that aggressive-penetrative activity is not homosexual, while receptive-penetrated activity is.

Some of the reasons for such involvement go beyond the necessity of relieving the sex/intimacy drive. One is that aggressive sexual
activity, especially rape and possession of a known sexual receptive, are considered to validate masculine status and hence tend to
protect the "man" from attempts to deprive him of that status. There is considerable peer pressure in many institutions to engage in
"masculine" sexual activity because it validates such activity on the part of other "men" already engaged.

Other motivations are not as directly sexual: deprived of almost all areas of power over his own life by the regime of incarceration, a
"man" often seeks to stake out a small arena of power by exerting control over another prisoner. The existence of such an island of
power helps the "man" retain a sense of his own masculinity - the one social asset which he feels the administration cannot take from
him - because of his identification of power and control with the masculine role or nature. For an adolescent prisoner, this
motivation is often even stronger, as he has few other means of acquiring "manhood" stature. Furthermore, involvement in
prohibited homosexual activity is an act of rebellion against the total institution, hence a demonstration that the institution's control
over that person is less than complete.

Prisoners serving long terms are often looking for a companion to "do time" with; such "men" tend to rely less on aggression and
more on persuasion in their search for someone to "settle down" with, but they are not above arranging for a confederate to supply
the coercion needed to "turn out" someone for this purpose.

As the demand for sexual partners always far exceeds the supply, however, only a minority of the "men" succeed in obtaining
possession of a partner; these tend to be the highest-ranking "men" in the prisoner power structure. The remainder, including some
"men" who would be able to claim and retain a sexual partner but who choose not to do so for various reasons, make use of
prostitution, join in gang-rapes, borrow sexual submissives from friends who control them, or do without. "Men" who are without
sexual outlet altogether may be considered marginal in their claim to "man" status, and targeted for violent demotion.

The Role of "Queen"

A second class consists of the "queens," also known as "bitches," "ladies" and so forth. These are effeminate homosexuals whose
sexual behavior behind bars is not markedly different from their patterns "on the street." They are strictly receptive (penetrated) and
are generally as feminine in appearance and dress as the local administration will allow. By prison convention, these prisoners are
considered to be females in every possible way, e.g., their anus is termed "pussy," they take female names, and are referred to using
female pronouns. The queen are submissive to the "men" and may not hold positions of overt power in the inmate social structure.

Known or discovered homosexuals who enter confinement without a feminine identity are relentlessly pressured to assume one; the
idea of a homosexual who is not a substitute female is too threatening to be tolerated. The more extreme the contrast between the
effeminized homosexual and the super-machismo "men," the more psychologically safe distance is placed between the "men's"
behavior and the notion of homosexuality.

In some prisons and many jails and reformatories, queens are segregated from the general population and placed in special units,
referred to by the prisoners as "queens' tanks." There they are often denied privileges given to the general population such as
attendance at the recreation hall, yard visits, library call, hot food, etc. The rationale given for such units is to protect the
homosexuals (who generally would prefer to pair off with the "men" instead) and reduce homosexuality, though in practice it simply
increases the frequency of rape among the remaining population.

The actual life of prison homosexuals, it should be clear, has little or nothing to do with the ideals propagated by the gay liberation
movement, which have barely affected prison life. There is little room for the independent, self-affirming homosexual, who upon
entering confinement faces the choice of "passing" as a heterosexual "man", submitting to the subservient role of the "queen," or
risking his life in combat time after time. Only the toughest of homosexuals can even seriously consider the third option.

The Role of "Punk"

The lowest class (though the difference between the two "non-men" classes is often minimal) consists of those males who are forced
into the sexually receptive role; they are called "punks," "fuck-boys", "sweet kids," and other terms. The overwhelming majority of
these punks are heterosexual in orientation; they are "turned out" (a phrase suggesting an inversion of their gender) by rape, usually
gang rape, convincing threat of rape, or intimidation. Punks retain some vestiges of their male identity and tend to resist the
feminizing process promoted both by the "men" and by the queens; upon release they usually revert to heterosexual patterns, though
often with disruptions associated with severe male rape trauma syndrome.

Punks often try to escape their role by transferring to another cell block or institution, but almost always their reputation follows
them: "once a punk, always a punk."

Punks tend to be younger than the average inmate, smaller, and less experienced in personal combat or confinement situations; they
are more likely to have been arrested for non-violent or victimless offenses, to be middle class, and to belong to ethnic groups which
are in the minority in the institution.

Relations between queens and punks are often tense, as the former tend to look down on the latter while trying to recruit them into
their ranks, a process which the latter resent, though some may succumb to it over the years.

In subsequent usage, when both queens and punks are meant, the American prison slang word "catcher," which includes both (as the
opposite of "pitcher," both terms derived from the sport of baseball) will be used.

The percentage of queens in an incarcerated population is usually very small, from none to a few per cent. The number of punks is
usually much larger, given the unrelenting demand on the part of the "men" for sexual catchers; nevertheless, the supply of punks
never approaches the demand, so that the majority of the population is always "men." The number of punks tends to rise with the
security level of the institution, as the longer the prison term, the more risks will be taken by an aggressive "man" to "turn out" a
punk for his own use. Big-city jails and reform schools are also considered to have relatively high populations of punks.

Relationships

In ongoing sexual relationships, a "man" is paired ("hooked up") with a catcher; no other possibilities, such as a pair of homosexuals,
are tolerated, but this one is not only tolerated but sanctioned by the prisoner subculture. These relationships are taken very seriously,
as they involve an obligation on the part of the "man" to defend his partner, violently if necessary, and on the part of the catcher to
obey his "man." Catchers are required to engage in "wifely" chores such as doing laundry, making the bunk, keeping the cell clean,
and making coffee. Due to the shortage of catchers, only a small minority of "men" succeed in entering into such a relationship, and

the competition for available catchers is intense, sometimes violent.

The impetus manifested by the "men" to form pairs is remarkable in light of the many disadvantages in doing so, for the "man" not

only risks having to engage in lethal combat on behalf of someone else and hence suffer for his catcher's blunders, seductiveness, or

good looks, but he also greatly increases his vulnerability to administrative discipline by increasing his profile and the predictability
of his prohibited sexual activities. The fact that so many "men" seek to form pairs rather than find sexual release through rape,
prostitution, etc. is strong testimony for the thesis that such relationships meet basic human needs which are related to, but not

identical to, the sexual one, such as a need for affection or bonding.

Sometimes the "man" part of the relationship is actually a collective, so that a catcher may belong to a group of "men" or to a whole
gang. Ownership of a catcher tends to give high status to the "man" and is often a source of revenue since the "man," who is often

without substantial income, can then establish himself in the prostitution business. These relationships are usually but not always

exploitive and they often result from aggression on the part of the "man"; the catcher may or may not have consented before the
"man" "puts a claim" on him.

The relationship of involuntary to voluntary sexual activity inside prison is a complex one. Many continuing and isolated liaisons
originate in gang rape, or in the ever present threat of gang rape. Prison officials can label such behavior as "consensual," but fear on
the part of the passive partner is certainly a prime stimulus.

"Free-lance" or unpaired catchers are not very common, since they are usually unable to protect themselves and are considered to be
fair game for any aggressive "man." Usually, a gang-rape or two is sufficient to persuade an unattached catcher to pair off as soon as
possible. A catcher who breaks free from an unwanted pairing is called a "renegade."

Pair relationships are based on an adaptation of the heterosexual model which the prisoners bring with them from the street; the use
of this model also validates the jail relationship while confirming the sense of masculinity of the "man." The "men" tend to treat their

catchers much as they habitually did their female companions, so a wide range of relationships ranging from ruthless exploitation to

love are encountered.

Emotional involvement by the "men" is less common than "on the street," but not rare; long-term prisoners may even "get married" in
an imitation ceremony to which the whole cell block may be invited. A little-noted emotional significance of the relationship for
almost all the "men," however, is that it becomes an island of relaxation away from the constant competitive jungle, with its
continual dangers and fear of exposing anything which might be considered a "weakness," which marks social relations between the
"man" and other "men." Confident in his male role, the "man" can allow himself to drop the hard mask which he wears outside the
relationship and express with his catcher the otherwise-suppressed aspects of his humanity, such as caring, tenderness, anxiety, and
loneliness. Sexual reciprocation is rare, and when it does occur, is almost always kept very secret.

Another noteworthy alteration from the heterosexual model is that the "men" tend to be considerably more casual about allowing
sexual access to their catchers than they would with regard to their females. The catchers are frequently loaned to other "men" out of
friendship or to repay favors or establish leadership in a clique, and are commonly prostituted. Unlike the females, the jail catchers
won't get pregnant by another man. It is very important, however, for a "man" to retain control over such access to his catcher.

The punks, who retain a desire for an insertive role which they cannot find in sex with their "men," sometimes reciprocate with one
another, giving each a temporary chance to play the "male" role which is otherwise denied them.

As queens are highly valued, being both scarce and feminine-appearing, they tend to have a little more autonomy than the punks, who
are for all practical purposes slaves and can be sold, traded, and rented at the whim of their "man." The most extreme forms of such
slavery, which can also apply to queens, are found in the maximum-security institutions and some jails.

Rape

Perhaps the most dreaded of all jailhouse experiences is forcible rape. This phenomenon, while it has much in common with rape of
males in the community, is distinguished by its institutionalization as an accepted part of the prisoner subculture. Most common in
urban jails and in reformatories, gang rape (and the common threat of it) is the principle device used to convert "men" into punks.

In the subculture of the prison those with greater strength and knowledge of inmate lore prey on the weaker and less knowledgeable.
Virtually every young male entering a confinement institution will be tested to see whether he is capable of maintaining his
"manhood"; if a deficiency is spotted, he will be targeted. Sometimes an aggressive "man" will seek to "turn" the youngster using
non-violent techniques such as psychological dependence, seduction, contraband goods, drugs, or offers of protection. There is a
great variety of "turning out" games in use, and with little else to do, much time can be spent on them.

If these techniques fail, or if the patience or desire to use them is absent, or if a rival's game is to be pre-empted, violent rape may be
plotted. Usually this is a carefully planned operation involving more than one rapist ("booty bandit," "asshole bandit"). The other
participants in a gang rape may sometimes have little sexual interest in the proceedings, but need to reaffirm that they are "one of the
boys," to retain membership in the group led by militant aggressors. In the absence of such positive identification, they would expose
themselves to becoming victims.

The aggressor selects the arena for the contest, initiates the conflict, and deliberately makes the victim look as helpless, weak, and
inferior as possible. The usual response is a violent defense which, if successful, will discourage further attempts. Frequently the
target is seized by a number of rapists under circumstances which do not even allow a defense. Sometimes the attack will be
discontinued even when the attacker (or attackers) has the advantage, so long as the victim puts up a vigorous fight and thereby
demonstrates his "manhood." In other cases, especially with particularly young and attractive newcomers, the assault will be pressed
with whatever force and numbers it takes to subdue the victim. If the victim forcibly resists he is liable to be wounded or mutilated,
in no small part because he has no experience or skill in the use of knives and the like.

Defenses used to preempt a rape by knowledgeable but vulnerable newcomers include paying for protection, joining a gang, and
being sponsored by relatives or friends already locked up.

Rape in prisons is less frequent than in jails and reform schools because most prisoners who are vulnerable to rape will have already
learned to accomodate themselves to the punk role in jail or reform school and will "hook up" with a protector shortly after arrival.
Nevertheless, rape remains a feature of prison life since the testing process is never really concluded and the demand for punks is
always high. In a minimum-security prison, rape is uncommon because few "men" want to assume the risks involved and the
separation from females tends to be short or release imminent; in a maximum-security prison rape is far more prevalent because the
prisoners are more violent to begin with, are more willing to take the risks involved, and feel a more intense need for sexual partners.

The psychological roots of jail rape are complex, but it is clear that the primary motivation for the rapist lies more in the area of
power deprivation than sexual deprivation, though the role of the latter should not be underestimated. In the eyes of the perpetrator
the victim is less a sexual object than a means of exhibiting male dominance and superiority of the rapist. That physical qualities are
significant, however, is shown by the fact that obese or older inmates are rarely selected as victims.

From a sociological perspective, rape functions as a violent rite de passage to convert "men" into punks in order to meet part of the
demand for sexual partners. Most jail rape victims quickly "hook up" with a "man" (not necessarily or even usually the lead rapist) in
order to avoid repetitive gang-rapes; some enter "protective custody" (often called "punk city") but usually find it impossible to
remain there indefinitely, or find the promised protection to be illusory; some take violent revenge on their assailant(s) at a later date,
risking both death and a new prison term; others commit suicide.

In the United States, rape often takes on a racial dynamic as a means by which the dominant ethnic group (usually but not always
black) in the institution intimidates the others. As such it can become a major source of racial tension.

The rape problem has class aspects as well: the middle-class white who finds himself in an institution where he is a total stranger to
its subculture, its language, even the tricks and strategems played on unwary newcomers, simply lacks the survival skills requisite for
the prison milieu, while the repeated offender of lower-class or delinquent background has mastered all of them, even if he is not
adroit enough in his calling to escape the clutches of the law.

The rape of an "attached" catcher is also a direct challenge to his "man", who must retaliate violently, according to the prison code, or
give up his claim on the catcher and be targeted for rape himself.

It should also be mentioned that when the combination of easy victims and administrative pressure against pair-bonding arises, as it
often does, it becomes less risky to commit rapes than to commit oneself to an ongoing consensual relationship.

A further dimension of prison rape is the racial issue. Whether or not blacks constitute a majority or plurality of the prison
population, the aggressor in homosexual rape tends to be black, the victim to be white or Puerto Rican. A study of 129 separate
incidents in the Philadelphia prison system showed that:

13% involved white aggressors and white victims
29% involved black aggressors and black victims
56% involved black aggressors and white victims

Hence 85% of the aggressors were black, 69% of the victims were white. The motivation for the crime is not primarily sexual; it is
conceived as an act of revenge against a member of white society collectively regarded as exploiting and oppressing the black race.
Among older boys in a reform school, the white victim was often forced to submit to a black in full view of others so that they could
witness the humiliation of the white and the domination of the black. Gang rapes are typically perpetrated by black inmates from
urban areas serving sentences for major crimes such as armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. The white inmates are often
disadvantaged in the prison setting if they have not been part of a delinquent subculture in the outside world, and they lack the sense
of racial solidarity that furnishes the blacks with a group ethos and the collective will to oppose the official norms of the prison and
to risk the penalties attached to fighting, even in self-defense.

Further, in some institutions blacks commit acts of sexual aggression to let the white inmates collectively know that the black
inmates are the dominant element, even if they are involuntarily behind bars. It is essential to their concept of manhood to make white
prisoners the victims of their assaults, and they resent the black homosexuals in the prison whom they identify as weak and
effeminate. This whole pattern of symbolic acts is first inculcated in reform schools and then carried over into the penitentaries
where the offenders are sent for the offenses of their mature years. As the black population of the United States has ceased to be
concentrated almost entirely in the states of the historic Confederacy, as it was before World War I, and is now spread more evenly
over the territory of the Union, the share of blacks in the prison population of other states has risen, so that a more homogeneous
institutional subculture now exists in which whites are the dominated and exploited class.

Thus far the white prisoners have not developed their own sense of solidarity in order to cope with the threats inherent in the
situation.

Prevalence

As noted above, reliable statistics on the extent of homosexuality in confinement are notably lacking. However, from the
Wooden-Parker study cited above, some figures are worth citing. It must be kept in mind that these figures are derived from a
low-medium-security prison, that they apply only to incidents affecting the prisoners while in that particular prison (thus omitting
previous "turn-outs" by rape), that the percentages apply to prisoners of all age groups and races taken together, and that the authors
themselves emphasized that "our study is likely underreporting certain types of sexual behavior (i.e., sexual coercion and assault)."

This study found that 55% of all (self-designated) heterosexuals reported being involved in sexual activity while in that prison, this
figure breaking down into 38% of whites, 55% of Hispanics, and 81% of blacks; that 14% of all the prisoners (9% of heterosexuals
and 41% of homosexuals) had been sexually assaulted there; that 19% of all the prisoners (100% of homosexuals and 10% of
heterosexuals) were currently "hooked up."

Looking at the (self-designated) homosexuals alone, 64% reported receiving some type of pressure to engage in sex (82% of whites,
71% of Hispanics, 49% of blacks) and 41% had been forced into it. Disciplinary action for sex had been taken against 71%, while
35% were engaged in prostitution. An eye-opener for some gay consumers of pornography featuring jailhouse sex may be the report

by 77% of the homosexuals that they had better sex "on the Street" and by 78% that they were "looked down upon and treated with
disrespect by other inmates."

The Davis study of the Philadelphia jail system, based upon interviews with 3,304 prisoners, estimated that the number of sexual
assaults in the 26 months of the study was about 2000; during this period some 60,000 men passed through the system. Of these
assaults, only 96 were reported to prison authorities, only 64 were mentioned in prison records, only 40 resulted in disciplinary
action, and only 26 were reported to the police for prosecution.

Davis studied 129 documented sexual assaults in which the races of both victim and assailant were known, finding that 15%
involved whites only, 29% involved blacks only, and 56% involved black assailants and white victims; none of the incidents involved
white assailants and a black victim.

Jailhouse Sexual Mores

Sexual activity in confinement may take place nearly anywhere; the expectation of privacy which prevails in other circumstances

often gives way to necessity. Furthermore, it is often to a "man's" advantage to be seen engaging in "masculine" sexual activity by
other prisoners, enhancing his reputation as a "man." For these reasons, sex is often a group activity with some participants taking

turns standing "lookout" for guards or shooing away uninvolved prisoners from the area being used.

While disciplinary codes in confinement institutions are nearly unanimous in outlawing all sexual activity, these codes usually have
little more effect than to ensure that sex takes place outside the view of the guards. They do, however, inhibit catchers from enlisting

the aid of administrators in avoiding rape situations, given the fact that such avoidance usually requires pairing off with a protector.
The furtive nature of consensual activities and pairings necessitated by the disciplinary codes also works to dehumanize them and
favor the quick mechanical relief as distinguished from an affectionate relationship.

The severe sanctions provided by the prisoner code against informers protects even rapists from being reported to the administration
by their victims. These fear retaliation from the perpetrators, who can be well placed in terms of the inmate power structure- and
famed for their criminal ruthlessness and daring. The aggressor is usually guilty of the far more serious crime, the victim may have
committed only a trivial one. Officials usually have a general idea of what is going on, based on reports from informers, but these

reports cannot be made openly enough to provide a basis for disciplinary action.

The openness of jailhouse sexuality, in spite of disciplinary codes, is one of its most remarkable features. The institution of "hooking

up" which is the heart of the system, and which specifies that any catcher who is "hooked up" may be "disrespected" only at the risk of

violent retaliation from his "man," is dependent on general knowledge of the specifics of such pairings among the entire incarcerated
population. Virtually the first result of a claim being laid on a catcher is its announcement to the prisoner population at large; sex is

the number one topic of conversation, and the news that a new punk has been "turned out" spreads like wildfire throughout an
institution.

Under such circumstances, guards and administrators with their eyes open can hardly fail to be aware of pairings. Often, in fact,

housing moves are made to facilitate keeping the pair together; practical experience has shown that this tends to minimize fights and

therefore keeps the general peace, which is the first priority of all officials. Thus when a "man" in a double cell acquires a catcher, he

"persuades" his current cellmate to request a move out, the new catcher requests a move in, the catcher's current cellmate is prompted

to request that he be moved out, and the administration approves it to keep the peace among all concerned. A particularly dangerous
situation is one in which a catcher is bunked with a "man" other than the one he is hooked up with. For this reason punks are often
celled together, as are queens.

Female Institutions

It is not known whether the incidence of homosexuality in prison is higher in male or female populations. One survey that used the
same criterion for male and female inmates reported the same incidence in both.

The role of the female inmate in lesbian activity is precisely defined by the prison subculture. The "penitentiary turnout" is the
woman who resorts to lesbian relations because the opposite sex is unavailable; in contrast, the "lesbian" prefers homosexual
gratification even in the outside world, and thus is equated with the queen in the men's prison. The lesbian is labeled as sick by some
of the other inmates because the preference in a situation of choice is deemed a perversion. The participant in lesbian relations who
does so for lack of choice is not so stigmatized.

The "femme" or "mommy" is the inmate who takes the female role in a lesbian relationship, a role highly prized because most of the
inmates still wish to play the feminine role in a significant way in prison. In the context of a pseudo-marital bond, the femme
continues to act out many of the functions allotted to the wife in civil society. The complement is the "stud broad" or "daddy" who
assumes the male role, which in its turn is accorded much prestige for three reasons: 1) the stud invests the prison with the male
image; 2) the role is considered more difficult to sustain over a period of time because it goes against the female grain; 3) the stud is
expected not just to assume certain symbols of maleness, but also to personify the social norms of male behavior.

In sharp contrast with the men's prison, homosexual relations are established voluntarily and with the consent of the partners; no
physical coercion is applied to the weaker or feminine partner. Interpersonal relations linked with homosexuality play a major role in
the lives of the female prisoners. Cast as a quasi-marital union, the homosexual pair is viewed by the inmates as a meaningful
personal and social relationship. Even though for previously heterosexual women this mode of adjustment is difficult, the
uniqueness of the prison situation obliges the inmate to attach new meaning to her behavior.

When a stud and a femme have established their union, they are said to be "making it" or to "be tight," which is to say that other
inmates recognize them socially as a "married" pair. Since the prisoners attach a positive value to sincerity, the "trick" - one who is
simply exploited sexually or economically - is held in low esteem by the inmate subculture. Tricks are also regarded as "suckers" and
"fools" because their lovers dangle unkept promises in front of them. The "commissary hustler" is the woman who establishes more
than one relationship; besides an alliance with an inmate in the same housing unit, she also maintains relations with one or more
inmates in other housing units for economic advantage. The other women, labeled tricks in the prison argot, supply her with coveted
material items which she shares only with the "wife" in her own unit. The femme may even encourage and guide the stud in finding
and exploiting the tricks. The legitimacy of the primary pseudo-marriage is not contested, though the tricks may anticipate replacing
the femme when a suitable opportunity arises.

Writers on female institutions agree that, apart from sexual relationships, such institutions are marked by quasi-family social units
which provide emotional support to their members, in sharp contrast to the ever-competitive male environments.

Administrative Attitudes

There is, as may be expected, a wide range of administrative attitudes towards both violent and consensual homosexuality in their

confinement institutions. Consensual activities are accepted as inevitable by some, hunted out and seriously punished when

discovered by others, while most tend to look the other way so long as the behavior does not become disruptive or too open.

Convicts have charged that administrators too often exploit rape as a tool to divide and control the inmate population, particularly in
connection with racial tensions. A state commission investigating the unusually violent New Mexico prison riot (1980) found that
officials used the threat of placement of new inmates in cells with known rapists to recruit informers. Other administrations have
been charged with setting vulnerable prisoners up for gang-rape in order to discharge tensions within a housing unit or reward it for
keeping quiet. Administrators are aware that a difficult or disliked prisoner can be maneuvered into a position where he will be
sexually victimized by his fellow inmates. In other cases the staff is simply resigned to what is happening inside the institution and
turns a blind eye to the sexual violence. Administrators themselves deny such actions and universally proclaim their opposition to
rape, while often denying that it is a problem in their own institution.

The uniformed guards often have a different set of attitudes. Some of them consider all participants in homosexual activity to be
homosexuals; some display considerable homophobia and engage in private witch-hunts. Others, especially those with long
experience as guards, may encourage a "man" prisoner whom they consider to be dangerous to get "hooked up" with a catcher on the
theory that paired-off "men" are less likely to cause major trouble. Guards are also involved in setting up some rapes and sexual
encounters, in exchange for payoffs or for such diverse reasons as to destroy the leadership potential of an articulate prisoner. The
guards are capable even of ignoring the screams of a prisoner who is being raped. The guards may even tell the prisoner that to file
charges against the aggressor would be tantamount to publicizing his own humiliation, just as a public rape trial in the outside world
exposes the female victim to shame and embarrassment.

Writings on Sex in Confinement

A good deal has been written in scholarly style, in North America at least, concerning homosexual behavior in prisons, jails, and

reformatories. Much of this literature is fraught with controversy, and the views of penologists, often concerned more with
institutional control and abstract theorizing on "the problem of homosexuality" than with actual behavioral patterns, tend to differ

both normatively and descriptively from the accounts of inmates. Penologists reflect the concerns of their employers, who usually

seek to minimize aspects of life in their institutions which would arouse public indignation, and who are usually hostile to all forms

of sexual contact among prisoners. The conclusions of a recent paper cited in Criminal Justice Abstracts, that "greater efforts to
deter . . . consensual homosexual activity" are needed, are not untypical for penological writings.

Complicating the matter is the extreme difficulty, which is often glossed over, of a non-imprisoned investigator, usually someone
associated with the administration (at least in the eyes of the prisoners), seeking to obtain reliable data on behavior which violates
disciplinary codes and which is as secretive as the most sensitive aspect of underworld life can be to the prying eyes of outsiders. As a
result, armchair theorizing, remote from the actual behavior which is supposed to be its subject, is endemic to the formal literature.

A few non-penological psychologists and at least one sociologist (Wayne Wooden) have published useful studies in the 1980s, but it
is noteworthy that only one comprehensive survey of sexual behavior in a prison (a low-medium-security California institution) has
found its way into print (the Wooden-Parker book Men Behind Bars, for which Jay Parker gathered information while a prisoner).
The only systematic investigation of sexual behavior (in this case rape) in jails (the Philadelphia system) was reported in 1968 by
Alan J. Davis. Reliable statistics for juvenile institutions are apparently non-existent, though reform schools have been described as
the incarceration facilities where sexual activity is most common, and as the locus in which habitual criminals first acquire the mores
governing sexual expression in the prisoner subculture.

Accounts written by prisoners or ex-prisoners have usually taken the form of autobiography or fiction, and these also tend to draw

veils over areas which might reflect unfavorably on the writer in presenting himself to the general public, such as rape and

homosexuality. Former prisoners also tend to remain silent concerning their sexual experiences in confinement when conversing with

people who have not shared that environment, former "punks" being most loathe to disclose anything about their humiliating sexual
role.

Novels by Jean Genet have depicted homosexuality in French reform schools and prisons, and these are the only widely read books
dealing with the subject, though one must hesitate to draw too much from Genet's hallucinogenic-fantastic writings. Billy Hayes'
autobiographical Midnight Express (1977) gave an explicit account of the author's homosexual experiences in Turkish prisons.
Karlheinz Barwasser wrote from a gay inmate's point of view on German prisons in Schwulenhetz im Knast (1982), while Robert N.
Boyd did the same on the California prison system in Sex Behind Bars (1984). The only systematic account from a "punk's"
perspective can be found in Donald Tucker's "A Punk's Song" in Anthony Scacco's 1982 anthology, Male Rape. A third-person novel

which has dealt candidly with prison sex, based on the author's experience in the California system, is On the Yard (1967) by

Malcolm Braly; a play by Canadian ex-inmate John Herbert, "Fortune and Men's Eyes" (1967), made into a movie in 1971, revolves
around sexuality in a reformatory. There are numerous gay pornographic books featuring an incarceration setting, but very few of
them have been written by former inmates and they are generally extremely inaccurate.

Theories of Prison Homosexuality

Two major theories have been advanced by penologists to account for prison homosexuality: the Importation Model and the
Deprivation Model. The Importation Model suggests that the "problem" of homosexuality exists in a prison because it has been
brought in from outside, the Deprivation Model assigns it to the conditions of incarceration where it is found.

The Importation Model rests on studies showing that the variable of previous homosexual experience is significant for predicting
homosexual activity in prison. It alone accounted for 29% of the variance of the individuals' scores on an index of homosexuality. Its
major flaw is that much of the prior homosexuality - including aggression against other prisoners - is likely to be imported from
other incarceration programs rather than from the larger society outside prison. The variable of prison homosexuality is not a pure
measure of importation free of the effects of imprisonment, since convicts have often served previous sentences, some as adolescents
in reform schools. The aftereffects of such periods of incarceration are difficult to unravel from the impact of the outside world. In
one study, two-thirds of those reporting prison homosexuality indicated that their first experience had occurred in a reform school.
However, the validity of this finding is weakened by the absence of comparable data from non-correctional institutions: how many
young adults involved in homosexuality had their first experience while enrolled in high school?

An Importation Theory might more legimitately be focused on the concepts applied to sexual activity in confinement by the prisoners.
There is little doubt but that the dominant group seeks to apply the heterosexual models with which they are familiar from the
outside world to the female-deprived prison society; if there are no females around, they will be created. The particular application of
this model draws from lower-class ideas of masculinity and homosexuality already mentioned. Only with respect to the punks -
admittedly an indispensible element - does the prisoner culture depart from these ideas in upholding the notion of the "fall from
manhood" and rationalizing its violent inducement through the act of rape.

The Deprivation Model focuses on the negative aspects of the prison experience as a cause of homosexuality. The deprivation model
predicts that persons and institutions that associate high pains and intense suffering with imprisonment are more likely to have
homosexual experience. Advocates of this view also assume that the harsh, depriving conditions of custody oriented,
maximum-security prisons would favor the development of homosexual patterns. Yet this prediction is belied by a study finding
more prison homosexuality in a treatment- oriented prison (37%) than in a custody-oriented one (21%). The only positive
correlations found are with the degree of isolation from the prisoner's family and friends, and the distance from home. The element
of loneliness caused by the deprivation of the prison experience may contribute to the need for sexual affection and gratification.

Perhaps it would be too much to suggest that penologists consider a Deprivation Theory which posits that homosexuality results
from the sexual, affectional, and emotional deprivation of prisoners who would, if given the opportunity, otherwise continue their
heterosexuality. Such a theory, however, would also have to take into account the question of power deprivation, which might
motivate sexual assaults on other prisoners even if females were readily available. Another question which has yet to be addressed is
why pecking-order contests are resolved in a sexual rather than some other manner.

Incarceration as Punishment for Homosexual Conduct

Imprisonment for homosexual offenses is a comparatively modern innovation. For no infraction of its commandments does the
Mosaic Law prescribe imprisonment as a penalty, and as the punishment for sodomy, late medieval law decreed castration,
banishment, or death. In practice, if not in law, eighteenth-century England commuted the death penalty for buggery to exposure in
the pillory - a fate almost worse than death - together with a term of imprisonment, and when the punishment of hanging established
by 5 Eliz. I c. 17 was finally abolished in 1861, the sentence was reduced only to penal servitude for life. In 1885 the Criminal Law
Amendment Act prescribed a sentence of two years for "gross indecency" between males. One can question the logic of sentencing a
man found guilty of homosexual acts with other males to confinement for years or even for life in an exclusively male community,
but the legislatures of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries evidently had no qualms.

Though until recently homosexual acts were illegal in most American states, relatively few men and fewer women were imprisoned
for violating such laws. More frequent was the incarceration of convicted pedophiles, which still continues. Far more homosexuals
arrive in local jails for prostitution (particularly "street transvestites"), and other, usually non-violent, offenses.

Conclusion

The patterns of sexual behavior and sexual exploitation documented in recent studies have a long history. In the nineteenth century
such behavior could simply be dismissed as another sordid aspect of "prison vice," but with the coming of a more scientific approach
prison administrators have had to confront this issue at least in terms of the effect on the inmates whom they held in custody.
Isolation and maximum-security wards for obvious homosexual prisoners were part of the solution, but they did not keep the young
and physically slight prisoner with no previous homosexual experience from being victimized. The lurking danger for the individual
prisoner has become so overt that an appellate court has even upheld the right of a prisoner to escape if he surrenders to the
authorities within a reasonable time, and courts of the first instance have hesitated to send convicted persons to prison because of the
likelihood that they would be exposed to sexual violence.

Proposals for reform include new systems of inmate classification based on scoring devices designed to indicate the level of security
required for each prisoner. However, the state often does not have available space within suitably differentiated facilities to provide
the correct berth for each prisoner. A more fundamental flaw with such proposals is that they do not address the reasons for sexual
aggression, so that present patterns are likely to replicate themselves within each classification level.

One strategy which, so far, has yet to be tried would be to legalize consensual sexuality and encourage the formation of stable,
mutually supportive pair-bonds in that context, while reserving the full weight of administrative attention and discipline for rape.
With administrators continuing to regard both rape and consensual homosexuality as problems to be equally eliminated, such
suggestions have produced only "we can't sanction homosexuality" replies.

So long as the sex-segregated prison remains society's answer to crime, the issues of rape and of consensual homosexual behavior
behind prison bars are likely to persist. So, also, will the strong suggestion that most sexually active heterosexuals, deprived of access

to the opposite sex and not discouraged by their peers from doing so, will eventually turn to another person of the same sex, and may

even become emotionally attached to that person. The full implications of that statement, supported as it is by a considerable body of
experience, for our concepts of sexual orientation and potential, have yet to be fully explored.

Bibliography

Robert N. Boyd, Sex Behind Bars: A Novella, Short Stories, and True Accounts, San Francisco, Gay Sunshine Press, 1984.

Alan J. Davis, "Sexual Assaults in the Philadelphia Prison System and Sheriff's Vans," Transaction, 6:2 (1968), 8-16.

Rose Giallolombardo, Society of Women: A Study of a Women's Prison, New York: John Wiley, 1966.

Alice M. Propper, Prison Homosexuality: Myth and Reality, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1981.

Anthony M. Scacco, Jr., Rape In Prison, Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1975.

Anthony M. Scacco, Jr., ed. Male Rape: A Casebook of Sexual Aggressions, New York: AMS Press, 1982.

Hans Toch, Living in Prison: The Ecology of Survival, New York: The Free Press, 1977.

Wayne S. Wooden and Jay Parker, Men behind Bars: Sexual Exploitation in Prison, New York: Plenum Press, 1982.

Jim Bowery

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Apr 2, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/2/97

Correction: "You Are Going To Prison" by Jim Hogshire (not Hogsire)
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