During a Louis Theroux American prison documentary he interviewed a homosexual couple. This couple before prison had both a wife and children and were both alpha, masculine, heterosexual males. However, whilst being confined in prison they found that they were both homosexual. This documentary cannot be generalised to other prisons as it was filmed in America and therefore has cultural-bias. Nonetheless, it still got me thinking as to whether there is an explanation for homosexuality in prisons.

It has been estimated that 44% of inmates will have a homosexual experience whilst in prison. According to Kirkham (1972) an unwanted homosexual experience in prison, such as rape, will traumatize that person so greatly that they will find it too difficult to return to the sexual behaviours of a heterosexual person. As a result they will become either bi-sexual or homosexual in order to explain the experiences. There in evidence for this explanation. For example, Humphreys (1975) interviewed an ex-inmate who had homosexual experiences in prison, he was reported saying:

‘Well I started off as the straight young thing. Everyone wanted to suck my cock. I wouldn’t have been caught dead with one of the things in my mouth!  … So, here I am at forty – with grown kids – and I’m the biggest cocksucker in the city!’

This statement explains the massive transition that this man went through in his sexual behaviour. Kirkham (1971) suggested that homosexuality is an expression of masculinity and dominance in a prison atmosphere and that this becomes addictive so as a result this man has continued his homosexuality as he has been conditioned to believe that it asserts dominance.  This dominance Kirkham talks about is expressed in this short video from a homosexual inmate in which he describes sucking a man’s penis as making them ‘helpless’ as a somewhat punishment for being in debt:

There is not much new research concerning homosexuality in prison, even though it does still go on. If I was to do research in this field it would involve biological explanations of homosexuality in prisons. In my opinion, there is too much testosterone in prisons as there are obviously no women around. Therefore, some inmates must attempt to make themselves have the submissive characteristics of a woman, e.g. being ‘the bitch’. This unconsciously balances out the testosterone atmosphere. This is possible as there are examples of men living their prison life as women:

It would be interesting to test testosterone levels of inmates before, during and after they go to prison in order to see if there is any change which could be evidence for balancing out testosterone levels.

Prison homosexuality could also be explained from an evolutionary point of view. For example, the alpha and the beta relationship could be being sustained within a prison environment to either keep some form of peace or to recreate the everyday, typical relationship in order to have some aspect of normality within prison. However, this could never be properly studied. However, some inmate’s explain their homosexual experiences as being completely heterosexual as they’re thinking of the man they’re having intercourse with as actually being a female.

At the end of the day, all this could be explained as human being’s simply being highly sexed creatures who crave the need for physical intimacy and as they’re is no women in prisons, heterosexual men will find other means of this intimacy.

The question is what is the main causes of transition of sexual behaviour in prisons, is it biological, evolutionary, environmental or something else?

As this is quite a saddening, strange blog, I’ll leave it on a light hearted note:

References:

Edward Sagarin (1976)

Prison Homosexuality and its Effects on Post-Prison Sexual Behaviour

Laud Humphreys (1975)

Tearoom Trade Impersonal Sex in Public Places