One of the comments I hear most often about our guys is “Isn’t it a shame they’ll never be in a relationship?” Meaning they’re locked up for life and can’t have sex so… well, what else is there to say?
Or if they do have a girlfriend or a fiance or a wife, “What is wrong with those women?” Because these guys are locked up for life and can’t have sex so…
I’ve made my own jokes. “They’re young. They’re buff. They’re happy to sit across from you for hours and pretend they’re listening to you yammer about your “feelings.” You know where they’re at on a Saturday night and somebody else does their laundry. What more could you want? If the state allowed conjugal visits, you’d have the perfect relationship.”
Ha, ha.
Well, I’ve learned a lot about love behind walls, and not just the kind made of concrete. Most of us love behind walls. How many happily married people do you know? How many relationships that make you think, I wish I had that? I can count them on the fingers of one hand. Inside or outside of prison.
Looking back over my life, my relationships and those of everyone around me, love is about as rare as a unicorn sighting. Not because love doesn’t exist, but because we act as if it doesn’t and so it, being a shy creature, keeps its distance. We spend so much time trying to crush love, to keep it caged or contained or managable or to mock and ridicule it that it’s no wonder that we are so obsessed with it. And have NO clue what love, actual, legitimate, love is about.
Of course we live vicariously through celebrities with beautiful faces and bodies so we seem to think, That’s love. At least I assume we think that because we seem so fixated on the likes of Demi and Ashton – I agree he IS eye candy, or Kim and Kanye, ugh, or Brangelina or whoever the hell else is out there. I only glimpse these people on the edge of Huffington Post or the other liberal sites I peruse. So… love must be sex? An accumulation of pleasingly assembled body parts which cause the couple to think the rest of the world is actually interested in their own fine selves and their sexual gymnastics. Which we must be judging by the homemade porno tapes, nipple flashes, cleavage, booties, and bare chests that receive millions of daily hits.
As if love is about physical appearance.
As if love is limited to sex.
Just goes to show how stupid we all are.
I witness a lot of things in prison visiting rooms. And I make a lot of judgements, most of them undoubtedly erroneous, but this is what I see:
- Obese, bleached blondes with too much makeup and too much living etched on their faces hooked up with good looking African-Americans who will surely use and abuse them inside and discard them once they’re back on the streets.
- The clean-cut All-American psychopath serving life for sweet-talking his lover into gunning down his wife, hypnotizing his earnest old-maid visitor who’s pretending she’s there to save his soul while she’s actually being seduced as methodically, as relentlessly as a cobra hypnotizes its victims.
- Some of the toughest, most bad ass criminals crying quietly as they relive with their mother or their sister or their girlfriend their crime, their shame, their shortcomings, or mourn the people they love on the outside who have died, are dying, hurting, in trouble, whatever it is that causes those embarrassing, unstoppable tears.
- Tattooed gangbangers playing Connect 4 or Chutes and Ladders or Candyland with children that that they pretty much ignored other than to say, “Go watch TV,” in the free world.
- Men with more muscles than a champion weightlifter holding hands with their girlfriends while quietly reading the Bible together.
- The shotcaller caressing the arms of his much older wife – he’s a trim dapper man in his fifties, his white-haired old lady looks very sweet and about as sexy as my 88-year-old mother. What’s that about? And, why does Shotcaller look so happy? Doesn’t he know what the choice of his partner must be doing to his image? Doesn’t he have the good sense to be embarrassed?
Yet, every once in a while I’ll see a look pass between Shotcaller and his wife, or that worn out blonde and her man, or one of a dozen others, that can only be described as pure love.
That naked, unguarded moment, right out there in front of God and everyone, behind those prison walls, when love makes its appearance.
I’ve learned a few things about love in prison.
First of all, the women who faithfully visit, week after week, year after year who MUST be getting conned by their studs – we must protect them from themselves – are getting something out of these relationships too. Maybe it’s just a few hours of respite from worry about their beater car, or their teen who’s on drugs, or their bitchy boss. Maybe all the women are seeking is somebody who makes them laugh. Who tells them they’re beautiful. Who looks them in the eye when they talk. Who makes holding hands more erotic than all the things they’ve done with all the lovers they’ve had over the course of their lifetimes. Maybe that old maid Bible-thumper has never experienced being wooed with words by ANYONE, let alone a brown-eyed handsome man. I have no idea. But I do know this. If they’re being victimized every minute of every day, “normal” people on the outside are engaged in their own dysfunctional dances — lying to each other, cheating on each other, slicing each other’s hearts outs with their betrayals and their cruelties.
Secondly, when you can make love to someone’s body, there’s no need to make love to their minds.
You get lazy. You neglect the most important part.
Is that an American thing? To assume that sex is the yardstick by which to measure a successful relationship? If that were so, all those gorgeous celebrities would be enjoying lifetimes of love with one partner, wouldn’t they?
If I had a choice, I’d prefer the whole package. But having been in a 30 year marriage, a pretty typical one I would say, where both couples skate across its surface and never dare dig down deep because who knows what hurts and needs might be uncovered and do we really, really want to deal — the norm is highly over rated.
If I were forced to choose – if you can make love to my body and disregard my mind or vice versa — I’ll take the mind.
Having no choice but to talk with someone for hours at a time is like engaging in an archealogical dig. If you suspect the prize at the end is worth your time and effort, you will continue excavating the layers. Who is this person? What does he really think? What does he really feel? What are his deepest, secret fears? Who does he love? What does he love? What makes him laugh? What are his opinions about God, the workings of the Universe, Rocky and Bullwinkle? If another human being can fascinate and frustrate and tantalize me enough to keep me coming back that’s plenty rare. (Or maybe not so rare. If we were all forced to take the time with more of the people around us.) As someone who sleepwalks through her life, the way most of us do, I’ve learned a lot from being in prison.
But it’s not only prison.
Recently, a miracle occurred. I’m at a small party. Two people walk in. Homely by any objective standards. He’s short, extremely overweight and wearing the typical fat person outfit – sweat pants, tent of a t-shirt under a baggy workshirt. One glance and I have him pegged. Trailer trash with emotional issues. I see his partner, short, more than pleasingly plump herself, and what’s the deal with that wig?
What a couple of losers. And as far as having sex, how could they even if they wanted to, which they couldn’t possibly because they’re too repulsive to be an object of attraction to themselves or anyone else.
Okay, so I’m watching them, not for the right reasons, but I am basically a snide, shallow person. Almost immediately, however, I notice something unusual. This couple can’t keep their hands off of each other. Not in that fakey, romantic movie type way but in the way a mother is with her baby, or a dog lover with his faithful old Lab. Because the object of your affection is just so irresistible and you love them so much and it’s the most natural thing in the world to reach out and caress that chubby little cheek or scratch Hunter behind his ears. You just can’t help it.
I’m mentally reshuffling all my judgment cards. I’m mesmerized. Who are they? What’s their story? Turns out he’s a wealthy businessman – don’t think he lives in a trailer – with the pretty typical abusive childhood who never opened himself to love until this woman happened along. And his partner with the ridiculous wig? She’s got cancer, which is no longer in remission, and may only have months to live.
By the end of the evening, the miracle happens. This couple shines more beautifully than all the perfectly constructed faces and bodies in show biz.
I’ve spotted the unicorn.
So the next time you’re tempted to pity or scorn people in prison, to judge them or anyone else by your presumption of “normal” standards, you would be well advised to question what normal even means.
Dig deep enough, do enough searching and you might just happen across your very own personal unicorn.
You just never know.
When Joshua Rofe first called me and asked if I’d be willing to be interviewed for his documentary film about juveniles serving life in prison I agreed without hesitation. I also suggested other advocates, victims and prisoners, as well as people who might oppose us. We were warned not to cooperate with Josh, that he might not be “for us,” but I’ve always believed that if we are afraid to show all sides of a very painful issue, then we don’t have a very strong case. And I believe we do. 
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