When we say prison sex, what’s your reaction? Yeah, we thought so. Coercion. Predators. (Well, maybe bad porn movies, too, but that’s kind of an afterthought, right?)
Surprisingly, perhaps, a new study examining sexual behavior and sexual culture in jails in Australia says that only 7 percent of male prisoners had had sex with another prisoner, while for female prisoners the number was higher at around a third. And when sex did happen it was overwhelmingly consensual, researchers said.
“Sexual coercion seems to be a disappearing phenomenon in prisons,” said co-author of the study, Prof. Basil Donovan, who is head of the Sexual Health Program at the University of New South Wales. Prisoners in New South Wales, however, do go through a lot of condoms and dental dams—a lot more than you’d think, based on the frequency of sex. We’re talking 30,000 a month. But Prof. Donovan knows why.
“The uses of condoms are varied. Some are liberated of their lubricant to be used as hair gel, others are used as household ties or masturbatory aids,” he said. “Dental dams in women’s prisons are rarely used for oral sex. Instead they are reborn as tobacco pouches, hair bands, and doilies.”
Okay, so we’re glad that coerced sex is on the wane in prison. But we’re not sure we wanted to know about the, uh, hair gel. You know?