Gay for the stay
Home / gay topics / Gay for the stay
We should never be ashamed of who we are or with whom we fall in love.
Being with A. is like a breath of fresh air after spending over two decades with a man who was mentally and physically abusive to me. Of course, there is no privacy in prison, so A. entered the shower area and began talking to me. A. showed me I did not need a man to make me happy, and she introduced me to a world I never knew existed.
But I also felt that I was doing something wrong.
From that day forward, I viewed A. differently. I never saw it in prison. (Some of us who don’t have family members to send us money will get into a relationship with someone who can buy them or share items from the commissary.)
Some of the women told me they were just curious and wanted to experiment with their sexuality.
Their love affair would continue for over 20 years. As he was cuffed and dragged away he was still screaming at his victim, Don’t mess with my property, you motherfucker.
These two lovebirds would follow each other around, afraid that their eye would wander. “You're only gay when you're in jail.”
It’s a concept popularised in television versions of life inside a women’s prison: Orange is the New Black; Wentworth.
What I do know is I enjoyed every second of the experience. Because of her, something beautiful came out of the demoralizing predicament I am in. The person who had claimed them would be the one who showed up next, offering protection in exchange for sexual favors.
For many newbies who find themselves in that position, performing coerced sex acts for one man is preferable to a life of being constantly brutalized by a multitude of men who also take your commissary items.
I was amazed by the way she, a woman, was able to make me feel. There could also be loss of privileges such as recreation, packages, commissary, phone or tablet.
As she awaited my reaction, she kissed me. With 60 per cent saying they had experienced sexual coercion before their incarceration, the statistics “suggest that these people are at less risk of sexual coercion and rape inside prison than outside," concluded the study’s co-author, Professor Basil Donovan.
You become so much more attached to them because we're locked in so long.
Meagan says she is into the second relationship of her sentence.
I think God removes people from your life and replaces them.
I believe I was placed in prison in order to work on myself and to get to know the real me and what I am worth, flaws and all.
A. So now, when I am asked, “Are you gay for the stay?” my answer is, “No, I’m now gay at the gate, but only for A.”
Samantha Vantassell is serving a seven-year sentence at Taconic Correctional Facility for drug trafficking.
Often I’d be thinking about coming out of the closet, only to have something like that send me right back in. The intimacy that I have always wanted, I’ve not found. “Women know what women want,” she says. We are subject to consequences. I never saw her again.
Eventually, I started to meet other men who were gay and, while not exactly open about it, would tell you if they were pretty sure you were gay yourself.
One day my neighbor Starr walked out into the hall with a boombox, pushed Play, climbed up on a table and began lip-syncing to “It’s Raining Men.” This was the first time I saw anyone do anything openly gay in prison.
When Starr was performing, wearing a long tie-dyed T-shirt with the bottom cut into strips like a fringed skirt, lips painted with Kool-Aid packets, she referred to herself as “she” and so did everyone else.
She says forming relationships with peers helps stem the loneliness of prison, but also hints at a sexuality fluid beyond practicality.