Andi Razo on Richie's "Caging Resistance"

Something critical that Richie points out in this piece is that the sexual restrictions imposed on prisoners through the near-total lack of sanctioned sexual relations. She makes the point that this is an inherently queer experience due to the “wholesale denial of any and all sexual desire, agency, and identity” which is paradoxical to prison institution’s homophobia—the prison environment reproduces one of the very things it seeks to quash.

An important distinction to make here is that when Richie says this, she is not implying that prison makes you queer although many turn to same gender pairings out of a feeling of necessity. I think she is more so drawing a comparison between the queer experience and the sexual repression that prisoners experience—she goes on to explain that if prisoners were allowed to express themselves sexually/intimately (either with same or different gendered partners) then the whole person would not be punished as Richie sees practicing sex and intimacy as a human necessity. This repression is the same as what queer people experience, where in many spaces they are shamed for their sexuality and are unable to have partners, or openly be in relationships. Additionally, a common perception of queer people as sexually out of control and “depraved” is how prisoners are made to feel for expressing any sort of intimacy.

A common/colloquial phrase used about prisoners’ sexualities is that they may be “gay for the stay”, or partake in same gender sexual and intimate expressions only while in prison and then return to their “true” sexuality once they have more options available outside of prison. This is an interesting concept to consider as it seems almost unquestionably accepting of homosexuality which is unfortunately not the case in larger society. What, then, is the relationship between someone who is “gay for the stay” only in the form of coercion and rape—i.e., they are using bodies and people for power rather than any sort of intimacy—and their feelings on queer relationships outside of prison? It is not hard to conceptualize these abusers as people who could be against same-gender relationships, although I realize that there is also an abundance of abuse in same-gender relationships. What I would like to know is, is “gay for the stay” truly queer? Can we then conceive of these people as queer once they leave prison, too, even when they don’t continue to practice same-gender sex and intimacy? After all, bisexual and pansexual people do not stop being bi or pan when they are in a monogamous relationship with someone who is same/differently gendered.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/candace-walsh/sexual-fluidity-and-orang_b_3701933.html This article references different stories where women say they identify as straight, have a fling/feelings for one woman, and may then go back to identifying as straight or describing themselves as “unexpectedly bi or lesbian”. The question this raises is not necessarily whether someone’s sexuality is innate or unchanging, but challenges what people think of as bisexuality or pansexuality—it makes me curious to find out if people think attraction is fluid and if these women should still be considered bi/pan since their change of attraction. That is to say, is it an identity shift or an attraction shift but mischaracterized, and does it matter if someone doesn't necessarily think of themselves as being queer but engages in queer behavior?