A unique part of the prison experience is the opportunity to converse with all types of people. Most of these people I would never have come across in my lifetime. To learn about other cultures only makes us better people.
At the same time when meeting people from outside one's social construct, we quickly learn that tastes, preferences and proclivities are radically different across cultures. This is no way more evident when it comes to our tastes in women. I am a white guy, in case it isn't obvious from my picture. White people, for the most part have the same idea of what constitutes beautiful, attractive or shall we say HOT! Sure, some of us have individual preferences about sizes of certain body parts but in general our definition of beauty is the same. Now I am not saying this to objectify women in any way; indeed I have two daughters who I would never want objectified. At the same time it is natural for men to be attracted to beautiful women just as it is normal for women to be attracted to good looking men. The fact that I had a lack of success in finding a high school girlfriend is clearly the exception that makes the rule!
Now, growing up in my sheltered little world, I had no idea that this definition of beauty is not universally accepted! This became apparent to me as I was reading People Magazine one night in prison (prisoners will read almost anything). There was a picture of Jennifer Aniston lying in a bikini at the beach somewhere. Now any straight male who group up in the 90s had a celebrity crush on Ms. Aniston, present company included. So as I was reading, or shall I say gazing at the "article" my bunkie Lorenzo said to me "you think she's pretty?". I was like ummm yeah, you don't? Lorenzo then proceeded to tell me that he thinks she is "alright" but for him a real woman has "something you can grab on to, she needs some meat". As I digested this information I was dumbfounded. I simply did not understand. Lorenzo might as well have been speaking Chinese. In case it is not obvious Lorenzo was also night white. It became clear to me that Lorenzo grew up with a radically different version of what beauty is.
So I started to pay a little more attention. To be clear, there is no pornography allowed in prison. Even if someone's girlfriend, wife or baby momma wants to send her man a proactive picture to shall we say make him happy, the picture must cover up certain body parts. Remember they open all of the mail in prison so it isn't like something will get through if it is not permitted. Ladies, take note, when you send a picture to an inmate, the less clothes you are wearing in the picture the higher the likelihood that your man is going to show the picture to all of his friends and hang it where everyone can see it!
The same rules that apply to pictures also apply to magazines. For example, while you cannot get Playboy in prison, you can get the Sport Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, which you are obligated to share. Now one would think that this would be enough for most men who have been away from home for a few years. One would be wrong. As I mentioned I started to pay attention a little more so that I could learn to be more accepting of other cultures. I started to notice magazine pictures hanging inside other inmates' lockers when they were open. These were magazine pictures of women who were not wearing very much. They were also very very large women, hardly my definition of beauty and hardly women who in my sheltered world should be posing for these types of pictures! For all the white folk out there, I will try to give you an example. First, think about the fattest white actress there is. Now, imagine her replacing Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls.
Naturally, I was curious where these pictures came from. Now I had to be careful, because I did not want anyone to think I was interested in purchasing these types of pictures; I just really wanted to learn. So I approached my good friends in the Black community with who I had a very good relationship. I have always prided myself on being able to get along with all people and I was quickly embraced by the Black community in prison. Also, nearly all of the women in the pictures were black, so it kind of made sense. What I learned was that there are semi porno magazines specifically made for prisoners! The publishers of these magazines, undoubtedly former prisoners, know exactly what can be or cannot be shown in these pictures. Prisoners, or their relatives pay a monthly subscription fee of around $10 to have these semi-porn magazines delivered directly to the prison. Unbelievable! I was totally floored! Also $10? Seriously?
So for those of you who think you will end up in prison one day and need this type of entertainment, the good news is that there are magazines made specifically for you. On the other hand if you are a run of the mill white dude, you are probably going to have to expand your horizons!
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