Sexuality Behind Bars and After Release - with Joshua Wright

Sexuality is a basic human need, but in the dehumanizing environment of prison and jail, it is often prohibited, penalized or logistically impossible. After incarceration, a myriad of factors, including lack of experience, trauma from incarceration, and stigma associated with having been incarcerated can make it difficult for many formerly people to reconnect with their sexuality.Although Joshua faced 4 years in prison, they are now a formerly incarcerated, openly genderqueer person, a community advocate for formerly incarcerated people, and a porn actor. In this episode, they describe their journey coping with the sexually repressed environment in prison and their journey figuring out how to be sexual after release. During their period of incarceration, sex was never an option, access to flirting was almost never available, and procuring and using pornographic images became too much effort to bother. Eventually Joshua stopped masturbating and lost connection to their sexuality. Nonetheless, during their period of incarceration, Joshua was able to work with Department of Corrections staff to develop a course on Gender and Sexuality taught to other people in the facility. The class was often academic in nature, but it still allowed people a space once a week to be a little more vulnerable and open about their desires and identity.In prison, the only Joshua experienced touch was when faced with violence. They had to work through this trauma and their years of inexperience asking for dates and play partners, to find their way to trauma-sensitive and mutually consensual sex.Driven by a racially discriminatory criminal justice system, 5% of the U.S. population has been incarcerated in their lifetimes and about 1 in 4 Black men have been incarcerated. This episode is a love note to these people and a window into the realities that people in prison face for anyone who knows, encounters, has sex with or loves a formerly incarcerated person.