Women find romance behind bars, and a lot more.
If you’re a guy, you probably got aroused at the title of this article, thinking of some hot jail babes who are locked up, horny, and ready to rock your world on a conjugal visit! If you’re a woman, you probably instantly thought of some tough-looking biker chick who has tattoos and an attitude.
This article is about neither. It’s about the babes who visit guys in jails and prisons nationwide, a viewpoint from my own personal experiences meeting women while being locked up for the last 13 years in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
How popular is it for women to seek “love and affection in the Department of corrections?” Very popular.
Tune your radio any Sunday evening to Top 40 oldies stations and you will find two syndicated radio shows (“The Art Laboe Killer Oldies” show and “Sunday Night Slow Jams”), as well as other community radio shows, that cater to the prison culture, and the babes who dare enter into the system. Ninety percent of callers into these nationally syndicated radio programs are women who dedicate songs to their old man in prison.
I call these women, “Jail Babes.”
The phenomena is so popular that a recent book called The Prisoner’s Wife, written by Asha Bandele, was featured on “Oprah” and ended up a best-seller. The book is about her experiences being married to a California Death Row prisoner housed at San Quentin.
How does a guy who is locked in a cage, even find such babes?
Personally, I’ve reached out to society to meet women in a wide variety of ways: Internet ads on inmate matchmaking websites like INMATE.com, placing personal ads in entertainment weekly magazines, or just having someone I know post an ad on bulletin boards at the local Jenny Craig center, laundromat, or church.
While the majority of women who have reached out to me fit a profile (overweight, over-40, unattractive, divorced), I can’t downplay these women just by their first-blush appearance.
For the first time in my life, I’ve been able to see women in a different light, to appreciate them through lengthy conversations via letters and visits, without my mind drifting off to thinking, “Am I going to get some tonight?”
These women go through hell to maintain a relationship with a prisoner. They drive very long distances to reach the prison, wait in very long lines to get inside, face early terminations by officers due to overcrowding, are ridiculed by friends and family for dating a prisoner, and they face many nights alone waiting for their man to get out.
These extraordinary women, regardless of their appearance, have big hearts, are independent thinkers, overall good women.
It’s hard to logically understand why a woman would choose to be committed to a man who is locked up, especially a man serving life or on Death Row.
I’ll explain my opinion; it took me many years to come to this conclusion.
All of the women I’ve met come from “helping” professions, such as nursing, social work, education, domestic services. They sympathize easily with a guy who is locked up and want to take care of his every need.
Appearances of women who have visited me, varied. From the anorexic Calista Flockhart type, to the voluptuous Carmen Elektra hottie, to the extremely obese woman whose dress resembles a huge old tacky curtain purchased at the local Goodwill.
These women were looking for something different in their lives, to break the routine of traditional dating, after just breaking up with a guy, or having been dumped.
Having a man in prison gives them security, control, stability, allows them to be an independent free-willed woman, the head of the household.
What good would this article be if I didn’t share a few profiles, right? Here are two extraordinary woman, who are worthy of an honorable mention:
JENNIFER FROM SAN JOSE
In October 2000, I was 29 years old. After placing a personal ad on the INMATE.com website, I received a letter from a 21-year-old college student who stripped at a strip joint called the PINK POODLE to pay off her student loans. I was excited — since young women rarely respond to prisoner ads — and figured that she and I would have common interests.
Months passed and, indeed, she and I hit it off through our correspondence. She liked bands like Depeche Mode, the Cure, she was into fashion, and she loved to share her life, sending me photos of anything and everything, even her dog.
Jen persisted that all men just wanted sex from her, and no man would pay attention to her as a person. Perhaps my stable correspondence and having time to listen to her kept her interested. By all means, I could not want her just for sex.
After she filled out a visiting application, she got approval two months later to come see me. She promised to visit me, even making dates she said she would show, but she never came!
Imagine the misery I endured, getting all dressed up in my best prison state blues, anxiously awaiting this hottie, and my heart beating faster as the sound of the officers keys drew closer to my cell door, as the officer did his rounds, but the officer passed my cell door, not opening it. I sat there on my bunk each visiting day, staring at her photos wondering if this girl was for real.
Could she be an overweight woman claiming to be the hot stripper chick to keep me interested in writing?
Her false promises to visit and standing me up, took a toll on my mental health. I was becoming depressed.
Finally, one Sunday morning, while I was already on a visit with a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student, I looked over and saw the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen step foot into a prison visiting room.
I wondered who in the hell she was visiting; she was too pretty. There are beautiful women, there are gorgeous women, then there are extraordinarily beautiful women. She was something out of the pages of PLAYBOY magazine.
From the distance, I could see her long straight light brown hair, with streaks in it, her flawless tan complexion, green eyes, and luscious full lips with dark red lipstick, the kind women wear in London. I could see the tattoo on her ankle and the high heel shoes she was wearing.
As I continued my conversation with my male friend, I looked over to her and saw her coming towards us. As she drew near, it was the same girl in the photo, Jennifer.
I gave her a hug and couldn’t help but get an instant hard on, feeling her breasts pushing firmly against my chest, smelling her exotic perfume, scents which I only smelled coming from samples in Vanity Fair magazines I received monthly.
My friend offered to split, seeing that this visit from her, was indeed a once in a lifetime opportunity.
I couldn’t stop glancing at her 36-D breasts, with flawless cleavage, in plain sight, hugging the tight tank top she wore, revealed after she unbuttoned her black suede jacket. Her tight red jean pants, hugged every curve she had, emphasizing her heart-shaped buttocks and perfect hips and slim waist.
We held hands, ate and had a food fight, kissed, took lots of photos, a six hour visit, but it ended too quickly, felt like one hour!
When the visit ended, she literally ran out of the visiting room, and never looked back. For me, it was the greatest visit I had ever had in my imprisonment.
Jen, a mixture of German and Indonesian descent, was a thrill-seeker, one who has to experience something at least one time. She wasn’t into commitment. She was into getting attention and she knew she had a captive guy who would beg her to come back. And I begged …
MARY FROM HELL
In August 2001, after writing a 46-year-old woman for about five months prior, I visited with Mary for the very first time.
Mary could have come right out of the television show “Desperate Housewives: A drama queen, who still holds her beauty, going through a mid-life crisis, looking for a young man to fulfill all her fantasies.
And I fulfilled them.
Mary was successful, owned her own company and showered me with gifts and money. I gained so much weight from eating so well. She was a constant, visiting me every visiting day.
What more could a prisoner want — money, visits, gifts?
But she turned into a fatal attraction on me.
She wanted me to call her seven times a day (at $5.50 a call, which she didn’t mind paying). She wanted me to write her 10-page letters daily. She would never miss a visiting day, in fear that another woman might come to see me. When I was in lockdown because of a prison incident, if I didn’t call, she would bother my correctional counselor to find out why I didn’t call her.
Then it became more weird …
When I visited with her, she wanted me to sit facing the wall, so that I couldn’t look at other women or people, and pay full attention to her. She would purposely drop coins to the floor at the vending machines, so that I would pick them up. She would buy food that I didn’t want to eat and expect me to eat it.
At some point, I needed a break. I had cut off all my women friends from visiting me since she took care of all my needs. So I beckoned my friend Tomasa to come visit.
Visiting her was a great escape, a friend I could talk to without the pressure of any romantic interests. Never kissed her or even held her hand, even though she was young, beautiful, and girlfriend material.
Tomasa, a mixture of Indian and Mexican American descent, was 39 years old, yet looked 21, was attracted to bad boys all her life, but was the most compassionate woman I’ve met. She works as a nursing assistant. She used to tell me stories of how every man hit on her as she tended to their needs while they lay on their hospital bed.
During that visit, Mary shows up drunk and immediately starts to belittle Tomasa, erupting into a full-fledged scene out of Jerry Springer, a catfight! The two felines, stylishly dressed, with rouge and mascara, ladies turned to reptiles, tearing at each others’ throats, ripping out clumps of hair, screeching.
Officers rushed to the scene, separating the wenches, and terminating the visit.
For the men prisoners, it was the greatest fight since Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran — a rare sight. Other female visitors were intrigued that two women were fighting over a prisoner.
They both got suspended for 60 days. Tomasa never came back to visit, but of course, Mary did. She promised to change and not be so possessive, controlling and jealous.
She got worse!
Two weeks after I visited with a child psychologist (who happened to be young and beautiful), someone ratted me out and told her that I visited with this woman two weeks prior. Mary came into the visiting room, assaulting me and throwing a full can of soda over my head, creating a scene, right out of a soap opera.
That was the last straw, and I haven’t seen her since. Perhaps she is making someone else miserable now.
“Jail Babes” entertain us men in prison and even if they don’t visit, a letter can do wonders.
Spraying sexy perfume on a letter. Sending photos of ordinary places like the beach, malls, parks. Sending a book. Sending a dedication over the radio. Sharing any real life experience, whether it be a struggle or a triumph, women give us prisoners hope, something to look forward to and there are thousands of lonely men in prison who could use a hug, even the bad boys.
Written by anonymous while doing time in California.