Another thing I should probably say is that I have NEVER seen a prison host a special event like this for families and kids and I certainly have never seen them allow the kind of interactions that were happening during this episode. Visitation happens in a large room full of visitors, you are searched before and after the visit, you have to stay in your chair until you are led out after the visit (your visitors can purchase food and drinks for you from the vending machines), and you have limited contact.

It is possible this is normal procedure at women’s prisons or at Federal women’s prisons. It would certainly be nice if they did things like this.

Okay, the Mother’s face the embarrassment of meeting with their kids behind bars and the likelihood that seeing their Mom's Will be traumatizing to them. Often they can face unique problems like an emergency during a visit (like what happened on the show) or be on a disciplinary list that prevents you from accepting a visit.

Sure we have discussed this before several times, but women’s prisons face unique problems and are often overcrowded and underfunded (especially in Michigan). In addition, Women are the fastest growing population in America’s prisons and their treatment is often awful. For example, they are frequently shackled while pregnant, DOC’s often put pregnant women in solitary confinement, and menstrual materials are often only available through the commissary list. This is why several Senator’s recently proposed the “Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act” which you can support by signing up with my friends at Cut 50 (i do actually know them, not just a colloquialism).

Things are really terrible for most everyone in America’s jails and prisons but I suspect it is even worse at women’s prisons.

“I Spank It Out, Bennett”

As you may know, I am a former addict who wrote a book about recovery and who authors a recovery blog (infrequently of late).

To be more clear, I am a sex addict with 7 years of sobriety. Sorry if that is shocking, but I have been writing about it for a few years now, so it is getting more normal for me.

As a sex addict who has spent a crazy amount of time reading research on sex addiction (so I could write my book) and being deeply involved in recovery for years, I felt compelled to respond to what Joe Caputo says to Bennett about his ‘relationship’ with Daya.

Caputo suggested that Bennett should channel his urges for sex with inmates into masturbation (something we, unfortunately, saw Caputo himself engage in after first meeting Piper during Season 1).

This seems like great advice, and compared to consensual non-consensual sex with an inmate (inmates are not capable of genuine legal consent in this situation because of the inherent power imbalance) it is certainly an improvement BUT (and this is a big but) the problem is believing you have the right to the desire in the first place.

I began truly recovering when I realized that the process of colonizing someone else’s image and turning it into something for your mind to play with IS the problem. When the object of our fantasies is a real person, our fantasies are a process of ignoring who they actually are and turning our construction of them into what we wish that they were.

In short, masturbatory fantasy is a form of objectification.

I am not saying there should be laws against fantasy, and I totally understand that there are healthy levels of fantasy, but that doesn’t change the fact that our break with ethical behavior starts at the water’s edge where we transform someone from a person with agency into a body for your use.

And, yes, sobriety from this kind of fantasy (and from masturbation) is entirely possible (after decades of being told it was only natural, this surprised me too). It is amazing how much more meaningful the concept of consent becomes when you actually have to be granted the right to be physically intimate with a partner in a place and time where you don’t exercise a dominant position over them (as either a correctional officer or just some jackass fantasizing about them).

Yes, I know mine is a radical position, but in my experience, most of my problems started by substituting fantasy for authentic intimacy and affording potential partners (or people I was attracted to) total agency over their own beings. In other words, there is something sad about this perhaps seeming radical.

Understanding Healy

Q: So, why does Sam Healy want so desperately for women to stay in traditional roles?

A: His mother was mentally ill, always unpredictable and not like a Mother should be, and as a result, Sam was always left terrified. His expectation was (and is) a reliable woman there for his needs as a child arrested forever in the body of an angry adult man.

This was A pretty great example of how just a few seconds of clever exposition, when done well, can substitute for a mountain of dialog.