Prison is an institution full of contradictions: on the one hand, there is great tolerance of homosexuality and on the other, there is a masculine culture that is aggressive and hostile towards anything that is weak or feminine. To survive, inmates must learn to defend themselves and protect their space. For this reason, physical strength and skill in the use of knives and other sharp weapons are indispensable.
It is possible to characterize various types of homosexual couples:
In this culture, which places greater value on masculinity, homosexual relations are tolerated provided certain basic rules concerning sexual roles are respected. An effeminate and weak individual may establish a relationship with a “cachero” -- a man who is masculine and who does not “officially” define himself as a homosexual. The first presents himself socially as a woman and the second, as a man. In order to keep the roles separate, the “homosexual” or transvestite always uses a woman’s name, dresses as such and performs “feminine” tasks for the “cachero”: ironing, washing, cleaning. The latter, when talking about his lover with other inmates, always refers to his partner as “she”. The relationship also includes the protection which the “cachero” provides his lover. He protects the transvestite from the advances of other men.
In theory, the ‘cachero’ is the one who penetrates, and the gay is the one who is penetrated. ‘Cacherismo’ is defined by the relationship of a man who penetrates a homosexual. A ‘cachero’ must not serve another man, as a woman does, according to Luis. “Serving” means allowing oneself to be penetrated. The male who possesses another male is considered a “man” or heterosexual, provided his active role is made obvious. However, in practice, this polarization is more complex., as we shall see later.
“Who are the ‘cacheros’?”, we ask Toro. “To be a ‘cachero’, first of all you have to be very masculine, no feathers,” he replies. “You also have to have money in jail. A poor ‘cachero’ isn’t a ‘cachero’”, he adds. “And how do you make money in jail?”, we ask. “Well, usually by dealing drugs, liquor, services or food,” he replies. ‘Cacheros’ are generally ‘coles’ (powerful inmates who control the money) gang leaders, guys who control others and who control the lives of everyone in jail.” “So being a ‘cachero’ and a ‘col’ is almost the same thing?”, we ask. “Well, almost the same. There’s always a ‘col’ who doesn’t like sodomy and doesn’t have a lover, and there are also ‘cacheros’ who aren’t ‘coles’, but in general they’re almost the same thing”, Toro tells us.
The “cachero” is attracted by the femininity of the transvestite. For him, the more mannered and the closer to being a woman a transvestite is, the more attractive. That is why many ‘cacheros’ require transvestites to shave their legs, wear make-up and let their hair grow long. Although they are forbidden to dress like women in jail, the transvestites do their best to look like women. For them, the attraction of the ‘cachero’ lies in his masculinity and aggressiveness. Transvestites usually choose ‘cacheros’ for their strength and good looks, as well as for the size of their sexual organ. The ‘cacheros’ admit that the transvestites check them out in the shower to “evaluate the size”. Other reasons for seeking out ‘cacheros’ are the protection they offer, and sometimes, money. However, more often than not, the transvestites end up subsidizing the vices of their lovers. “Toro”, I ask, “why do transvestites go for a big penis?” He looks at us with a certain condescension and replies confidently: “the prostate is the answer.” “The prostate?” I ask without understanding his meaning. “Well, men have it and women don’t. It’s one of the strongest sexual organs that exist. When it’s stimulated, you feel pleasure on both sides.That’s why the size of the penis is important for the transvestites and the queers, and not so much for women. The deeper it goes the more pleasure and the more stimulus to the prostate. Women, on the other hand, get more pleasure in the clitoris than in the vagina.”
Despite their obvious femininity, the transvestites, like the ‘cacheros’, are men with a great propensity for infidelity. Unlike the “kids”, the transvestites enjoy sexual relations, whether for love or for money. For this reason they try to make the largest possible number of conquests and try not to miss out on the handsome and masculine prisoners. This goes against the type of relationship to which “cacheros” are accustomed. Because the “cacheros” had relationships only with women before entering prison, they are more accustomed to a double standard: their women must be faithful to them. But this fidelity is not easy to find in the transvestites, much less so among those who normally prostitute themselves. “Transvestites are worse than whores. Whores have sex without feeling desire, but transvestites really enjoy every fuck. It’s much harder to sexually satisfy a transvestite than a whore,” says Toro.
INITIATION
How does a man who has been heterosexual all his life begin to feel an attraction towards another man? In fact, there are as many paths as situations. In prison, inmates are removed from daily contact with women, except for a few female prison officials or conjugal visits. It is therefore practically impossible to establish an emotional relationship with a woman. At the same time, homosexual relations are more open. Little by little, the desire to have sex and the activity of fellow inmates begins to have an effect on many prisoners.
In one of the courses run by ILPES for volunteers who wish to work in prisons, the following exercise is used by instructors to make them understand how sexual attraction towards other men can develop in a heterosexual man.
Close your eyes slowly and focus on your breathing for a few minutes. Inhale and exhale. Don’t think about anything other than the slow and relaxed rhythm of your own breathing. Inhale and exhale.
When you are totally relaxed, you’re going to imagine that you’ve been in jail for three years. Using your imagination, visualize yourself sitting in a prison mess hall, like any of the ones we know. Think, you’ve been locked up for three years in this place, which is now familiar to you. Think for a few moments about this situation.
Now that you imagine yourself sitting alone in this big mess hall, you recall that you’ve been here for more than three years. Nobody has touched you, or kissed you or made love to you in all this time. You feel kind of sad and despondent.
Suddenly, the room fills up with three or four hundred women (if the participants are women) or men (if the participants are men). There are all types of men or women: tall, short, fat, thin, muscular, flaccid, attractive, ugly. You stop and look at the great variety of types that are there.
If you’re a woman, you stop to look at a strange but very attractive girl who is sitting in front of you. She has no breasts, her body is well-built, almost muscular, and her face is beautiful but masculine. Her teeth are white, her lips are full, like those of an Italian actor. Suddenly she looks at you and smiles.
If you’re a man, imagine that among the group of men in front of your table there is a very pretty, feminine looking man. He has breasts, his lips are painted a light red color, his hair is blond and curly, he has a narrow waist and a woman’s legs. Suddenly he looks at you and smiles.
Now think that you like this person. Forget, for a minute, about the person’s sex. Your fellow inmates, noticing the flirtation, encourage you to get to know each other. “How lucky to get a response from that beautiful person, some friends tell you. People seem to celebrate the attraction.
Now, I want you ask yourself how you feel. What pulls you towards that person? Do you like him/her? Do you think it’s possible to have something with him/her?
Once you’ve thought about this, you will begin to return to the place where we began the exercise. You will become aware of your body, move your hands and feet around, and when I count to three, you will open your eyes.
The volunteers accept that the exercise helps them to understand how a person can develop an attraction for someone of the same sex. Maria, a sociologist, tells us, “yes, I was able to feel an attraction for one of the women in the prison. I imagined her to be well built, a little rough but beautiful and I felt so alone that I needed to be with her and even needed to kiss her.” Leonardo, a psychologist, says he imagined “a very beautiful transvestite, slim, tall and sensual. I forgot he had a penis, I didn’t care.” Others were unable to do the exercise and some did not feel any attraction. However, the exercise serves to illustrate the possibilities in prison: some can substitute a person of the same sex for one of the opposite sex, if they are heterosexual, while others cannot do so at all, and those who are homosexuals have a ball: “Being in jail is like being put in a disco all day, with free food and a bed, and men who are all turned on,” a homosexual says. “Well, these are the same choices that are available in jail,” the instructor tells us.
Toro and Angelita are a typical example of a “cachero”-transvestite relationship. The first is heterosexual and had his first sexual experience with an older female cousin. As is often the case, Toro’s cousin, who was almost eleven years older than him, sexually abused him when he was only ten years old. Toro had sexual relations with this cousin for several months and she taught him about oral and vaginal sex. Then he began to seduce other women. Toro is an extremely attractive man and admits he has “great power over women”. However, his addiction to drugs led him to begin dealing and eventually he landed in jail. Until then, Toro had never had homosexual relations. He does not like men and likes even less to be “used like a woman”, he tells us. “If anyone ever dares to touch me behind, I’ll kill him,” he says firmly.
However, Toro met Angelita, a transvestite who injects “herself” with hormones, has breasts and is extremely feminine. When Toro looks at “her” he experiences something very strange. He knows Angelita is a man, but he embarked upon a new relationship:
| Interviewer: | Could you tell me a little about Angelita and how you met? |
| Toro: | Well, when I was in here -- one of the many times I’ve been inside --in a wing where most of the homosexuals are admitted. They were shouting “bu-bu” because a new prisoner was arriving, and from the moment I saw him come in, I was attracted to him, I liked him a whole lot and so from then on we began a friendship and talked about everything. And I knew right away that this homosexual found me attractive and that he liked me, because I liked him and when he visited he would come over and say:”here, you want to get stoned?”, and so forth. Then one day he was released, and he called me every day. That time nothing happened but he was jailed a second time and the flirtation continued. |
| Interviewer: | Was he dressed like a woman? |
| Toro: | No, he came dressed in men’s clothes, because they don’t allow them to come in here in women’s clothes. They arrive like that, but outside they change their clothes. But he had long hair, completely smooth legs, a round, shapely backside, narrow waist and a totally sensual mouth. Any man would be attracted by so much femininity. There was a third time when he was in jail and I remember it very well. I was handing out refreshments when I saw him come in, but he didn’t see me. So when I was handing out the refreshments I saw that when he passed through the gates he asked some inmates:”where does Toro sleep?”, and they told him where my bed was, and I continued giving out the refreshments and all the guys began to tease me, “hey, Toro, look what’s arrived for you” and other stupid remarks. I went to my bed and he said,”can I stay here?” and I said, “sure, you’re welcome! It’s my bed and yours too.” Angelita told me that he’d seen me bathing and that I had a very big, thick penis. Half an hour later, we’d already had our first sexual encounter and the relationship continued for three months and ‘she’ would tell me that ‘she’ loved me --I call him “her” because it’s the way I like it, I don’t like to treat her as the man she is --she told me that she loved me etc, that she had found the man of her dreams, of her life. But I didn’t believe her, because I said that as soon as she left, I wouldn’t exist and that maybe it was something fleeting and she told me no, never, and that she wouldn’t leave me for anything in the world, that she would always stand by me, and she swore this to me and said that only death would separate us. I said to myself, “that’s fine”. She was released, went to trial and kept calling me and would come to all the visiting days, and every day she would send me something and would often call me on the phone and ask me what I needed and this and that and so on. |
Martinez had a different kind of initiation. He is 33 years old and all his previous relationships were heterosexual:
| Interviewer: | Tell me a little about your sexual relationships prior to going to jail, about your childhood, your adolescence. What kind of sexual relationships did you have? What were they like? How did you begin? |
| Martinez: | Sexually, I began at fourteen. No, thirteen. I was a ticket collector on the San Juan de Dios bus, and I met my first woman and she was about 33 or 34 and I had sex with her. I learned from her during the seven or eight years we lived together. That’s where my sexual relationships began and to this day, I’ve always had great lays, as they say , and it’s been like that continuously and now I’ve been alone for two years, but I lived with around 15 or 16 women. |
Martinez has been in prison for 17 years and had never had previous homosexual relations. When he entered prison, he had no idea that “two men could have sex” and he was “repelled” by the idea of homosexual sex. However, the passing of the years had their effect. He admits that, “life in prison had gotten me used to this world and I’ve hung out with young kids who are real gays.” When asked how he defines “gays” he answers that they are males who do not like having sex with women because they have “female hormones”. A month and a half ago, he had a transvestite for a cell mate. The homosexual was assigned the bunk bed just under Martinez. One night he heard strange sounds coming from the bed underneath: “I was sleeping when I heard the queer moaning. When I woke up, I realized that the black guy, Tulipan, was making love to him. I’d seen similar things in jail, so it was nothing new. But the conversation I heard this time really turned me on.” When we asked him what was so unusual about this conversation, he said “it was a very affectionate relationship between the two. Tulipan is famous for his size and he’s cut up more than one person. But this time, he was calming the guy down, and persuading him to let himself be loved.” Martinez was so impressed by this dialogue that two nights later he himself climbed into his companion’s bed and said: “I know what you like. I’m going to love you like Tulipan.” However, Martinez found it difficult to accept the idea that he was having a homosexual relationship:
| Interviewer: | What you’re saying now is that you have a lover here in jail? |
| Martinez: | Yes, that’s right. |
| Interviewer: | Talk to me a little about what makes you feel guilty. |
| Martinez: | Guilty in the sense that I have intercourse with a person of the same sex. |
| Interviewer: | Do you think that’s bad? |
| Martinez: | Well, as far as the Bible and God are concerned, it’s bad. |
| Interviewer: | Tell me a bit about your partner. Is he a transvestite, a “fox”, or a “kid”? |
| Martinez: | No, he’s gay, a transvestite, like a woman. He has...how should I say? |
| Interviewer: | Breasts? |
| Martinez: | Yes, breasts, he’s gay. |
| Interviewer: | How long have you been together? |
| Martinez: | About a month and a half, more or less. |
| Interviewer: | And you feel good about this relationship? |
| Martinez: | Well, yes and no. I’m intimate with him, I like to talk, you know, maybe because he’s the person next to me, who’s joined to me in many ways in prison, who respects my opinion, respects what I am, without saying a word. |
| Interviewer: | Tell me a little about what your relationship is like with this person, with your partner. When you have sexual relations with “her” are you aware that she’s a man? Can you talk to me a little, if it doesn’t bother you, about what you do, without getting into a pornographic description? How do you feel knowing that “she” has a penis? |
| Martinez: | Well, I feel bad, obviously, because like I said, my sexual initiation was with women. I’ve known him for a month and a half -- well, five months -and he has a very special way of being, so I don’t feel bad. But I feel bad because he’s a man just like me. |
Chino, a muscular man of 42, has been in prison twice. He has four children and lives with a woman. Like many other men, he was sexually initiated by an older woman:
| Interviewer: | How were you initiated into sex? |
| Chino: | When I had school vacations, I would go to my family’s house. An aunt was the one who initiated me into sexual activities. |
| Interviewer: | How old were you? |
| Chino: | Seven or eight. |
| Interviewer: | And your aunt? |
| Chino: | She might have been 15 or 16. She was already a grown woman. She had pubic hair, enormous breasts and she would masturbate against my leg and I’d get an erection. |
| Interviewer: | What happened with her? |
| Chino: | I began to touch her. I liked to touch her breasts, always afraid of her ‘thing’, because I was still a kid. I wasn’t even wet behind the ears, as people say, I was scared. She would grab me and masturbate... |
Chino went to prison for the first time at the age of nineteen, to the old Central Penitentiary. Here he met many homosexuals and began having sex with men. However, his sexual encounters, as he himself says, are “for the hell of it”, in order words, just to satisfy himself sexually. Unlike Toro or Martinez, Chino does not complicate his life with love. His main reason for mixing with homosexuals is simply satisfaction. When asked about his first experience, he says, “it was three in the morning. I’d been in jail for three months. It was a very hot night and there was a queer with a nice ass who liked me. I imagined that I was with a girlfriend I knew, I closed my eyes and I began to fly.”
| Interviewer: | Have you had a man in jail when you’ve been imprisoned? |
| Chino: | Well, to tell the truth, yes of course I’ve had a partner, who has been like a woman to me. |
| Interviewer: | Tell me as much as you can about this person. |
| Chino: | Well, he’s a submissive person, always willing to serve me whenever I need it, obeys me in everything, doesn’t look at other men who want to fuck him, isn’t unfaithful, is quite jealous. He’s a complete lady, not a bitch or a whore like you could call other types of homosexuals who sleep with you, and even though you might be their husband, they go with other people behind your back. |
| Interviewer: | This person is with you now, or was that some time ago? |
| Chino: | No, that was a long time ago, when I was in jail, because I don’t go in for those practices when I’m outside. |
| Interviewer: | Did you gradually become a “cachero” in the “Peni” (Penitentiary)? What was the process of becoming a “cachero” like and how did you begin to practice “cacherismo”? |
| Chino: | I began to practice “cacherismo” with a friend who was a homosexual. |
| Interviewer: | A transvestite? |
| Chino: | Yes, a transvestite. But we didn’t do penetration, just masturbation. He would masturbate me and, you know, do certain sexual caresses. |
| Interviewer: | How many sexual relationships have you had during your time in jail? |
| Juan Alberto: | I couldn’t say exactly, but many. |
Juan Alberto is one of the few inmates who had experienced sexual relations with transvestites before going to prison. His first sexual relationship was accidental. Juan Alberto was tricked:
| Interviewer: | Tell me something, have you had relations with transvestites, with men who dress as women? |
| Juan Alberto: | Sure I have, here in Alajuela, with Aurora, a gay from the north. I saw him one day when I went to a certain bar and saw him dressed like a woman with a friend that I later found out was the president of an organization of queens in Alajuela. I decided to have a few drinks, and then we went downtown in a taxi and he took me to a room somewhere. And well, I had thought she was a woman but when I saw her without clothes, I said to myself, wow, this is a man! It was Aurora and I had a little adventure with him. It was a nice experience, because even when you’ve been around, it’s nice to have different adventures and experiences, both with women and with men. For me that’s something very normal. |
| Interviewer: | I imagine that when you arrived in prison, a whole new world opened up in terms of sexuality. Maybe you were familiar with it, maybe not. Can you tell me a little about this sexual world? |
| Juan Alberto: | Yeah, well, when I came into the prison system for the first time, to the admission unit, it was a different world to what I was used to. The first time I was in prison, in “A” block, I was kind of doubtful because people said there were a lot of diseases, AIDS and all that, but when I came here I saw a world which is what we’re living in now, where there are so many homosexuals, all kinds of people. Later, I was in “H” block, where I had a relationship with a gay called Laura, and well, for me, it was a normal adventure. Of course, I took care of myself, because people said this gay was infected with AIDS, but what I did then was to use a condom... |
There are many other forms of initiation. Pedro’s attraction to transvestites began when he participated in a gang rape. According to him, “it never occurred to me to have sex with a gay. But my gang had to punish one of them. We lined up to fuck him, and when it was my turn, it felt fantastic. The next time I did it with that gay, I did it for pleasure.” Others, like Carlos, were raped by the transvestites themselves. Once, while he was bathing, he was approached by one of them:
I was bathing and this queen, Carrasqueri came up. I didn’t suspect was he was coming for. He began to writhe like a female. He was a kind of half-caste guy and looked like Michael Jackson. He would put the soap between his breasts and glance at me out of the corner of his eye. Then he would d turn around and soap himself like a real hot chick. I noticed that he had put on black leather underpants and a ring through his tongue. When I saw all that camp stuff I got a hard-on. The queen saw that I was excited and said,”you’re a real hunk”. The guy knelt down and I let him suck me. Then he took off his pants and, with a lot of moaning, he guided my dick into him.
The initiations described by the “cacheros” prove that human sexuality is more flexible than we might imagine. The inmates are subjected to a truly extreme situation because of the absence of women. However, “cacheros” are not forced into sexual relations with other men. Attraction develops to varying degrees and at different times. In some cases, it does not develop at all. There are some inmates who never have any sexual involvement with other men. Despite living in the same conditions as the rest, they never develop a taste for homosexuality. This is the case with Mario:
I have nothing against gays. In fact, I can tell you that one of the ones who defended me was, as they say, gay. As a professional he was pretty bad, because he graduated when he was already quite old and I think I got more time in jail because of his lack of experience. They called him the “white granny” because he was grey-haired and had kids. But as a person he was a very cool guy. Instead of charging me, he said I should pay him “in kind”, as he himself referred to sex. But I told him that though I have nothing against gays, I don’t like sodomy. I never let him touch me. Since I came here, many “boyfriends” have come on to me, but I tell them I’m not interested. However turned on I am, I can’t find anything that I like in a man. Even less among the transvestites who are shorrible by day and really ugly at night. One of those queens came up to me one day and asked if I liked her. I said, “look honey, you’re so feminine that you look more like a feminine lesbian.” From that moment, the queen doesn’t even come near me.
SEXUAL PRACTICES
In theory, “cacheros” are the “machos”, the penetrators in the sexual relationship. A series of rules determines what can and cannot be done. One of these rules is that the “macho” should not allow himself to be penetrated and should not play with the transvestite’s penis. Another rule is that he should not perform passive oral sex or kiss the transvestite on the mouth. Toro is an example of the traditional “cachero”.
| Interviewer: | Could you tell me a little about the type of sexual relationship you had with Angelita? |
| Toro: | Well, at first I myself couldn’t believe what I was doing. She’s the only homosexual person I’ve been with. At first, I didn’t know how to do it, because before I had the idea that the creature who was in bed with me had the same thing that I had. |
| Interviewer: | What was that? |
| Toro: | A pair of testicles and a penis. And I couldn’t get used to that, because from the waist up, it was a woman’s body, with breasts, long hair, fine features, but from the waist down I still couldn’t understand it, and with all the caresses and the groping, I always avoided that area. Every time I thought about it bothered me, but in time I got used to it. |
| Interviewer: | When did you confront the fact that Angelita is a man? |
| Toro: | Well, I knew she was a man from the beginning, but my body felt some vibrations, like what a man feels when he falls in love with a woman. And the third time she came in here, she came into my den, to live with me and the relationship began and it continued, and I still had that fear of being with another man. “He’s got the same thing I have’, I’d say to myself , and then, during masturbation, during sodomy and during foreplay I always avoided the testicles and the penis. |
| Interviewer: | You didn’t touch them? |
| Toro: | No, and the relationship grew stronger every day, for three months, and then she left and she’s always kept on supporting to this day. |
| Interviewer: | What did you feel when you had a woman from the waist up and a man from the waist down? How did your life change? |
| Toro: | I learned something I didn’t know. When we made love, I didn’t see the person masturbate
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