Justice

Here's What Women in Prison Use as Sex Toys

February 24th 2016

Women in prison need to get off too. Since incarcerated women don't have access to store bought dildos and vibrators, they have to get a little creative.

Here are five things women have used as sex toys in prison.

1. Maxi Pads

"Maxi-pads are the staple of the prison infrastructure," Kate Dailey writes in a Newsweek review of Piper Kerman's "Orange Is The New Black." Dailey explains, "One inmate told Kerman she 'used to make dildos out of a spork, a maxi-pad, and a finger from a rubber glove!'"

maxi pads OITNBTwitter/JenniferNS1992

“They make dildos with [maxi pads],” former inmate Michelle Vaughn told The Cut, in an interview about her time spent at the Danbury federal correctional institution. “[They] roll them up, put them in a glove.”

These toys are often referred to as "purple whales," according to a New York Daily News overview of women's prison slang. Reporter Keri Blakinger wrote, "A purple whale is a type of homemade prison dildo. The core of the sex toy is a pen or toothbrush wrapped in maxi pads. The exterior is a purple medical glove covering it all."

2. Compacted Feces

In a Reddit thread entitled, "Prison/Jail guards of reddit, what's the weirdest shit you've seen while walking past a cell on your patrol?" poster sluuuurp replied, "I've seen people using a dildo made of dried compacted poop."

Reddit Commentreddit.com - reddit.com

3. Soap

Women have also said they've fashioned dildos out of soap bars. One formerly incarcerated woman described her experience on her YouTube channel.

Youtube THE MasterMinder SM ScreengrabYouTube/THE MasterMinder SM - youtube.com

"You make a dildo out of soap," she explained, adding that she found one that looked "like a tiny finger" on the floor coming out of the shower.

While she said she didn't personally make or use a DIY dildo, she reported that her fellow inmates melted down soap in arts and crafts classes and molded them into dildos of various sizes and sold them along with jewelry and other items.

"We made ours out of lye soap and put [them] in a trash bag and formed it and there ya have lil buddy," melodydtategrey, another former inmate, revealed on a Prison Talk forum.

4. Produce

Good Prisoner, a database of prisoners seeking pen pals, reports that women's prisons often require that tubular vegetables like bananas, cucumbers, and sausages be chopped to prevent women from making them into dildos.

5. Snack Food

In a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread, an anonymous guard at a maximum security women's prison posted that she found "a monstrously huge dildo made from cloth, a pringles can, and newspapers."

In yet another AMA, a prison officer said "they melt jolly ranchers into homemade dildos," adding, "we threw them away."

The Risks of DIY Dildos

Even if you're using a store bought dildo, it's important to clean it after use. Using unclean sex toys can lead to bacterial and yeast infections, according to Women's Health Magazine. If the toy is shared, STD exposure is also a concern. One Redditor describes a particularly nasty encounter with a dirty dildo:

Reddit nasty yeast infectionReddit - reddit.com

These health risks point out how risky using an ad-hoc dildo can be, especially considering the limited access incarcerated women have to cleaning products, which are often confiscated by guards.

Share your opinion

Do you think dildos should be allowed in women's prisons?

No 22%Yes 78%