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By Jesse Monteagudo
Johnson, who is currently in prison "for bouncing a $300 check while on parole for a non-violent crime" was repeatedly used by prison gang members as a sex slave, sold to other inmates for $5 to $10 a round. "He was told that if he refused, he would be beaten and killed. As a sexual slave, he was repeatedly penetrated anally and forced to perform oral sex at the command of gang members," said the ACLU in Roderick Johnson v. Gary Johnson, et al. "Prison officials knew that gangs made Roderick Johnson their sex slave and did nothing to help him," said Margaret Winter, Associate Director of the ACLU's National Prison Project. As a gay black man, Roderick Johnson suffered from homophobia and racism on the part of both fellow prisoners and prison officials. "Our lawsuit shows that Texas prison officials think black men can't be victims and believe gay men always want sex -- so they threw our client to the wolves," said Winter. Though prison officials knew that Johnson is gay, they placed him in the general prison population. Since then, Johnson repeatedly asked the"all-white classification committee" to place him in safe keeping or protective custody. Instead, "committee members taunted him and called him a 'dirty tramp,' and one said, 'There's no reason why Black punks can't fight if they don't want to fuck.'" Homosexuality in prison has long been a staple of gay pornography, not to mention late night comics' jokes. But prison rape is a very serious business. "Judging by the popular media, rape is accepted as a commonplace of imprisonment, so much so that when the topic of prison arises, a joking reference to rape seems almost obligatory," notes the Human Rights Watch Report, No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons. "Yet serious, sustained, and constructive attention to the subject remains rare." Those few studies that were actually conducted on the subject "have found shockingly high rates of sexual abuse, including forced oral and anal intercourse." According to the Human Rights Watch Report, Texas is "the worst state in the nation for prison rape." "Rape is a serious problem in jails and prisons nationwide -- and Texas, which has the largest prison population of any state, is the worst in the country in prevalence and response to prison rape," this according to the ACLU's Fact Sheet on Prisoner Rape. "The Texas prison system creates opportunity for rampant rape and sex slavery." Rather than being a response to sexual frustration in an all-male environment, prison rape is a crime of violence and an expression of superior power on the part of the rapists. Victims of prison rape are usually "prisoners who are gay, as well as those who are young, small, mentally or physically disabled, first-time offenders, shy, perceived as weak, or possessing feminine characteristics," according to Winter. Gary Johnson, Texas's top prison official - and one of the defendants in the ACLU lawsuit - admitted that some prisoners "are too vulnerable to live in the mainstream population [and] can be taken advantage of fairly easy." These "potential victims," Johnson continued, are identified by such traits as prior "history of homosexual behavior," "enemies in the population" and "other similar reasons." But all too often prison officials turn a blind eye to the epidemic of rape that takes place in the prisons they are supposed to supervise. Roderick Johnson's family is horrified by their kinsman's ordeal. According to a statement by Sharon Bailey, Johnson's cousin, "Roderick wrote to several of us from prison. He was afraid to tell most of the family that he was being severely sexually abused.
Meanwhile, Johnson's relatives continue to work on his behalf. "I know most people don't care what happens to prisoners," says Bailey. "I care what happens to my cousin. Anyone with a son or a sister or a nephew would feel the same. The entire family is horrified and devastated by what's happening to Roderick. We are afraid we will never see him alive again. We have faith that God will protect him, but the prison must also be held responsible for putting him through this. Today we are praying for him -- and fighting for him."
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Audiences were shocked at scenes like this on the HBO prison-drama Oz. But male-on-male rapes are a fact of life in U.S. prisons, and authorities appear to be doing very little to stop it. 
Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer and gay activist who lives in South Florida with his partner of over 17 years. He can be reached at jessemonteagudo@aol.com 