Here is an assumptive quality in Western society about the concept and application of privacy. It's granted such importance, you could classify it as one of our society's mores. The idea of our right to it is so ingrained, we will bloody our knuckles and lay barbed wire in its defense. We take it for granted.
We incarcerated, however, are quickly disabused of our conceptual right to anything even remotely resembling privacy. If you're having a bad day or need a moment to center your thoughts, there's no consistent place or arrangement one can retreat to. It's "Suck it up, Buttercup, and deal."
In brief stints, it isn't that much of an issue. A year or two of your personal space being reduced to mere inches is uncomfortable, but it's over before you know it and it likely hasn't altered you. Change those years to decades, though, and you'll be amazed at how adaptable you are.
Or how little the dehumanization bothers you anymore.
For most, the process starts in county jail. It's dorm living, or at least dorm adjacent, with bathrooms and bathing facilities that may or may not provide a modicum of privacy, but once you graduate to an actual prison, that possibility disappears.
Once convicted and sentenced, you're rounded up by the bus load and trucked off to Shelton, the receiving institution for Washington State's Department of Corrections. Here, you and all your bus mates are (as a group) stripped of all clothing, made to shower, then sit around in a cage until someone decides to give you a jumpsuit.
Your first cell is approximately six feet wide by nine feet deep, has two bunks, and a sink-toilet hybrid tucked right up against the foot of the lower bunk. So when you need to do your business, it's right there in front of your cellmate and whoever else is walking by the open-barred cell.
It's considered common courtesy not to splash the lower bunk, but really, when has courtesy been all that common? At least the showers there were two, single-man stalls at the end of each tier.
Not so in Walla Walla.
Units 6 and 8, the "Big" units behind the walls, back when it was closed custody, had communal showers with approximately twenty shower heads (and that's when they were all working). These were divided up among the various races and cliques. These borders weren't always strict, expanding and contracting in tandem with the intensity of that week's drama level.
And yes, sometimes that drama originated FROM the showers.
Both units are comprised of six tiers, each with seventeen cells housing up to four individuals apiece. At max capacity (which we were always near, if not at), that's 408 people. Showers are supposed to be called twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, one tier at a time in rotation. Keep in mind that's still 68 people vying for twenty shower heads and some of those are off limits to you unless you feel like fighting for it.
But it gets worse. Much worse.
Disclaimer: This image is an artist's interpretation and does not represent reality. It’s meant to be funny.
Any number of emergencies can alter the established schedule in prison. A fight, an accident, a medical issue, or random drill often derailed the daily mundane and canceled any number of authorized movements... Like showers.
The solution? Run three tiers at once. Now there's 204 guys trying to cram into a space roughly the size of a two-car garage, all trying to get clean without elbowing a random dick. If you had any modesty before this experience, it's eroded to nothing by the third or thirty-third occasion.
It's chaos and tempers can flare, but usually, everyone finds a place to rotate in, get wet, step aside, soap up, rinse off, get clear of the sausage party, and dry off. Some days are more difficult to navigate than others though, and that's when just the right combination of humor and assertiveness can get you, um... Wet.
Picture it, the above scenario is in full swing. Me and my buddy, Wolfgang (who is a 6' 4", musclebound, tattooed ogre sporting a caveman's spray of wild hair) are the last to arrive. One look around reveals we're gonna be here a while. Unless...
Wolf: "I'm gonna get us a shower."
Me: (Incredulously) "Oh yeah?"
He just grins and wades in. The guy's been blessed (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with equipment that would look at home in a six-pack of tall boys... People make way. I simply follow in his wake.
We arrive at a showerhead in use by a man with the most prodigious backside I've ever seen. I think it's likely the same guy who played "Station" in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. It's really quite an example of human variety. I've never seen such a thing. Clearly, neither had my buddy.
Wolf: "Excuse me! Look, I'm not gay or anything, but I've gotta say, THAT is the most amazing ass I've EVER seen in my life! Do you work out?"
Station: "Uh..."
Me and surrounding crowd: (Shock. This is gonna end up in a fight)
Wolf: (Steps up and EXAMINES Station's butt in detail) "Wow! Man!"
Station: (Edges back) "Well... I, uh, used to?"
Wolf: (Seizes opportunity and slips under the showerhead) "Like I said, I'm not into guys, but dude, your ass is EPIC!"
The guy's being a sport about this and he's not punking out, so Wolf turns up the comedy to save the guy some face. He extends one leg, flexes, turns, and points...
Wolf: "Dude, whaddya think of MY ass?! I mean, I've been working out for a while now and I ain't got nothin' on you, bro."
Me: (I am doubled over in laughter and tears are streaming from my face. This is the farthest thing from normal in my communal showering LIFE.)
Station: "Well, I'm not gay either, but some of my friends are, so I feel comfortable saying that you have a nice butt."
Me: (WTF is happening?! I slide under the water as Wolf moves away.)
Wolf: (Sincerely) "Really? Thanks man, I super appreciate that! I'm gonna keep working on it!" (and, to his credit, he did!)
And so it went until we'd all rotated in and out enough to get clean. It's funny in many respects, but it could've gone different had the guy taken offense. I'll tell ya more about that in Part 2, but being forced into a situation of intimacy is ultimately unhealthy for everyone.