Dark History - 110: Conjugal Visits Could Save America? So Why are they taking them away?

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

Welcome to the Dark History podcast. Today I’m talking all about conjugal visits, which is basically when prisoners are allowed some private time with a visitor. This topic is already pretty spicy, but finding out the history had me SHOOKETH. From hanky panky bribes to a fear of homosexuality, this is a wild one. Go to https://www.EARTH BREEZE.com/darkhistory for 40% off your first order. Get your first visit for only five dollars at https://www.Apostrophe.com/DARKHISTORY when you use code DARKHISTORY.

Don't drop the soap they say and everyone LOLs. Ha ha ha ha. But in reality, sexual assault in prison is a huge issue. And its history actually sent me down a rabbit hole learning about the problem of conjugal visits. Prisons introduce these conjugal programs where inmates could see loved ones and like, you know, maybe have sex, wink, wink.

The idea was quite successful for several decades. But even though the American prison system makes billions of dollars every year, these days, conjugal visits are extremely rare. So here's my question. I mean, if conjugal visits were so great, then why did they stop? Was it pissing someone off?

Was it making someone jealous money? Sex drugs? Well, hang tight kitty cats because today, we're diving into conjugal visits. Yeah, I know this might be random, but listen, the history behind it is shady and real dirty, and it's very concerning for human rights, and that's why we should care.

Thank you so much. Hi friends, I hope you're having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian and I like to welcome you to my podcast, Dark History. Look here, we believe that history doesn't have to be boring. I mean, yes, a lot of it is very tragic, and some of it is kind of happy. But either way, it's art, art, history. So all you have to do is sit back, relax, and let's talk about that hot, juicy history goss. Okay, listen, don't lie.

When you hear the word conjugal, does your mind immediately go to conjugal visits? Of course, right? Or maybe you're like me, and it just straight up reminds you of that scene from Gold's member, where Dr. Evil is in jail. You know? Daddy's all pent up, let's freak!

I don't know, look, it's just become like, you know, over time it's kind of a punchline. But as we've seen on this series time and time again, you know, it's the things hidden in plain sight that always seem to have the darkest backstory. And the history of conjugal visits is about way more than sacks. So look, it all starts in a little southern town called Parchment Mississippi. Now, Parchment is pretty close to the Mississippi and Arkansas border. And in the 1900s, it was like a very rural farming area, you know, that word, rural, I nailed it. But parchment was known for their massive prison. It was called parchment farm, which kind of

like sounds like a factory where they make cookies, parchment farm, right? But no, it was a huge prison built on top of a former plantation. In the early 1900s, the whole south was a mess. When slavery was abolished, all the plantations and businesses across the south were suddenly unable to operate because they relied so much on free labor. In other words, slave labor. You know, the only reason anyone made any profit was because they didn't have to pay their workers. And without that, their businesses completely fell apart.

Between 1861 and the 1900s, Southern states were arresting tons of men, specifically young black men. Some of the arrests were legit, but honestly, most of them were not. I mean, a lot of them are being charged with either fake or exaggerated crimes. And to many, it felt like it became another way to round up anyone from the black community and keep them in prison.

But why would local governments like want to pack their prisons with people on bogus charges? Well, once these men were sentenced to prison, that's when the government would lease out prisoners for cheap manual labor. So local businesses would literally rent these prisoners for a day to like help with whatever they needed help with. The prison would make money, the businesses would make money, they were like, hey, just high-fiving, win, win for everyone.

You know, except the prisoners, obviously. And a lot of the time, the kind of work the inmates were doing was inhumane. Prisoners were forced to like clear out swamps full of parasites with diseases like malaria, or they would have to risk their lives in order to create tunnels for railroad companies. In order to make a tunnel, you have

to blast dynamite through rocks and dirt and stuff. And the prison people were like, blow that up. Could you imagine? Just some gives you dynamite. Go blow that up. Good luck. So what I'm saying is it was dangerous. The prisoners worked all day, all night doing jobs like this. And if they were caught, like,

quote, unquote, slacking, or the guards believed that they weren't working hard enough, a lot of the times they would get punished. One of the prisons that was working their inmates to the bone was that prison parchment farm. It opened in 1901 and it was humongous. Look, it had over like 20,000 acres of land. And on the land itself, there were three separate farms that the inmates would work on. Prison officials were making some serious money off of this whole little scheme they were doing.

And by 1918, prisons like Parchment Farm were earning $800 per inmate for their work. Yeah, and today's money, like the calculations, that means the prison would make like $17 million per year from all of this convict labor. I mean, that's a lot of money, right? Yeah. So I mean, at this point, Parchment Farm made it look like slavery had never been abolished in the first place.

Because parchment farm loved saving money, instead of hiring prison guards to manage the work, they decided it would be a good idea to put the most violent prisoners in charge of everyone else. They're like, yeah, that's going to be great. These prisoners, they were called trustees and they were given guns and permission to keep the other prisoners in line. I'm giggling because it's like, that's gonna go well. Sure, right? I don't know. Look, I don't know who was paying off the press, but like they seem to be doing a great job because no one really knew what was going on at this place. In fact, there were even articles in the paper

about like how great life was at parchment farm. Yeah, a literal quote from a New York Times article in 1911 said, quote, the pride of Mississippi, however, is the parchment. Ancences have been known of when black people were turned out of the penitentiary, given a new suit, and $10 in money, they would not want to leave and would inquire if there was not some

way by which they could stay there. Wow! Everyone just wanted to stay allegedly. They were begging! Well, that's what parchment was saying. You know, okay, sure. In reality, the inmates were being worked to death for profit. So prisons like parchment had created a problem for themselves.

They had a profitable workforce, but working your prisoners to death wasn't good for business, right? So they got to think in like, hey, you guys, how do we motivate the inmates without having to pay them? And that's when whoever had this major light bulb moment, they realized the one thing missing from these men's lives, one thing that would for sure motivate them to work harder, something that makes the world go round. Hi, Frances, popping in here really quick

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and click get started. Then use our code dark history at sign up. And you'll get your first visit for only $5. Woo! Big thank you to apostrophe for partnering with me on today's episode. Now let's get back to today's story. So prison officials, they figured the prisoners, they might work even harder,

or like make the prison more profit, if they had something to motivate them. You know, so they decide to bribe the prisoners with sex. Woo! So that's when prison officials brought in sex workers literally by the truckload, like they were in the beds of their trucks, and they would do this every Sunday. And the way that they'd earn a visit with these sex workers was to work really hard, you

know, during the day. And then one of the prison guards would vouch for them and be like, yeah, he deserves it, let him get laid. But the sex bride wasn't for all of the prisoners. I mean, research showed that they were specifically for black prisoners because the prison officials believed that the black inmates had a, quote, greater sexual need than the white inmates.

Yeah, I was like, okay, okay. And what parchment was doing with the sex workers, definitely, it wasn't legal, you know? So they needed to cover their asses. So prison officials would say that the sex workers were actually the inmates' wives, loophole. Now, they weren't just getting sex workers behind like the bars and letting prisoners go at it.

Prison officials had the inmates build these little houses out of scrap metal and then finished it off with like a coat of red paint. I know, why red? We don't know. But this became known as the red houses. So in the early days at parchment, like these visits would be pretty like quick and dirty,

you know? But as the concept of rewarding prisoners with sex became more popular, the inmates' actual wives were being like allowed in. And more privacy was given to married couples during visitation time. So it was getting better. In the beginning, each conjugal room was separate from one another and private, which was a huge change for, you know, the inmates. They were used to like being under constant surveillance and all had roommates. So this was refreshing new in prison.

Men are stripped, searched in. They have to ask permission for like any movement or activity or like just going to the bathroom. So having privacy was major. So it was nice because when the prisoners were visited by their significant other, they were able to act like, you know, more like they did in the outside world. They felt normal again.

And most importantly, like these men started to remember the life they had waiting for them at home. And you know, they wanna focus on getting released. Prison officials claim that this system worked because their profits were up, which was all of the proof they needed. Plus, prisoners were happy to work their ass off for like a piece of ass, right?

It was a win-win, hello. This whole plan was so profitable, other prisons started to copy it. They brought this intimate visitation model to their own prisons. And by the 1930s, there were like no more secret truckloads of sex workers. All conjugal visits were now for spouses only, which hence the name conjugal visit. Now, when we hear the word conjugal, I think a lot of us just think of sex, but literally, conjugal means related to marriage and married couples, that's definition.

So at this point of our conjugal visit journey, the only people benefiting from conjugal visits were men. Boo, I know. Female prisoners, they weren't allowed to participate at all. Their thought was that women, they get pregnant, and then they want to be able to do any of their prison work, and then the prisons won't be able to make money, therefore nothing for women.

In other words, the prison didn't get anything out of making women happy, so jokes on us. So, conical visits for women prisoners were completely banned. So boring. By 1945, parchment, they started offering extended furloughs. Now, this would allow temporary breaks from being in prison, and inmates were given permission to go home and stay with their families. I've done a couple of murder mysteries in different countries where they do this still, and I was like shocked, because I had never heard of this before.

Because we don't do this anymore, right? I don't know, I'll circle back. But look, these furloughs were only available to prisoners who had proven to be like, trustworthy and committed to bettering themselves, right? I mean, that makes sense. You don't want to send out the psychos. So remember the inmates who are basically prison guards, the trustees? Well, they were even allowed a 10-day period of leave for prison for the Christmas holiday.

I guess there was like less work needed on the farm at that time of year, so they're like, have fun, tell mom hi. On top of that, the trustees were such an important part of the prison's program. They needed to be kept happy. If all of this was sounding too good to be true, you're right. Prisons weren't just letting prisoners see their partners and families because like, they wanted to do something nice for them. Another reason why conjugal visits started to expand is because at this time in the 1940s and the 50s,

there was a big fear of what some people saw as a growing problem in America, homosexuality. These guys, they're trying to murder us. America was afraid of gay. And prison officials believe that like if they did not supply conjugal visits, male prisoners would instead start having sex with each other. Oh shit, I know. I mean, before 1962, gay sex was a felony in every state, so people saw these men having

sex with each other as one problem. Homosexuality is taking over. And like to them, the fear was, once you go gay, I mean, it never goes away. So this is a huge part of why prisons were so invested in using the Conch School visit program, you know, because they wanted to make sure that the inmates were f***ing in the... In 1974, inmates were finally able to get visits from their whole family. Usually on Sundays, and they were given like four hours to have a picnic

with their wives and children. And some prisoners even constructed like swings and slides for the kids to play on during during their picnics. That's cute! The prisons started allowing family visits that could last up to three days instead of for just a few hours. There were even apartments built on the prison grounds, so family visits could take place in like, you know, a place of privacy. And around one third of the prison population in America could earn access to the program by once again, having good behavior.

Something that I think speaks to the whole conjugal visit practice is how prisoners reportedly spent most of their visit time like picnicking with their family and just having quality time with them. Like it's, it wasn't just about sex or the physical need. They just wanted to feel maybe normal for a second to be with the people that they love

and just have normal conversations, right? Like shit. And prisoners themselves claimed that the main positive effect of the conjugal and family visits was to prevent their marriages from breaking up. And then conjugal visits, they have a mic drop moment. Studies started to come out saying that conjugal visits reduce the amount of rape and other violent assaults in prison.

So not only were they good for the prisoner's emotional well-being, but they were also proven to prevent prison violence. Who would have thought? Wow, being treated like a human actually has a positive effect? What the American Journal of Criminal Justice will they expose a major smoking gun? They came out proving that conical visits do so much more than than anyone thinks. From 2004 to 2006, a study showed that there were 400 percent. that there were 400% more incidents of sexual violence in prisons that do not have conjugal visits versus ones that do.

Bitch. What? Yeah. And I mean, I think to everybody, it kind of makes sense that if they would just allow conjugal visits, there would be less sexual violence in prisons, right? And with this knowledge that the researchers have gained, you would think that this would be kind of like a bigger deal because rape and violent assault is a very huge problem in prisons. In 2003, the Prison Rape Elimination Act, they claimed that the number of inmates who experienced prison rape in just the 20 years between 1983 and 2003

was over one million. There's a lot, right? Oh, this was an interesting fact though. In 2008, the US was the first country in history to count more rapes for men than for women. Bitch, that blew my mind. I was like, holy fuck fuck they're kind of right so conjugal visits they seem to have a positive effect within the prisons but

when people are doing so well like this seems to upset others you know happy inmates how dare they so people start looking for like any reason to be upset and get this whole thing to just come to an end. Have you ever wondered why laundry detergent comes in those huge plastic jugs? Jugs. They're just so inconvenient and messy and there's gooey detergent everywhere.

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who had his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. And while he was there, he studied prison rehabilitation. He did this study and he published it and it was called What Works. He wrote this because Robert himself, he was arrested in the 1960s for being a civil right activist. And guess where he served at parchment. During his stay at parchment,

Robert got a firsthand look like into the American prison system. Robert was trying to answer the question, what works when it comes to prison rehabilitation? And I guess in his study, when he answered the question, what works, it was nothing, nothing works. I guess people interpreted his book to mean that like no correctional treatments,

positive or negative had any impact on the prisoners changing their ways and staying out of prison. So why bother? What's the point? And even if you gave them like visitor privileges or maybe you you know motivated them with snacks for good behavior, overall it didn't matter because they would still go out, do more crimes, and come back to prison if that was in their heart, you know? That was everyone's takeaway. In prison officials loved this because like all of those, all of those perks, they had cost money.

So this guy says like, now if it works, let's cut costs and get rid of them. So this little study, it ended up doing a lot of, especially because crime was on the rise at the time, and politicians were using this report to justify cutting budgets for prisons all across the board. And on top of that, for some sick reasons, gave prison officials permission to treat the prisoners without humanity, all because of a study. And after all, according to Robert, I mean, it didn't matter anyways, right?

So this is really the villain origin story for why America's prison system is more brutal than most other developed countries. So back in the good old days, conical visits were allowed in 17 different states. I mean, even some of them evolved over time and started allowing gay couples to participate in the program, specifically in California.

But today, only four, yes, four states have any sort of conjugal visit program. So California, Connecticut, Washington, and New York. And most of the programs that do exist in the United States are reserved for prisoners who have like shown again good behavior or live under minimum to medium security. You can even be denied consul visits if you are convicted of violent crimes, you know, crimes against like a minor or a member of your family. And in most cases, if you are serving

a life sentence, you are automatically denied, which personally, I feel like they're probably the ones who need a most, right? They're in there for life. At least give them a pocket. There's funding for that. And in Connecticut, here's a strange thing. In order to participate in their extended family visit program, which is their name for conjugal visit, there needs to be a child present,

which when you think about it, it's kind of hard to like conjugate when your kid is there just watching. Or maybe you don't care, and you just, eh. So without conjugal visits, couples are expected to keep their relationships alive in just like public visiting rooms. And the only physical contact they are allowed is like a two-second hug.

Yeah. So many people like choose to write letters and make phone calls on top of that, but lots of people just can't make it work under these circumstances and end up breaking up. Now this mainly only applies to state prisons. Not mainly what I've been talking about up into this point. So what about federal prisons? Well, it's actually a short story because conjugal visits are not permitted in any federal prison. And as of October of 2023,

there are 158,000 inmates in federal lockup, and none of them can relieve themselves and get conjiggy with it. I mean, in some cases, like federal guards will allow a handshake, a hug, or a kiss, you know, at the beginning of a visit, or maybe the end, and it's like, wow, thanks. But even if like all you can get is a two-second hug, at least there's still regular visitation rights, right? Not so much. Because some prisons have started ending in person visitation altogether, like Louisiana. Yeah, and 2017 Tiffany Burns, a Louisiana resident,

she had a boyfriend named Krishan Brown and Krishan was serving time in prison about like an hour away from her. So Tiffany would, you know, make her phone calls to Krishan from the prison, and then I'll talk about that about once a month, she would visit him in person. So one day on her way out,

she was given a pamphlet like by a guard. She's like, what is that? And it explained that in-person visits were ending and would be replaced by video calls. In these video calls, they were going to cost 12.99 per 20 minutes of call time. This was 2017, so it was like, actually, it was, you know, COVID wasn't even saying.

So they were ahead of their game, I guess. Well, visitation access was already like a problem in 2017. It had only gotten worse in the years after COVID. As the virus was spreading back in 2020, visitation just ended because obviously, it looked like the risk and the social distancing measures, X, Y, and Z, deep-bloop loop. There are prisons that have brought back visitation rights, but it's changed like a lot.

It's become very restricted in terms of like who could be seen, when, and where. And just like with conjugal visits, like prisons have said that the reason for ending in-person visitations is because of safety concerns. Which I know, it just sounds fake. You know, I'm like, okay. So, you know, why would prisons want to get rid of visitations? Especially if they've been proven to do so much good.

Don't you want to have like, I don't know. Don't they want that? No? All right. Today, like many prisons in't know, don't they want that? No? All right. Today like many prisons in the US, especially private prisons, are only money focused. That's all they care about, okay? And apparently the prison phone system alone makes $1.2 billion a year.

So they're gonna push to how do you use that phone? Cause in-person visits, honey, they're free. We don't like that. I did the math and we don't like free. Some prisons in the United States are still run as a for profit business, meaning they are in the business of making money after the prisoners.

I mean, they don't care about the well-being of the inmates. Come on, they don't care about making them better people who never end up coming back to prison. They don't care shit, because in the end, to them, more prisoners means more profits. They're not gonna treat them like human beings. We're not gonna try and help them stay calm and not be sexually assaulted in prison.

So, they're not gonna help them at all, it's just sad. It's a human rights thing, it's a violation. Come on, they're people. Prisoners can like charge crazy fees, right? Like for phone calls, for video calls, and this might be the only way to contact a loved one for them, right? And again, like, conjugal visits,

they don't turn a profit, so they've been removed. Video call systems, like the one Tiffany was told to switch to are now the only option for visitation in many of the US prisons. And just like any video we need technology, obviously it's not perfect, right? Glitches, delays, and more importantly, it's just not the same as seeing your loved one in person.

So most US prisons still have not brought back conjugal visits even after like the COVID restrictions were lifted. There are claims of like safety concerns, especially for visitors coming to see violent offenders, even though instances of violence between visitors and inmates are extremely rare. Even though conjugal visits started in the United States, it's been implemented all over the world. I'm talking Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, the list goes on, you can f*** world wide, but not here. So weird, you know, so all that allow some version of controversial events and there are like some

prisons in Mexico who even allow their wives to live with them. Yeah, so the wives can like move in, live with some inmates in the prison facility. I know. I was like, I don't know if that's goals, wifey goals or not, but like I'm in prison too, I don't know, but go for her, you know, good for Mexico. So the United Nations has called for prisons everywhere to give visitation rights to all prisoners. They believe that it should just be the norm, and thankfully there are some nations who are listening.

For example, in Brazil, prisons allow conjugal visits weekly, and they even allow conjugal visits between inmates at nearby prisons. So if there's like a female prison in the neighborhood, they can give the, I know, it's fun. They can kind of give the inmates like a chance to date essentially. And this got me thinking, you know, like that would be a great dating show. This inmate and that inmate, we get to know them, get their backstory, we fall in love with them, they meet up, and we're like, oh my God, yay, like I hope she ends up with him.

Amen. So in Kenya, prison officials, they started conjugal visits as a way of stopping HIV from spreading in their prisons. And when do you going to know it? Once they started giving their inmates conjugal visits, the HIV infection rates had dropped.

And the prisoners had way more success with rehabilitation. Okay, look, if you're going to get arrested anywhere, do it in Sweden because they have luxury jails and stuff, prisons and all that. We swear, because it's sweet and the inmates are more of what we would recognize as a group home facility. And here they have everything. They get to learn to cook. There's playgrounds for inmates, children to play on when they come to visit. And they actually just focus on treating their prisoners like real people with like real

psychological needs. I mean, just what an idea they have over there. Now for all of those places, I just mentioned, they see conjugal visits as a fundamental right that cannot and should not be taken away from prisoners. Preach, European prisons, they actually believe in maximum contact, meaning maximum contact when it comes to visitation because it's like shown to help rehabilitate prisoners. You know, it gives them a reason to change their behavior and get out for good, which is what they want. Now, what's funny, not like funny, like, ha ha, but like funny in a dark way. Is remember that guy, Robert Martinston,

the guy who wrote that a study on prison reform, like not working. Well, you see, it was actually just a bigel misunderstanding. Oops, Robert, he actually meant something completely different when he said nothing works. Robert was arguing for like getting rid of the prison system altogether, and arguing that the time for reform was over because prisons as a whole were no longer working and should be torn down. That's why he met, and it seemed to be overlooked. Nobody read that part, I guess.

So Robert Swaylittle anti-Prison when a Festo was just misinterpreted. His tagline, nothing works, became so popular that people ignored what he was actually trying to say. So instead of influencing the people to end the prison systems, it actually convinced many politicians So instead of influencing the people to end the prison systems, it actually convinced many politicians to go the total opposite direction

and push for the death penalty. Yeah, big oops. It seems like they're thinking was that if prisoners can't be reformed, nothing works, then let's just remove them from society by put them down. So many successful programs, like not just conical visits, were discontinued, defunded, everything. And because of this private prisons, like the ones in the US were giving free reign

to treat their prisoners however they wanted. And the little rehabilitation they were doing was considered just kind of useless. So instead of things like you know other prisons would have like therapy counseling, job training, you know educational classes, prisoners were just put to work, which is sad because like the average reading level for prisoners is about second grade. And prison education has actually been proven to have a huge impact on whether or not former inmates are able to secure jobs after

they're done serving their time, you know. Without rehabilitation efforts like reading classes or job training, prisoners are more likely to become lifelong inmates. Sadly, in 1980, Robert jumped out the window of his ninth floor Manhattan apartment to his death. Robert wanted to end prison because of all of the flaws and he had good intentions and instead his study led to them becoming way worse. So the good news is that four states still allow conical visits and for the people who are able to participate in the program It's nice that they've had like a really positive impact back in 2014

Maiysha Paul was able to see her husband Marcelo Paul for a conjugal visit once a month at this time He was at San Quentin State Prison in California and And Marcelo, he qualified for the program because he wasn't like serving time for a sexual violent crime or anything, but his sentence was 10 years long. So he got to do things. So myisha, she ended up giving an interview about the whole process.

She was about five years into her husband's sentence and she just kind of felt like she was a pro at this visitation process. And in the interview, she talks about how she would always come like dressed in men's sweats because like the prison guards would make her change out of anything tight-fitting or just straight up like say, go home because she didn't have anything else to wear.

And then after that, Misha would go through the middle detector and they would just search her bag. And then she is like allowed into a go through the middle detector and they would search her bag. And then she is allowed into a room where she could pick out puzzles and games, and even some movies for her to, for her and more sell out to enjoy. In my mind, when I think of a visual, like a conjugal visit, I kind of think about one hour, and there's just

a room with a mattress, which is nothing like that. That's just me being nasty. It's actually a lot sweeter as San Quentin. Maisha and Marcello, they could just spend 48 hours in a two bedroom apartment on the prison grounds. And like, she brings food for them to cook and they can spend their time watching movies, playing games, hanging out, and just getting some alone time.

In this apartment, there's even like a baby crib because some couples will bring, you know, the kids, for the whole weekend. Misha says that for her, conjugal visits, they're not really about sex. It's about quote, the smaller, quieter things, like waking up together and going, I was like, oh, that's so sweet, you know?

Yeah, it is about that. It seems like conjugal visits have always had some strings attached. It's never something nice that they do for inmates because God for bid, you know, treat them like human beings, you know, I think the status part, not even the craziest of the status part is literally that hundreds of thousands of inmates, they don't have access to conjugal visits, even though they are proven, okay, many studies have been done to prove in, to be beneficial,

to not just them, but all of society. According to a study from the American Journal of Criminal Justice, conical visits are said to strengthen marriages that are probably hanging on by a thread, increase inmates' chances for having a successful life after prison, and fight back against a terrible effects of something called prisonization,

which are behaviors, habits, little things, people pick up or learn in prison in order to survive. And then they carry that out there when the real world is like, what are you doing? You know, you think it would be that the whole point of prison would be to rehabilitate people, you know, you think it would be that the whole point of prison would be to rehabilitate people, you know, so they could reenter society. You would hope that's what a prison is for, but it's really not. So yeah, cultural visits are just way more complicated than I expected.

And personally, for me, what I know this episode seems random, conjugal visits, right? I watched this documentary on YouTube called Turn Out and it talked about what a big problem prison rape is. And I had, I had no idea, I never heard of this, right? And that's really what kind of led me into the direction of this episode because nobody talks about how big of a problem sexual abuse that is going on in prisons,

in male, men prisons, and how nobody's looking at it. And it's a major problem, and everyone should be looking at it, at least I think, right? And on top of that, if constable visits can stop that, why is that not for everybody? Period, thank you, right? Hello, let the people have sex.

Well, you guys, thanks for listening. I hope you learned something. I don't know. Let me know your thoughts, opinions, anything down below in the comment section or anywhere. And tune in next week, because we'll be covering a topic that I personally think also doesn't get brought up enough.

There are stories that take us to the front lines of war, in Paris, Italy, and even India. The characters in this story not only protected thousands of soldiers from death, but also brought comfort to people to a link with, you know, the PTSD of that all. Next week, we'll be talking about war animals. Yeah, oh my god. Let me tell you get that for again tissue box ready because Oh, touchy go. You're gonna need it. Hi, you can also join me over on my YouTube

where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast, airs. And while you're there, you can also catch murder, mystery and makeup. I'd love to hear your guys' reactions to today's story. So make sure to use the hashtag dark history over on social media so I can follow along. I love reading your comments.

So now, let's read a couple of comments that you guys left me. Tirebiter? Okay, Tirebiter, I'm already concerned. 1680 commented, if dark history were made into a movie, Steve Buscemi should be the star. His family has a dark history

so he could write the script himself. I hope she's playing me. I don't know. I don't know who that guy is, but why are you biting tires? Because I don't know, like why are you doing that? And I hope you're okay.

Get your teeth checked on. Don't inhale too much because what's that called? That rubber? Sorry, toxic. it can kill you. The more you know. Jesse, 27, James, 89. Jesse James.

Had a special request for me. I love Bailey's voice. Can you do a song cover sometime? Thank you. Actually, I've been working on my Shakira. Here I go. Oh, Bailey, when you talk like that, oh my god, what I'm going to go about. You're all gone. Let me know. Do I nail it?

No, okay great. Jensen, Victoria left us an episode suggestion saying, Bailey exclamation, why are you yelling? I dare you to do a dark history on circumcision. I can see that I would have my work cut out for me. You get it? No, I like that idea. Actually, I think that's super interesting. Good for you. Great job.

Okay, bye. Dark History is an audio boom of original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Junior McNeely from Three Arts, Kevin Grush, and Matt N. Lowe from Made in Network. Writers, Joey Skluzo, Katie Burris, Allison Peloboz, and me, Bailey Sarian, production lead, Brian Jaggers,

research provided by Zander Elmore, Rodney Smith, and Colleen Smith. A special thank you to our experts, Roe and Adam Clauson. A special thank you to Jessica Charles, and I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. I hope you have a good day and you make good choices, right? I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye! you