John: what if one of us went to prison?

We talk to John J. Lennon, a self-taught writer who has been incarcerated at Sing Sing Prison for 24 years. John has been married twice to women he fell in love with through handwritten letters. He tells us what conjugal visits are like, who gets access to them, and their surprising origin. At the end of the episode, Maxson and Emily ask each other if they’d stay in a relationship if one of them went to prison.

If you liked what John had to say, you can get more information on his new book, The Tragedy of True Crime, here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

One benefit if Max ever gets jammed up with the law, if you guys have that contract before hand you could come see him in the slammer. Mm-hmm. That'll be a real testament to your commitment, I suppose.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Welcome to Should We Get Married.

SPEAKER_05 0:19

My name is Emily Carter. My name is Maxon Jurecki. And in this podcast, we're trying to figure out if we should get legally married to each other.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Or stay dating forever.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

What's up with people playing? It's so cool these days.

SPEAKER_05 0:36

Today's guest is John J. Lennon, an incarcerated journalist at Sing Sing Prison in New York. We talked to him about falling in love while in prison, getting married, and what conjugal visits are like.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_05 0:50

Maxon, how did we come to find John?

SPEAKER_03 0:53

We have a friend named Alex Duran who works in criminal justice. He's unbelievable, incredible filmmaker, and activist. And he listened to our podcast and he said, Hey, you guys have to talk to John. He's a journalist, writer. He's incarcerated, and he's been married twice while in prison. So it's a really interesting perspective to get.

SPEAKER_05 1:12

Yeah. Now Maxon and I read his Esquire article, which is super worth reading and was really helpful context ahead of our conversation with him.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Yeah. That article, by the way, is called Sex, Love, and Marriage Behind Bars.

SPEAKER_05 1:24

Yeah. John has been married twice to Reina and Danieli. He was not married before being incarcerated. Although these are people that he met while he was there, got to know while he was there, and got married to while he was there.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

And by the way, got to know while he was there means John J. Lennon met people through a website and then exchanged a series of letters and they fell in love over time and then they got married. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:47

And these marriages allowed for him to unlock the conjugal visit rites, so family family visitation program. But we got to hear about what those visits are, what kind of freedoms you're allowed at this moment in time, and how many hoops people jump through and relationships people strike up to have that option.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

Aaron Powell We also learned that this program, which does so much good for people now, actually has a really complicated, gnarly history that's rooted in racism and homophobia, and has evolved into something that really does seem to be helping so many people keep hope and really strive to do well and rehabilitate themselves.

SPEAKER_05 2:30

Obviously, we've like circled that idea a bunch and we've talked about it through the lens of immigration and some financial rights and protections. But this was like a pretty clear like if not for marriage, you are not to have conjugal visits or family visitation in this very specific way. And it is humbling and illuminating to talk to people who are making choices with much less freedom. Yeah. We are literally talking to John from inside prison at Sing Sing. So one note on the audio quality. As you can imagine, it is not the best, but we hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Yeah, it was really great to speak with him. Thank you, John, and thanks, Alex, for putting us together.

SPEAKER_05 3:09

And with that, here's our interview with John J. Lennon.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Hey, John, good to meet you, man. Yeah, I likewise. We're talking to John J. Lennon, and we wanted to speak with him after we read some of his writings, specifically this unbelievable Esquire article where he details marriage in prison, the rights it affords you. So we really wanted to speak with you and ask you questions and get your advice on what we should do. All right, I love it. Yeah, let's jump in. Where are you located right now in SingSync?

SPEAKER_02 3:42

So I'm in my cell and looking at the river view of Sing Sing, which is you know the notorious prison of the river in New York City.

SPEAKER_05 3:52

And will you tell us a little bit more about your journalism career and what kind of topics you write about?

SPEAKER_02 3:56

I would say I'm a personal journalist. You know, I came to Bridge with Anthony Education, so I wasn't still at journalist. Unfortunately, I was a drug dealer. Yeah, guilt man, and I got 28 years to life and guilty and take full responsibility along the way. I joined a uh creative writing workshop in Attica out west in New York. And I was fortunate to sort of learn learn how to write in a creative writing workshop. I kind of kind of an autodidact, kind of taught myself and through you know reverse engineering, like these magazines, and I thought I could do it. And you know, I kind of got lucky. My first piece is published in the Atlantic. And the kind of pieces that I write are just about the world around me. Sometimes I do sort of deep reported pieces and sort of go after the administration, but sometimes it's just cooler to write about cultural lifestyle pieces. And that's what I really started doing fast. And how how old were you when you when you got sentenced? I was 24 when I got locked up. So I was 27 when I finally was found guilty. And then I came up stage prison at 27. So I'm like 48 now. I've been in prison 24 years. And do you have a release date? I go see a pro board in three years. Yeah. So I have 28 years of life. There's no good time in New York. Like you can you can win like the fucking pullets are like it won't give you a day off. So you gotta like do your time.

SPEAKER_05 5:32

All right, let's talk about marriage. John, you've been married twice. Uh, will you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Sure. So I I I knew about conjugals when I was sort of, you know, heading upstate. You know, I was living the fast life. I was a young, young guy when I came in and I wasn't married and I didn't have any kids. And but I kind of like envied the guys that were going out like on these trailers every couple of years. And when I say trailer is like these module homes that are sort of like on the on the compound. But you know, I wanted to find somebody to build a relationship with. And my mom mentioned she put an ad online for me. And they have these like ads, like writerprisoner.com. It was kind of like humbling and lame at the time to do that, but I felt, but I was like, well shit, like maybe, you know, well, dude.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

Maybe somebody will write me. And they did it. I mean, online dating has completely exploded in the last 10 years, and like that's how Emily and I met, basically. Everyone's meeting everyone online. You know, it's not necessarily a website, it's like an app, but it's all the same thing. It's just you know, meeting people on the internet.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Yeah, and I I will say, like, that was kind of like always on my mind, like which is kind of different from you and Emily's sort of like situation, right? You don't need that contract to be internet with your partner. It's just, you know, it was a different sort of dilemma for me where I looked at marriage differently.

SPEAKER_05 6:58

Um, I want to go back a little bit just so we can like double-click on what this is exactly. Can you tell us about the experience of family visitation? Like, what does the space look like? How long do you have? What happens?

SPEAKER_03 7:10

Yeah. A huge part of why we're talking today is because you cannot visit with someone. You cannot have a family visitation experience. You can't have your, you know, your partner come to the prison and you can't like spend the night with them or have like a meal with them in your own little area. You can't have that unless you are legally married. And that's a huge driver for you getting married both of the times you've been married.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

So the compound is like these modular homes within the walls of the prison. Things like four of them, and then you know, it's kind of like a little apartment. There's a kitchen, there's a bathrooms, you get rooms with house, and TV, sometimes they give you a PlayStation for the kids. I mean, it's it's a cool live. Your visitor on the outside, they're getting processed on the outside, coming in the facility, and they leave you on the compound for 40 hours if you're through life. And there's other people, there's like barbecue pits, and you come out and you mingle with the others, and it's really, you know, it's it's a it's a taste of freedom. It's something that I was like incredibly grateful for to have, you know.

SPEAKER_05 8:17

The people that are allowed to spend these 40 hours with you are your spouse, so either your husband or your wife, and your parents and kids.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Like, is it just core family or so you could go with like your your direct family and like your mother could bring your kids if you if you had kids or whatever, but you have to be married to the to your partner. And you are allowed to get married while you're in prison, or you know, if you're you're married from from from before that you don't have to go through the process. Um it's interesting, you know, there's a history to this. Like it's they didn't have to be married back then, but they gave it to like the the prisoners, the black prisoners who picked out in the field, and they would allow them to have sex with like prostitutes. So they work back. It was just a total racist sort of like historical, like history's conjugals. And that's over to like the 60s, they started like sort of like states are adopting this to deter homosexuality, which is another sort of default sort of thing. Like, if you give them conjugals and they'll marry and have sex, like we won't be like fucking each other. Now, look, you know what I mean. Like that in itself is offensive, but I'm not saying that that doesn't happen. I would say it's it's less of a culture in New York than it is in other prisons. Like that's never happened to me, thankfully.

SPEAKER_05 9:37

Yeah, I just want I want to take a second on the topic of like this started as a program to deter homosexuality in prison. Like, similar to marriage, like if we trace these things back, it's like completely crazy. Like the history of marriage is trading women as property, creating family ties between like landowners, sharing livestock. Like we live in this modern world and we like look at the programs and things around us, and we often don't consider like where they come from, and they do still, I don't know, it matters to think about and remember.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Yeah, it does. What it does in New York is it's an incentive for us to sort of like be well. And and we need privileges.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

So then you were like, okay, I I've got to get in order for me to have a physical relationship with someone, I need to get married. That's that was the thought process.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

I think I I I needed to find somebody that that that I could fall in love with, and I think that that was important too. It wasn't it wasn't just like it wasn't it wasn't even true, it is.

SPEAKER_05 10:40

I'm curious, Raina and Daniele, right? Yes. What do you think drew them to you?

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Like I'm writing love letters with Rainer. I'm writing love letters with Danielle, like expressive, and I think they desire that or they appreciated that.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

Yeah, you're like a captive audience, and I feel like so many people they're like heartbroken that they're not getting someone's full attention, you know, in a relationship, whether you know they're worried that someone's gonna cheat, or you're worried that someone's not gonna write you back, or like text back promptly, or you know, write you a letter back. And it's like kind of like crazy romantic where you're like you guys are writing at times handwritten letters to each other in addition to email and you know other other communication. Like, have you have you written some letters physically?

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Well, yeah, you know, in terms of letters, you're just handwritten letters, and you know, there's a cool kind of vibe to that, you know, and there's an infinite, you know, nostalgic kind of vibe to that. Just to sort of put a timeline on this and the chronology of my relationships. Yeah, I married Brina in 2000, I think, 13. Didn't last long. We were divorced by 2015. I was like remarrying Danielle in 2016, and then we stayed together until I think 2021. I think life takes its course, and uh you came. I'm curious, are you single right now?

SPEAKER_04 12:04

I am.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Yeah, I I got divorced from Danielle a couple of years ago, a few years ago. I had I started having like these weird anxiety attacks when she would come up, like because you have to go through this protocol of like fishing in a cup while the guard watches, and then like the like two days before, and then the day of you got to fish in the cup again. It was just like I all of a sudden I just couldn't piss the cup. Like a guard, I started having this like this wild anxiety. Like if you can't do it, like like we'll just cancel your visit. And it happened twice. So that wasn't fun first. You all cheered up to go hang out with me, and then like I can't push in the cup, you know. And wow, yeah, it's like a totally other kind of performance anxiety.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

I've never even thought of that kind of performance anxiety.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Yeah, I mean, thank God I didn't have the other issue with the performance, which is you know, that's a legitimate like problem, too. And that's super humbling. I can't I didn't even make it to the date because I had not being able to push in the cup. So that sucked. I mean, it was just I think it was just the the relationship itself. Yeah, just I I I had to cut it off. I'm sure I could have done a lot of things differently. I'm still like super grateful for like all the sacrifices.

SPEAKER_03 13:13

Brandon and Danielle made are you like interested and open to dating between now and your parole hearing? Not really.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

You know, you can never sort of like, you know, kind of like just shut down any possibilities of um or whatever, but I just like take it out. Like look have try to like do that like in society.

SPEAKER_05 13:36

How do you feel about the visitation being limited to someone you're married to? Like, do you think that should be offered to a a girlfriend or boyfriend?

SPEAKER_02 13:44

I mean, I do think you know, in the culture right now, like I don't I don't know how like chic it is to sort of be married, like, and I think that's what you guys are sort of like going through too, right? Like, I don't know. It's getting me too because I'm going out into to your world soon. And you know, like how do you guys how do you guys feel about it? I don't know. Do you romanticize marriage family or or like how do you feel about it, Max?

SPEAKER_05 14:11

I feel mixed. I feel it is traditional in some ways that I really like. It's nice to know that this is something that my great-grandparents did, my great-great-grandparents, like almost everyone in my family history has been married. So I think it's a nice way to honor my love for Maxine. In other ways, it just feels kind of outdated and unnecessary. I I love Maxine. I don't need people to know that he's my husband. I don't need to wear a ring to prove that to the world. But I think the more we learn, there are just some like very real rights and opportunities that it allows us and some freedoms in our life. Like, you know, this, it offered you intimacy and love and care that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise. And there's some just like financial, practical, logistical, political things that it offers people that are really hard to mimic without it.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

One benefit if if Max never gets jammed up with the law, if you guys have that have that contract beforehand, you could come see him in the slammer. That would be a real testament to your commitment, I suppose. Would you do that?

SPEAKER_03 15:15

I think you guys are serious. Emily, if I I went to jail, and how would you think about that? And would being married to me influence you to stick it out or stick it out longer?

SPEAKER_05 15:26

I mean, it's definitely compelling to know that I could come see you and we could talk more. And I guess I would want to know how those visits go and how we're able to figure out our relationship long distance, if you will.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

If I killed someone, would you still want to be married to me or be with me?

SPEAKER_05 15:49

I think I would not want to be with you.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Were you clever? What if he was at a bar one night and it was just got a little crazy, but it was a height, and you know it wasn't intentional, but now he killed somebody and he's devastated about what he did. And he misses you, he loves you, and you guys had something. How would you think about that?

SPEAKER_05 16:14

I would want to be with him through the experience of processing that and figuring out how I'm sure there would be a lot of guilt and shame and confusion and trying to understand himself and what happened and a lot of feelings, and I would want to support him through that. I would find it very painful. And I think I would have to just make some hard decisions about my life and how I want it to look and what the what the cost of this would be to our shared life and my individual life. But I don't think I would like abandon you in this moment emotionally.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

Yeah, it's kind of sad to talk about. But I feel like you would be with me for like two years and then you would leave. Like you'd be with me through helping me understand it and helping and supporting me as I went through this change. But then once things were like stabilized, I honestly kind of feel like you would move on with your life and not invest time into being with me and stuff. Which I I don't even I don't know if that's bad that you would do that. I don't know if it's the right good that you would do that. I kind of have I don't have judgment about that. I think my preference would be that we stay together because I love you so much and I would obviously want to have more contact with you. But I don't know if I would blame you because it's just so logistically tough, and it's not really what you signed up for. You signed up to be with me on the outside, not me on the inside. Isn't that the marriage thing though? Isn't that one of the lines? Like through the case. Yeah, sickness and health, yeah, through love and health, including you know, incarceration. Yeah. That's a really good point. I mean, I'm not sure if that's what you want to sign up for, Emily. You know, like maybe that's part of the reasons why why this marriage thing is a question mark for you or for us and why we're doing this project is you know, oh, like love is condition is unconditional, and I'm not sure that that's true for us. But that would fucking suck for me if you left.

SPEAKER_05 18:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

But it would be like you in the reverse. I I I'm not sure. I I I wanna I wanna give the opposite answer because I think it would be very interesting to be with you. I would still really want to be with you, and I don't think it would be that it would obviously be so hard, but especially if we had visitation, that'd be amazing. I'm curious if you if you would be like heartbroken if I had a girlfriend and also continued to be with you. You're incarcerated and now we're sort of like poly, polyamorous.

SPEAKER_05 18:47

I think that would I would love that for you.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

John, would that make you go crazy if you were on the inside?

SPEAKER_02 18:52

Look, I I I understand what's going on out there now, and I what I I do find it to be like a little bit of a turn on. But then shit, I don't know what the hell I like. You know, I've been in here so long, and uh I guess I gotta figure it out. I mean, you gotta figure out I guess I gotta figure it out. Like, I do get turned on with like these like open relations, these ideas of open relationships, but like I haven't really experienced that.

SPEAKER_05 19:20

I just think there are a lot of a lot of people in Maxon's life that can give him things that I can't. There are friends that go surfing with him. I don't like going surfing. There are friends that like to have spirited, intense discussions about topics. I like having calm, gentle conversations about topics. And if I'm not around to give him love and attention and care, I hope that someone can give that to him because I want him to have everything that he wants.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

What if Emily was in a bar by are you gonna come check her on visits?

SPEAKER_03 19:51

Because, you know, to be fair, like I would. I for sure would. I don't think it would rock me to my core the way that it would. I'm like more I think Emily has a unbelievably strong aversion to violence and brutality. And if I did that, I think she would she'd be really uh moved by that. Whereas I think if Emily did that, I just don't think it would be as emotionally intense for me. Whereas for her, I think if I were to do that, it would be it would be really, really frightening to her and would make her distrust me. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:23

I think we can go to our final question. Knowing what you know about me and Maxon over the course of this conversation, do you think we should get married?

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Well I would say sure.

SPEAKER_05 20:39

A resounding sure.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Yeah. The intriguing part for me was like hearing a part about like Polly stuff and like you know, that seems like a pretty good deal. You know, right? Like that like I never had that, like I never had that deal before. What can hurt? I do think the marriage is like, in my mind, maybe like you're the one though, girl. Like, you know, aside from everything else, like you're my person.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

No, totally. I bet Emily wants me to say to on the interview that she only really wants to be Polly if I if if she's in prison. I think that that's part of the deal, is she's not really suggesting it for like right now. Okay. You want to talk about your book for a second? You want to let the world know anything? We want to give you a platform.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

The tragedy of true crime, four guilty men, and the stories that define us. And I think it's uh pretty intense read, and and uh people want to hear go long. Uh go pick it up. And uh, you know, I just appreciate the time. I love this conversation. I uh you guys are a good couple. Uh you guys would be all right. Thanks.

SPEAKER_05 21:53

Okay, really fun to talk to you.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

Yeah. Really loved meeting you, John. Thanks for spending time with us. Take care, buddy. Bye. So we just finished our interview with John J. Lennon. What was that like for you?

SPEAKER_05 22:20

I found him very interesting, very curious about us, which I loved. I thought getting into what you and I would do in a situation where one of us was in prison was a good thought exercise. I've never gone down that path, and to do it with him felt I don't want to hurt his feelings or say that I would leave you in front of him. That felt kind of complicated.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

Yeah. Totally. But like you probably would. And that's an interesting thing that like ties this back to the project where a lot of people's definition of marriage is through sickness and in health, freedom and incarceration, etc. I don't know if you're down for all of that. I don't know if I'm down for all that.

SPEAKER_05 23:05

I feel we live in this era where it's like marriage to make your life better. Like, yes, there'll be rocky times, but ultimately, like, this person should be amplifying and elevating and improving your life.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Yeah. Yeah. Is it's is marriage supposed to open your life and free you, or is it supposed to close your life and like commit you? And maybe in the commitment there is freedom and expansion.

SPEAKER_05 23:27

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:28

Two other things I found really interesting. One was hearing about the history of these family visitation programs or conjugal visits and how much we can disagree with the history of something, but like benefit from it in this moment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:43

So they talk, he talked about how this visitation program started to quote unquote like prevent homosexuality or the problem of homosexuality in prisons. And then, you know, it's led to what he describes as a really productive program. And similarly, marriage started out in some people's description as a quite misogynistic property transfer of people, passing the woman along from like ownership from the father to ownership to the husband. But it's like marriage is has so many positive things to it as well. But these things that have like a dark history that end up because we're humans and we adopt ourselves. And there are nice things about commitment.

SPEAKER_05 24:24

Yeah. Did this conversation with John give you a pebble in the marriage bucket or the non-marriage bucket?

SPEAKER_03 24:31

Shout out pebbles. Yeah. Hashtag pebble pebble talk. This gave me a pebble in get married. Is it really worth it to like avoid this institution that unlocks some such serious rights? You know, not that I want to ever use these rights, but I don't know. I there's something weird to me about, you know, him having worked so hard to achieve this milestone with someone, and me being like, oh, like, I don't know. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like makes me feel ungrateful.

SPEAKER_05 24:59

I think I feel the same. At the end of the day, there are just some really meaningful benefits. Yeah, I would say. Bucket of marriage for this one for me too. You know? Yeah. If John compels you and you're excited to read more of his work, he has a new book coming out called The Tragedy of True Crime. We will definitely be reading that.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

And you can read along with us. And in our next episode, you'll listen to some of this.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Loop. I lost my income, experienced a major illness, and we were forced to relocate all within the first year of marriage. I wish we'd had the conversations before to truly understand what it means to be in a partnership when things are going wrong.

SPEAKER_03 25:41

Should We Get Married is an original series by Easily Wowed and Bad Cooley Productions. This episode was created by me, Max Ingerecki.

SPEAKER_05 25:50

And me, Emily Carter.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

And our producer, Ramoy Phillip.

SPEAKER_05 25:54

The music is the song Fake Romantic by the band Melt, logo and brand design by Madeline Vogue.

SPEAKER_03 25:59

Sound design and mixing by Ramoy Phillip.

SPEAKER_05 26:02

There are so many of you out there who are asking these exact same questions, and we don't all have to investigate marriage on our own. Subscribe to Should We Get Married and learn with us as we make our decision.