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No Bananas Allowed In Women's Prisons?

OneWingedBird

OneWingedBird

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It's possible this could be a UL i picked up while i was on remand a year or two back, but while being a guest at HMP New Hall, it was frequently claimed by the other inmates that you never got given bananas due to their possible uses for, erm, gratification of orifices other than the one that has teeth.

Come to think of it, i don't recall seeing a banana the whole 5 months i was there either. I asked a guy i know who did some time if they got them in men's prisons, and he said he saw them all the time, though one might imagine there'd be little point banning them for the boys, who probably don't need to use an, erm, ~substitute~ when the ~real thing~ is available.

Anyone shed any light on this? Are bananas actually banned in women's prisons in the UK to prevent them being used as a masturbation aid?
 
I've heard about a different bang-up banana ban.

In this version the skins are suspected of being too easily made into crudely-brewed alcohol.

S'pose you could use'm for both... :shock:
 
Hmm, I always thought that bananas were banned in prisons and some other institutions because the skins could be dried and smoked for a mild hallucinogenic effect?
 
Don't know about prisons but I remember reading some advice for harems in years gone by that cucumbers should always be served sliced. :wince:
 
Quake42 said:
Hmm, I always thought that bananas were banned in prisons and some other institutions because the skins could be dried and smoked for a mild hallucinogenic effect?
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That doesn't work, AFAIK, but was deliberately put out as a bit of a disinformation to keep kids distracted from the real drugs, as it were.
 
I heard that the banana was the forbidden fruit of the Koran, but when I mentioned this on Indymedia I was savaged by a Sheik who said I was talking nonsense.

Anybody know about the banana being forbidden by any religion?
 
H_James said:
Quake42 said:
Hmm, I always thought that bananas were banned in prisons and some other institutions because the skins could be dried and smoked for a mild hallucinogenic effect?
Click to expand...
That doesn't work, AFAIK, but was deliberately put out as a bit of a disinformation to keep kids distracted from the real drugs, as it were.
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Well, during the hippie era there was a lot of talk about 'mellow yellow', i.e. a substance made from baked banana skins.
However, it's possible you're right, as I seem to recall reading something about a guy who tried to recreate this stuff and smoke it, without much success.
Not willing to try it myself, as I'm not a dopehead.
 
That doesn't work, AFAIK, but was deliberately put out as a bit of a disinformation to keep kids distracted from the real drugs, as it were.
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I don't know anyone who ever got a result with that one, but if it was the case, surely they'd be banned in male prisons too?
 
Mythopoeika said:
H_James said:
Quake42 said:
Hmm, I always thought that bananas were banned in prisons and some other institutions because the skins could be dried and smoked for a mild hallucinogenic effect?
Click to expand...
That doesn't work, AFAIK, but was deliberately put out as a bit of a disinformation to keep kids distracted from the real drugs, as it were.
Click to expand...

Well, during the hippie era there was a lot of talk about 'mellow yellow', i.e. a substance made from baked banana skins.
However, it's possible you're right, as I seem to recall reading something about a guy who tried to recreate this stuff and smoke it, without much success.
Not willing to try it myself, as I'm not a dopehead.
Click to expand...

Its along the same lines as nutmeg - you can always meet people who've tried it and it worked but plenty more who arsed around for a long time and nothing happened.

This from Wikipedia:

An urban legend states that the dried skin of the banana fruit is hallucinogenic when smoked. Unlike many such legends, the origin of this one has been traced. It dates back to an article in the underground newspaper Berkeley Barb in March 1967. Donovan's hit single "Mellow Yellow" was released that same month, and for years it was assumed "Mellow Yellow" was the source for this myth. In an October 2005 interview on the National Public Radio program "Fresh Air", Donovan said that it was actually the folk singer Country Joe McDonald who had started the rumor in San Francisco, one week before the release of Donovan's song. The myth was brought to attention once more in the late 1980s, when the satiric punk group The Dead Milkmen released a song concerning the effects of smoking banana peels. Even the FDA investigated.

This legend is not entirely without merit. Bananas are known to contain tryptophan which, when ingested, increases levels of serotonin in the body (the same effect as Prozac). This can lead to various mood altering effects (Leathwood and Pollet, 1982) including a reduction in depression (Sainio et. al., 1996). Xiao et. al. (1998) found that eating just two bananas a day for three days increased levels of serotonin in the blood by 16%. However, there is no mention in the literature of tryptophan having any hallucinogenic effects. It has, in fact, been used to reduce hallucinations in patients with mental disorders (Sainio et. al., 1996). It is also debatable whether smoking tryptophan would be successful as a method of administration.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana#Popular_culture
 
I'm sure I read it was a piece of disinformation spread by the pro-LSD movement to demonstrate the gullibility of the public.
The smoking thing, not the Women's Prison thing.
Ahem.
 
Bananas are full of potassium. I just mention it wondering why they never explode in water.
 
gncxx said:
Bananas are full of potassium. I just mention it wondering why they never explode in water.
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Salt is full of Sodium, but amazingly that doesn't explode in water either. ;)
 
H_James said:
That doesn't work, AFAIK, but was deliberately put out as a bit of a disinformation to keep kids distracted from the real drugs, as it were.
Click to expand...

I heard a FAR different version back in the 1960s - that the disinformation was put forth BY drug-pushers. It introduced young people TO the idea OF smoking dope. So when the bananas failed to deliver a high the pusher could say "don't worry, kid, I'll give you something that WILL."
 
Mythopoeika said:
Not willing to try it myself, as I'm not a dopehead.
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From the evidence I've seen smoking bananas wouldn't make you one. <g>
 
Bananas are such a basic, nutritious and medically-recommended food item that if they were truly banned in womens' prisons, wouldn't we have heard about this fact long, long ago, in civil suits brought against prisons, and not merely as an Urban Legend?
 
Well, the sex-toy angle betrays a rather juvenile conception of female sexuality--they still have fingers, after all, and penentration is less important to women than it is to men (she said obliquely, not wanting to open up a can of worms). The bf's asleep but I'll ask him about it tomorrow; he was one of the first male guards in P4W here. I don't *think* they'd generally be allowed food in their cells, as you'd be amazed at what convicts will try to ferment in order to make homebrew.
 
Well, the sex-toy angle betrays a rather juvenile conception of female sexuality
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Perhaps, but the UL, if it is one, did still come from the inmates at a female prison, so i guess that at least someone had given some thought to what they might do with a banana if they had one...
 
This from the HM Prison Service website:

What visitors can bring prisoners

For security reasons and for the safety of prisoners, there is very little that is allowed to be given to a prisoner by a visitor. This includes food and drink. The Prison Service takes this very seriously and searches are carried out to make sure these rules are followed.

Procedures vary from prison to prison, so as a general rule it is best if the visitor calls the individual prison to find out what is and is not permitted before they spend any money.
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No mention of bananas there but then again no mention of anything, really.
 
Why would it matter if women were using bananas for sexual relief? If bananas are not allowed it must be for a more serious reason than that.
 
escargot1 said:
Why would it matter if women were using bananas for sexual relief? If bananas are not allowed it must be for a more serious reason than that.
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Weapons? :lol:

Thinking about it, some things could be smuggled into a prison, tucked inside the skin of a banana. That's probably the reason.
 
Well, that's the probably reason why, as stated above, you are not really allowed to take anything into prison if you go to visit.

I'd have thought the provision of catering supplies is fairly well overseen though and in any case any number of food stuffs could be used to smuggle things in with the vittals ... or be used as dildos for that matter.

I suspect it is just a UL that they are banned at all. Maybe maybe maybe they are not given out whole as other fruit might be ..... a friend of mine recounted trying to brew some form of alcohol in a tin can on a radiator with bits of fruit (pruno's too posh for the real crims!) once in his cell so it must be possible to get your hands on fruit of some description inside.

For banana crimes see http://www.selfpublishersclub.com/bananasandthelaw.html :D
 
a friend of mine recounted trying to brew some form of alcohol in a tin can on a radiator with bits of fruit (pruno's too posh for the real crims!) once in his cell so it must be possible to get your hands on fruit of some description inside.
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Yeah, we got apples, oranges and (i think) pears. But i never saw a banana.


Why would it matter if women were using bananas for sexual relief?
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Maybe the staff are worried they might unknowingly pick up a 'used' one during cell searches? :shock:
 
Prison staff get exposed to all sorts of bodily fluids (some of them flung at rapid velocity) so a slippery banana would be the least of their worries.
 
escargot1 said:
Why would it matter if women were using bananas for sexual relief?
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I wondered about that also. It would seem the LEAST of a prison's problems.
 
Around a decade ago I desired to mail some radio programs on cassette tapes to a former radio actor in prison in Kentucky, but found this was strictly forbidden. The fear was that drugs could be hidden inside. (I don't see how, if the tape "pie" is intact.)
 
Mind you, fruit can be quite dangerous, not to mention the pointed sticks:
banana.gif


http://www.jumpstation.ca/recroom/comedy/python/banana.html
 
ramonmercado said:
I heard that the banana was the forbidden fruit of the Koran, but when I mentioned this on Indymedia I was savaged by a Sheik who said I was talking nonsense.
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Let's see. The banana is native to the Americas, and thus would have become known to Europe and the Middle East in 1492 at the earliest. The Koran was written in the 700s.
 
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