“Cunts Corner”
‘Cunts Corner’ was the name, given by the women in HMP Holloway, to an area of the visiting hall where women would sit if their visitor did not turn up. The term communicates powerfully how it must have felt sitting there. The expectation and significance of a visitor when serving a prison sentence is immense. When that visitor does not turn up and your surrounded by another 100 women whose visitors have tuned up imagine for a few moments how that would feel ……. ‘Cunts Corner’.
But such feelings of difference, being made ‘other’, outcaste, unwanted, alone, being made ‘less than’, rejected, devalued and judged are not confined to the women who once sat alone in HMP Holloway. Political, Governmental, social, religious, family, professions, work places, educational establishments, schools, indeed all institutions can hold well established ‘Cunts Corners’. They can be recognised, discerned, detected by the kind of statements they make, policies they endorse and laws they ignore. Just a few weeks ago and not for the first time, it was the Anglican church that thought it totally acceptable to make statements affirming the oppression and the devaluing of large sections of society. ‘Cunts Corners’ clearly exist in all areas of life.
‘Cunts Corners’ also exist within the LGBT community and especially within the commercial gay scene. If you look ‘right’, sound ‘right’, wear the ‘right’ clothes’, have the ‘right’ body shape, are the ‘right’ colour, are the ‘right’ age, are the ‘right’ HIV status, go to the ‘right’ places and have the ‘right’ size cock then don’t worry you will never see ‘Cunts Corner’. Fail on any one of these and your heading right there!
‘Cunts Corners’ exist every time a ‘less than’ culture is allowed or ‘less than’ statement is made. Such statements can be made and heard far from home and very close to home. Nobel bishops and dukes may make them, but sometimes it is our friends that make them, our partners and those we loved and respected. It does not matter who makes them for the consequences are the same.
Let me be clear, as I think many fail to realise the full impact of such statements. Every time such statements are made new waves of hatred flood towards people of difference. New waves of bigotry are given permission and new waves of hate crime encouraged. Whoever it is that thinks it possible to make ‘less than’ statements, such arrogant and self-righteous statements banish beautiful, loving, creative souls to the hell of a ‘Cunts Corner’. This in 2025 is happening and it is the shameful reality.
Let me continue to be clear. If you have remained silent in the face of such statements and manifest hatred, then you too have played your part in the creation of such places and the denigration of another.
I was five years working in HMP Holloway. Throughout that time, I witnessed immense compassion for those women who were made to feel ‘less than’. I often witnessed a caring and sharing that I seldom see in many other settings and rarely see in the gay scene. As long any individual is made to be ‘less than’, as long as any individual is relegated to a ‘Cunts Corner’ then it is a reminder there is much to do and much not to be silent about. The next time you witness a ‘Cunts Corner’ in operation, call it out! speak it out! Enough is enough!
Speaking out needs only to be a small effort. But small efforts, as Dorothy Day reminds us can have a massive impact “People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do”.
Br. Stephen Morris fcc
