Shawn Storm Talks Living Without Sex While Behind Bars
Twelve years and 10 months – that’s exactly how long Shawn Storm went without having sex while incarcerated for a now-overturned murder conviction. But as he tells it, it was really mind over matter.
“Yuh haffi just manage,” he shared on The Fix this week. “It’s not case where you can put it pon your mind. Yuh haffi just tek dat off of your mind.”
He further shut down assumptions that he could have simply bribed a correctional officer to get some intimate time.
“No, dem ting deh cya gwaan a Jamaica, yuh mad? If it coulda gwaan, yuh know how much pickney woulda deh a road without father?”
In 2017, then-Security Minister Robert Montague announced the intention to introduce conjugal visits to Jamaica’s correctional institutions. A conjugal visit, illustrated on the Vybz Kartel and Spice track of the same name, is a scheduled period during which an inmate is allowed private quality time with a legitimate spouse.
The ministry is now headed by Dr. Horace Chang, with the proposal being in the green paper stage (discussion document) that was tabled in Parliament in January. The document justifies the need for conjugal visits as a way of “preserving an offender client’s family ties, promoting the offender client’s reintegration into society on release, curbing recidivism and lessening violence within the correctional centre.”
Storm’s former prison mate, Vybz Kartel, revealed this week that the first thing he did upon being released was have sex with his Turkish fiancée Sidem Öztürk. Storm evaded delving into such personal matters, and instead pivoted to sharing his excitement about bonding with his only child.
“Just be with my daughter every day,” the My Life artist said. “Mi waan go somewhere different wid har weh mi never did do.”
He detailed recently getting dressed to the nines to collect her graduation photos, and said she is equally happy to share every moment with her loyalist dad.
“We a go meet tomorrow, hold a vibes, (everything) plan out,” he said. “She a tell me weh she waan go, food weh she waan, the ambiance weh mi fi set like me a God… She name out the list.”
Storm said he also tried to play an active role in her life during his time away, helping her with homework over the phone and taking in the details of her daily activities. Now that they’ve reunited, he wants her to focus on her studies to sculpt a successful career.
“Mi guide my daughter enuh seh listen, school, college, then yuh can look pon boyfriend… Career first; boyfriend always a go deh deh.”
Kartel has also been busy with his kids, sharing content of shopping trips, chill time and passing on stacks of cash to his young son Aiko ‘World Boss Jr’ Palmer.