"Prison Sex" is a song by American

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

band

Tool A tool is an Physical object, object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many Tool use by animals, animals use simple tools, only human bei ...

. Frontman

Maynard James Keenan Maynard James Keenan (born James Herbert Keenan; April 17, 1964) is an American singer, songwriter, philanthropist, record producer, and winemaker. He is best known as the singer and primary lyricist of the rock bands Tool (band), Tool, A Perfe ...

wrote the lyrics. The song was released as the second single from their debut studio album '' Undertow''. The song uses a modified drop-B tuning. The track features an "anti-climax" coda, in which memorable verses and choruses dissolve into an unrelated, quiet final section.

Music video

The video for "Prison Sex" was created with

stop-motion animation Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exh ...

techniques, and was directed by the band's guitarist Adam Jones (who had previous experience in art direction and animation, including work on the dinosaurs in ''

Jurassic Park ''Jurassic Park'', later referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton, centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of De-extinction#Cloning, cloned dinosaurs. It bega ...

'') and was edited by Ken Andrews. The video was removed from the MTV playlist due to its disturbing content. "Prison Sex" was also nominated for 1994's

MTV Music Video Awards The MTV Video Music Awards (commonly abbreviated as the VMAs) is an award show presented by the cable channel MTV to honor the best in the music video medium. Originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammy Awards (in the video category) ...

' Best Special Effects category. The music video later showed on an episode of ''

Beavis and Butt-head ''Beavis and Butt-Head'' is an American Adult animation, adult animated Animated sitcom, sitcom created by Mike Judge. The series follows Beavis and Butt-Head, both voiced by Judge, a pair of teenage slackers characterized by their apathy, Stupi ...

''. The video primarily revolves around a battered white humanoid, robotic-like doll figure trapped in a room full of cabinets that contain other humanoids, such as a caterpillar with the main humanoid's face, a jar with a wasp inside, a robotic character with a little child's face that twists and turns, and a being made out of what looks like meat and feces. During various points in the video the main character is confronted by a larger black humanoid who causes the doll to go catatonic. While catatonic, the black figure molests the doll with a paintbrush. In the beginning of the video, the black figure severs the doll's legs (even though they still move by themselves) and hangs them out of reach of the doll. By the end of the video, the doll subjects itself to the abuse by painting itself. In the final shot, it is revealed that the doll was in its own cabinet the whole time when the black figure closes the cabinet door.

Controversy

With the release of the 1993 single "Prison Sex" and its music video, directed and created by Adam Jones,

MuchMusic Much is a Canadian English language discretionary specialty channel owned by BCE Inc. through its Bell Media subsidiary that airs programming aimed at teenagers and young adults. It is headquartered at 299 Queen Street West in what was o ...

called the band into question by deeming the video too graphic and offensive, later running an episode of its '' Too Much 4 Much'' series to discuss the video.

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

stopped airing the "Prison Sex" video after a few viewings due to its symbolism depicting the sensitive subject of

child abuse Child abuse (also called child endangerment or child maltreatment) is physical abuse, physical, child sexual abuse, sexual, emotional and/or psychological abuse, psychological maltreatment or Child neglect, neglect of a child, especially by a p ...

, who wrote the lyrics, has been quite clear in concerts about his dislike for his stepfather. Before a live performance of "Prison Sex" on November 29, 1996, in Montreal, Quebec, Keenan stated:

"This song is about recognizing, identifying, the cycle of abuse within yourself. That's the first step of the process: realization; identifying. The next step is to work through it. But, this song is about the first step in the process, which is recognizing."

Track listing

UK version

# "Prison Sex" # "Undertow" (live) # "Opiate" (live) # "Prison Sex" (radio edit)

German version

# "Prison Sex" # "Intolerance" (live) # "Undertow" (live) # "Opiate" (live)

Australian

# "Prison Sex" # "Intolerance" (live) # "Undertow" (live) # "Opiate" (live) # "Prison Sex" (radio edit)

Promotional radio version

# "Prison Sex" (radio edit) # "Prison Sex"

Release history

Charts

References

External links

{{Authority control 1993 singles 1993 songs Animated music videos Music video controversies Obscenity controversies in music Songs about child abuse Songs about prison Songs about sexual assault Songs written by Maynard James Keenan Songs written by Danny Carey Songs written by Paul D'Amour Songs written by Adam Jones (musician) Stop-motion animated music videos Tool (band) songs Zoo Entertainment (record label) singles