Sexual behavior inside a prison is both forced and encouraged by prison subgroups. Prison homosexuality depends on substantial degrees on the innocence of younger inmates experiencing prison life for the first time. Often times older prisoners looking for homosexual relationships may at times grovel themselves by offering several things such as, food, money, drugs, protection, or cigarettes. At some point in the future those "loans" will be called in which demand sexual favors in return as a payoff. There is an inmate code that requires the repayment of favors, the inmate that tries to resist will or may find himself face to face very quickly with the brutal force of inmate society. Prison rape generally involves physical assault, which represents a special kind of sexual victimization behind bars. Sexual assaults that occur in prison are very likely to leave psychological scars on the victim long after the event is over, in the case of the heterosexual rape. The victims of rape often live in fear and may feel constantly threatened by other inmates and can turn to self-destructive activities. They may also question their masculinity and undergo a personal devaluation. .
According to PREA (2003), the aggressors themselves have suffered much damage to their masculinity in the past and most do not consider themselves to be homosexuals. Victims' who experience the sexual assault sometimes become violent, attacking and may even kill the person who had raped them. The HRT (Human Rights Watch) researchers found that prisoners "that fit any part of the following description" are more than likely to become victims of rape: physically weak, young, small in size, first offender, gay, white, being unassertive, intellectual, shy, unaggressive, not street-smart, possessing 'feminine' characteristics such as long hair or a high pitch voice, or 'passive'; or have been convicted of a sexual offense against a minor.