5 Things You Didn't Know: Condoms

The historical effort to make a condom that prevents pregnancy (much like a vasectomy) and the exchange of STDs while being as unobtrusive as possible during the sexual act has been mired by religious mores, outright denial and extreme levels of creativity. Most parties, regardless of their general opinion on the use of condoms, have come to accept that sex is all but inevitable between human beings. With that in mind, it stands to reason that condoms serve a number of noble purposes. Shocking and sad to think it took thousands of years for humans to figure that out.  

Unfortunately, the condom suffers from at least one massive PR problem: namely, that the condom always looks like a great idea after the fact. However, before and during the act when it matters the most, not so much. 

In an effort to give their profile a boost, we took a look at five things you didn’t know about condoms.

1- Condoms have appeared in cave paintings

In Johnny Come Lately: A Short History of the Condom, author Jeannette Parisot claims the appearance of condoms in cave paintings are estimated to be 15,000 years old. Although Parisot notes that the condom is being used during sexual intercourse, that doesn't signify the condition for which the man was wearing the condom. This is another matter altogether, since the man in the cave painting could have been brandishing the condom for one of three reasons: some sort of ritual, as a form of birth control or as protection against an STD.

All three are reasonable possibilities. There is no cause to think that the clever minds behind cave paintings hadn't also discovered some connection between the sexual act and one of any number of outcomes, including pregnancy or a stretch of days featuring extremely painful urination. 

2- Condoms used to be available only by prescription

Condoms have come a long way toward both general acceptance and availability. An 1824 text, described as state-of-the-art, offers a condom-making recipe with no fewer than a dozen extremely time-consuming steps involved in making condoms from sheep's "intestina caeca." With so much time required, it is little surprise that early condoms were considered reusable.

In the U.S., there was a time that condoms were available only by prescription, but doctors held up a double standard -- they would prescribe them to men so that husbands could protect themselves against getting STDs from prostitutes, but they wouldn’t prescribe them to women so they could prevent themselves from getting pregnant or for any other reason. 

3- The oldest rubber condoms date back to 1855

Discovered during excavations of Dudley Castle in West Midlands, England, these condom fragments were made from the guts of animals and it is believed they were distributed to slow the spread of venereal diseases (now known as STDs) during the English Civil Wars.

Distributing rubber condoms to soldiers to slow or prevent STDs has not always been common practice. In the U.S., during World War I, condoms were discouraged by the American Social Hygiene Association, which felt that if you were foolish enough to have sex, you deserved the STD you got. One of the chief proponents was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy at the time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. No surprise that many of those vets brought STDs home.

We've got a few more things you didn't know about condoms... Next Page >>