HISTORY OF CONDOMS
Many a man, many a woman for that matter too, has been blessed by the invention of the almighty condom. Many attribute the invention to the Earl of condoms. While Earl, as we'll call him, surely contributed to the development of the modern condoms we have today. It's actual origin lies hidden beneath a canopy of folklore and mystery. Here, at QuikCondoms.com, we investigate the question that has been probing mankind for thousands of years.
Who invented the condom?
The earliest known condoms were used by the Egyptians in the 13th century B.C. They made their condoms out of oiled animal bladders and intestines. It's also said that in ancient Egypt, pharaohs used papyrus reeds to cover their penises during sex. Ancient Roman soldiers used dried sheep intestines (or, as legend has it, the muscles cut from the dead bodies of their enemies) as the preferred condom to ease their minds while raping the widows (how exactly this was believed to work is unknown). The condom appears next in cave paintings at Les Combarelles , in southern France, dated around 100 A.D. Farther east, the Chinese used oiled silk paper, and the Japanese had two forms of condoms: the Kawagata, which was made of thin leather, and Kabutogata, which was made of thin tortoise shells or horns.
Besides these early and somewhat shady claims to the first condom, the first proven documentation of a penis-covering barrier came in 1564 from Italian anatomist Gabriel Fallopius (Already famous for his fallopian tube discovery). He designed a medicated sheath to go over the tip of the penis and under the foreskin. It was held on by a pink ribbon so that it would appeal to women. He was then forced to design one for the circumcised guys - a standard of eight inches (The average man must have been bigger back in those days). It was tested on over 1000 men with overwhelming success. One would guess that they were trying to prevent pregnancy, but that was the woman's problem in those days. They were actually used to prevent the spread of venereal diseases, syphilis in particular Though Fallopius claimed more than a thousand successful trials as proof of his invention's effectiveness, it evidently rubbed users the wrong way. If used improperly (i.e., without cleaning), it spread as many maladies as it could prevent. Allegedly, Fallopius didn't even want his name tied to his creation.
About 100 years later, England's King Charles II, who had countless mistresses and even more "bastards," requested his physician, the Earl of Condom, to devise something to protect him from syphilis. He came up with an oiled sheath made from sheep intestine. No one is really sure if he knew about Fallopius' contraption but soon all the noblemen were using them.
The King's innovation caught on. Men at court used them; commoners sold them; advertisers trumpeted their effectiveness and, needless to say, moralists derided them. They held that condoms lead to the deterioration of the human race by encouraging pre-marital sex, sex with prostitutes and the demise of marriage. Characteristically ignoring all caution, a libertine of no less stature than Casanova supposedly employed a condom in his trysts; he referred to it as his "English Riding Coat."
As with all great inventions, they were still several flaws. Most notably with the noblemen who used them. Many of them would re-use their condoms without washing them and would end up getting the same diseases they were trying to prevent.
It wasn't really until the 19th century that the next innovation in condom evolution came up. In 1844, Goodyear - yes, the people who make your tires! - and Hancock began to produce condoms out of vulcanized rubber. Vulcanization is a process that treats crude rubber with sulfur and subjects it to intense heat, which turns it into a strong elastic material.
Mr. Goodyear might have given the condom a new nickname that is still in use today ("rubber"), but his condoms were a lot different than the ones we're used to now. Men were instructed to wash their condoms before and after sex, and to reuse them again and again until they cracked or broke, which we now know is a definite no-no. Still, it was a beginning of the prevalence of the condom that we see today.
Their popularity grew during and immediately following the Civil War, when there was a large boom in prostitution and men became very concerned with protecting themselves. 1861 saw the first advertisement for condoms in an American newspaper, when the New York Times printed an ad for "Dr. Power's French Preventatives." These condoms were so prevalent that they were available almost everywhere, and cost dropped to about a dime ($1.60 today) for one.
There were a lot of moral concerns about the use and sale of condoms, however, and the backlash arrived in the form of Anthony Comstock, who passed a bill through Congress in 1873, called (surprisingly enough) the Comstock Law. His law made advertising any sort of birth control illegal and also allowed the postal service to confiscate condoms sold through the mail. More than 65,000 warehouse condoms were seized during this time, and many people were arrested and fined for manufacturing or promoting them. Despite Comstock's efforts, people were still having sex, still wanting to protect themselves and still finding ways to do it: hence the discovery of latex condoms in 1880.
In the 1920s, a relaxation of the Comstock Law ---- enabled the condom to surface in places as respectable as pharmacies and truck-stop bathrooms. Latex manufacturing processes improved in the 1930s to produce a raincoat almost as thin, pliant and inexpensive as the ones we use today, ushering in the age of the infinitely more sanitary single-use condoms.
As with the development of so many other wonderful consumer products, the real Rubber Revolution was sparked by the two world wars. Despite official pleas to abstain from sex during the first World War , few Americans stationed overseas listened. While WWI hospitals were busy treating all types of afflictions -- some even battle-inflicted -- officials discovered that V.D. and children were unpleasant side effects of wartime carnal diversions.
So in World War II , the armed forces decided to try out a new strategy -- promoting the use of condoms. While the practical value was unquestioned, moralists still raised Cain. Following V-J day, the military returned to its former stance of issuing stern admonishments against wanton sex. But there were baby boomers to be conceived, and with the availability of penicillin, V.D. prevention was no longer a motivating concern.
Yet by this time there was no getting soft on this sticky subject. Thanks to the visions of inventors who could roll with the changing times, condoms were here to stay.
The next frontier for prophylactics involved making them more consumer friendly. The reservoir tip on the skin-tight latex condoms was introduced in the early '50s, as was the sensation-deadening condom designed to end premature ejaculation. The concept of "mutual pleasure" emerged in 1973 with the release of the textured condom. In the '80s, the spread of AIDS transformed condoms into an essential sexual accessory. Women were finally allowed into the act in 1993, when the female condom hit the American market.
In 1999, QuikCondoms.com was launched and the world is yet to see the end of the revolution it sparked.
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