Although the condom, a venerable manner of contraception, continues to be utilized by millions of men and boys every year, the existence of this small but rather efficient safeguard is a closely kept secret of sorts. While certain other methods of contraception are advertised in the women’s magazines and the wish books — mail order catalogs — and thoroughly evaluated by the medical experts of Reader’s Digest, the Post, McCall’s, the condom, despite its wide usage, is still treated as slightly illegal merchandise in somewhat the same category as French post cards and pornographic playing cards. The friendly, cut-rate drug emporiums and even the sprawling supermarkets feature rows of the very latest methods of practicing safe and sane sex, attractively boxed and bottled — only the rubber goods is missing from this carnival of contraceptives. Condoms, thanks to laws put in force through the extensive efforts of the major manufacturers, we must, often red-faced and heavy with embarrassment, purchase only from a white-coated, antiseptic druggist. It’s one of our more baffling customs.
While several fanciful stories have been advanced to account for the origin of the “rubber,” the “skin,” the “French safe,” its earliest application still remains a mystery to researchers. One Gabriello Fallopius, Italian and inventive, is said to have made his own pristine prophylactics from fine linen, although the first kind of condoms to find wide acceptance were probably those made from lamb intestines.
As for the name itself — the original name, at least — there are theories enough to satisfy any etymologist, but which of the explanations is the correct one? One tale that has had a rather wide circulation among the condom-conscious, concerns the good Dr. Condon, or Conton, or Condom, an English sawbones. The story has a nice ring of authenticity, it ties up the loose ends neatly, but, sadly, the experts say that it never happened.
Fact or fiction, the innovation supposedly dates back to 1750 when a doctor-dabbler named Condon introduced his “finger stalls” to Londoners. The invention soon appeared across the Channel where the French were quick to label them as “English frock coats.” To the curious, condoms — the name was claimed to be a misuse of Dr. Condon’s own — were described so: “They are small bags which unite the advantage of rendering the male organ perfectly secure against infection and that of being seamless. They are manufactured from the blind gut of the lamb, washed, dried, and 2 made supple by rubbing them hetween the palms of the hands with bran and a little almond oil…”
While the condom, whatever its origin, was unquestionably a boon to mankind — and womankind — the clergy was overwhelmingly set against the dispersal and usage of this contraceptive. The stern, unrelenting clerical disapproval is possibly the largest reason for the “sold for the prevention of disease only” that is found in large print on many brands of condoms today, a homegrown hypocrisy. Even mail order distributors who deal in rubber goods are careful to include such protective clauses as “…and to be used, intended, or adapted for prevention of disease only.” The mail order market would seem to be the most lucrative of fields for the condom manufacturer but, actually, a relatively small percentage of this variety of contraceptive is sold in this manner. The great share of the trade in this necessary commodity is over the drug counter, an arrangement that handsomely benefits the profit-prone druggist — who sells rubber goods at a hefty mark-up — as well as protecting the manufacturer from such evils as price-cutting.
They’re a tight little group, the manufacturers. A mere four rubber companies, reports a sex confessional, produce slightly more than 95% of the condoms that Americans love best — a lot of oldfangled rubber goods. And let no man question the wisdom of peddling prophylactics through one exclusive outlet. Youngs Rubber Corporation, giant of the condom makers, originally conceived the scheme of merchandising its product by means of the smiling symbol of health-at-a-price, the druggist. Since the 1920s, with the cooperation of doctors, parent-teacher organizations, certain religious factions, and sympathetic city and state legislatures, Youngs Rubber Corporation has been very influential in hatching laws that prohibit the sale of condoms anywhere but in the drugstore. In answer to a request for prophylactics by mail, Youngs Rubber Corporation replies with a form letter:
Dear Sir:
In response to your request, we are sending you this brochure featuring Youngs items to acquaint you with our Company, our Policy and our Products.
For more than 30 years, Youngs Rubber Corporation has manufactured the finest quality prophylactics on the market. Our production methods result in the superiority of TROJANS and our other prophylactics.
In the best interest of public health and morals, Youngs Rubber Corporation’s products are sold through drug stores exclusively, for the druggist is a professional member of your community health team.
If you are further interested in any of our items, we respectfully refer you to any drug store of your choice where the pharmacist will be glad to advise you. In the event that the package of your choice is not in stock, the pharmacist can obtain it within a couple of days from his wholesaler.
Cordially yours,
YOUNGS RUBBER CORPORATION
John C. MacFarlane
President
Certainly, the last word in rubber goods, the vulcanized ultimate, is the redoubtable “French tickler,” a condom, a simple run-of-the-assembly-line condom, that has felt the tender touch of the artist. These brilliant monstrosities, invariably sold under the counter, are available in living, livid Technicolor, a ribald rainbow of raucous hues — pure purple, electric, electrifying blue, sickly chartreuse, ripe orange, firetruck red. And there, in that rubbery wilderness, are as many variations on the basic theme as imaginative designers and builders can come up with. Ticklers? These nuisances come in all exaggerated sizes, shapes, lengths, complete with humps, bumps, warts, rings, and ridges, gnarled by knobs, festooned with feathers. One model, kingsized, sports an extension of hard rubber, this presumably for status seekers. As for the nomenclature of these wondrous works of art, they are as unpredictable as any French tickler. Nelson Algren’s masterfully outspoken novel, A Walk On The Wild Side, offers the neophyte a brief but fascinating glimpse of a tickler factory, a never-never land of 100% pure latex. Here Algren’s hero, Dove Linkhorn, employed for a time in a Disneyland of erotic design, dabbled among a plethora of notoriously named prophylactics: Cupid’s Arrows, Ticklish Tessies, Laughing Maggies, Ding-Dong Darlings, Happy Hannahs, Barney Googles, Love’s Fancies, and the truly super-duper, O-Daddy, the condom of tomorrow.
Although the “French tickler” is a comparatively new innovation among man’s erotic contraptions, the practice of embellishing the male organ by various methods is centuries-old, particularly in certain Asiatic countries. Burmese gentlemen, by means of a bit of do-it-yourself surgery, are able to attach tiny rods of ivory or metal, brushes, bristles, or whatever artificial aids seem appropriate to the sexual situation. Other decorations used by inventive lovers include a binding of goat skin, small stones or balls, the down from the feathers of birds, a goat’s eyelashes. The Indian manual of manners relating to love and intimate relations, the Kama Sutra, lists several methods of embellishment known in India as “apadravyas.” This instructive volume also mentions the same type of operation as that practiced by the Dyaks of Borneo:
“…when a young man pierces his lingam, he should pierce it with a sharp tool, and then continue to stand in water until the blood ceases to flow. At night, he shall engage in sexual congress, even with intensity, in order to cleanse the hole. Later he should continue to wash the hole with decoctions, and put into it small pieces of cane, thus enlarging the orifice. Into the hole thus made in the lingam, a man may put apadravyas of various forms, such as the “round,” the “round on one side,” “the wooden mortar,” “the armlet,” “the flower,” “the bone of the heron,” “the goad of the elephant,” “the collection of eight balls,” “the lock of hair,” “the place where four roads meet,” and others named by their forms and manners of using them. All of the apadravyas should be rough on the outside according to their requirements…”
By comparison, the tickler, admittedly a kind of surrealistic prophylactic, seems far less spectacular. The condom, for all of its under-the-counter connotations, is merely prosaic in the company of such truly erotic paraphernalia.
