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Humble Little Condom: A History
This unique history provides an intriguing glimpse into human sexual habits, customs, beliefs, and attitudes surrounding a prophylactic device that goes back to at least the ancient Egyptians. The author includes many fascinating historical details, such · Clergymen of the Middle Ages left records of birth control methods that "worked." · When women had few choices in the world of commerce, a significant number found a legitimate and profitable business niche producing and selling sheaths.· During the Great Depression, while other businesses went bankrupt, condom manufacturers found themselves doing a booming trade throughout the 1930s, one of Wall Street's few successes.· AIDS has brought the condom full circle. Not for the first time in history has the little device been vilified as a promoter of dirty, illicit sex and lauded as a life-saving device.Thoroughly researched yet presented in a witty, enjoyable style, The Humble Little Condom is both an entertaining read and an educational, impeccably researched popular history.
371 pages, Paperback
First published October 30, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 25, 2010
This is a deeply deeply irritating book, and a disappointment. By rights, it should have been an interesting book: take a titillating topic, scour historical literature for quotations and events around that topic, serve with a dash of wry humour. It's been done a million times and, sadly, better than this. "The Humble Little Condom" reads like it was put together by a grad student who had never read a pop history book.
Come on, people, this isn't rocket surgery. We like anecdotes, we like things we can tweet or email to our friends, and we like to be surprised. We don't like to have the history of the 20th century reprised chapter by chapter with softcock material like "Reflecting on the changes in courting in the United States, in 1927 Emily Post’s book of etiquette talked about the “Vanishing Chaperon,” or as young men called them, “fire extinguishers.” Young couples were no longer accompanied on their dates, yet another new love word." You are not Bill Bryson, definitely not Bill Shakespeare, and don't even make the level of Bill Oddie.
The early chapters on Roman and Feudal sex were the most interesting to me, but I was put off by the author's desperate need to draw everything back to the condom. If I had a dollar for every time the author said "it is unclear" or "it is not a stretch to imagine that", I'd have enough money to hire a grad student to write this book properly.
My main takeaway from the book, though, was that the seamless condom is only a very recent invention. Just stop and think about that for a while, and go about your day grateful that we live in the age of vulcanized rubber. (Invented by Mr Goodyear who was long dead when someone unrelated founded the Goodyear Rubber Company)
I'll leave you with this quote from the ever-wise Aristotle, which will make you feel sorry for poor Mrs Aristotle.
Actually, no I won't. I'll end with the Greek "dog-knot", which athletes used. You take your uncircumcised penis, pull the foreskin over the top of the glans, and then tie a knot around the foreskin with a leather thong that you then hitch up as a jockstrap. Sound like fun? No. Another reason to skip Athletics Day at school if you were an ancient Greek kid.
No wait, one more: a big long list of saucy Latin terms.
PROSTITUTED EUPHEMISMS: LATINATE TERMS FOR PROSTITUTE
spurcae lupae—filthy whore
meretrix—harlot, the classiest member of the profession
prostibula—one who sits in front of her stall, waiting for customers
proseda—she who stands in front of her stall
nonariae—she who is forbidden to appear before the ninth hour (no afternoon delights)
mimae—mime players, who were always assumed to be (and usually were) prostitutes
cymbalistriae—cymbal players (strange intersection)
ambubiae—singing girls, same
citharistriae—harpists, same
scortum—strumpet who meets customers in secret
scorta erratica—streetwalkers who were quiet about their profession
busturiae—prostitutes who hung out around tombs and at funerals (what a way to find a customer)
copae—barmaids
delicatae—mistresses
famosae—soiled doves (women from good families who became professionals)
dois—whores who were naked and beautiful
lupae—she wolves, either because of the sounds they made while having sex or because they were animal-like in their lusts
aelicariae—baker’s girls
noctiluae—nightwalkers
blitidae—also the name of a cheap drink sold in the crummy taverns in which these women plied their trade
forariae—country girls who hailed travelers along roadsides
gallinae—“hens who scatter everywhere,” these were thieving prostitutes who stole from their clients
amasiae—vamps, these girls were devoted to the worship of Venus
Like I said, I enjoyed the early chapters more than the later. For maximum value, I'd say you should borrow this book from the library, read it fast, and stop around the time of the Victorians. Even then, it's only 6/10. I suffered so you don't have to. You're welcome.
Come on, people, this isn't rocket surgery. We like anecdotes, we like things we can tweet or email to our friends, and we like to be surprised. We don't like to have the history of the 20th century reprised chapter by chapter with softcock material like "Reflecting on the changes in courting in the United States, in 1927 Emily Post’s book of etiquette talked about the “Vanishing Chaperon,” or as young men called them, “fire extinguishers.” Young couples were no longer accompanied on their dates, yet another new love word." You are not Bill Bryson, definitely not Bill Shakespeare, and don't even make the level of Bill Oddie.
The early chapters on Roman and Feudal sex were the most interesting to me, but I was put off by the author's desperate need to draw everything back to the condom. If I had a dollar for every time the author said "it is unclear" or "it is not a stretch to imagine that", I'd have enough money to hire a grad student to write this book properly.
My main takeaway from the book, though, was that the seamless condom is only a very recent invention. Just stop and think about that for a while, and go about your day grateful that we live in the age of vulcanized rubber. (Invented by Mr Goodyear who was long dead when someone unrelated founded the Goodyear Rubber Company)
I'll leave you with this quote from the ever-wise Aristotle, which will make you feel sorry for poor Mrs Aristotle.
A sign that the female does not emit the kind of seed that the male emits, and that generation is not due to the mixing of both as some hold, is that often the female conceives without experiencing the pleasure that occurs in intercourse.
Actually, no I won't. I'll end with the Greek "dog-knot", which athletes used. You take your uncircumcised penis, pull the foreskin over the top of the glans, and then tie a knot around the foreskin with a leather thong that you then hitch up as a jockstrap. Sound like fun? No. Another reason to skip Athletics Day at school if you were an ancient Greek kid.
No wait, one more: a big long list of saucy Latin terms.
PROSTITUTED EUPHEMISMS: LATINATE TERMS FOR PROSTITUTE
spurcae lupae—filthy whore
meretrix—harlot, the classiest member of the profession
prostibula—one who sits in front of her stall, waiting for customers
proseda—she who stands in front of her stall
nonariae—she who is forbidden to appear before the ninth hour (no afternoon delights)
mimae—mime players, who were always assumed to be (and usually were) prostitutes
cymbalistriae—cymbal players (strange intersection)
ambubiae—singing girls, same
citharistriae—harpists, same
scortum—strumpet who meets customers in secret
scorta erratica—streetwalkers who were quiet about their profession
busturiae—prostitutes who hung out around tombs and at funerals (what a way to find a customer)
copae—barmaids
delicatae—mistresses
famosae—soiled doves (women from good families who became professionals)
dois—whores who were naked and beautiful
lupae—she wolves, either because of the sounds they made while having sex or because they were animal-like in their lusts
aelicariae—baker’s girls
noctiluae—nightwalkers
blitidae—also the name of a cheap drink sold in the crummy taverns in which these women plied their trade
forariae—country girls who hailed travelers along roadsides
gallinae—“hens who scatter everywhere,” these were thieving prostitutes who stole from their clients
amasiae—vamps, these girls were devoted to the worship of Venus
Like I said, I enjoyed the early chapters more than the later. For maximum value, I'd say you should borrow this book from the library, read it fast, and stop around the time of the Victorians. Even then, it's only 6/10. I suffered so you don't have to. You're welcome.
January 15, 2013
Highly recommended! Not only does this book give an interesting and detailed history of the condom (which, in my opinion, is one of those so often overlooked devices that are so important to life as we know it), but it also offers a small glimpse into the feminist views of birth control from a historical view. It also touches on issues such as the need for practical sex education, as well as the need for society to lighten up and be able to talk about such things with candor and frankness.
January 29, 2024
Pop history at its best. This book is appropriate for anyone who wants a pleasurable and enlightening read.
The author says in her intro – ‘Condoms -- the little condom has a history that is anything but humble. Lauded and lionized for thousands of years, it has featured in the lives, loves, and letters of some of the most famous men in history: Shakespeare, Casanova, George Bernard Shaw, to name only a few. All appreciated the importance of using preventatives. But the story is about much more than who used them. It is a history of the human spirit, with all of its flaws and foibles.’
This sumptuous book looks at the condom from start to close.
Into the following chapters has the tome been divided:
1) Papyrus, Serpents, and Loincloths: The Ancients and the Condom
2) From Sex for “Delit” to the Great Pox: Love in Early Modern Europe
3) Three LeMale de Naples, laMal François, las Bubas, or the Venetian Disease: Columbus and the Great Pox
4) May Prick nor Purse Never Fail You . . . Parliamentarians, Poets, Pundits, and Provenance
5) Medical Arguments against Armour and a Case of Caveat Emptor: Doctors, Debates, Debauchees, and the Mrs. P’s
6) TheMost Famous, and Infamous, Users of All: The Celebrity Overcoat
7) Malthus, Skins, and Dead Letters: TheWest’s Culture Wars
8) A One-Man Fight against the Condom: The American Civil War and Comstockery
9) Nine Obscenity Laws, American Tips, and French Ticklers: Was There an English Comstock?
10) The Nineteenth Century’s Greatest Invention: Muckrakers,Moral Armour, and the Great War
11) Nookie in the Struggle Buggy: All That Jazz and the Age of Advertising
12) Brother, Can You Spare a Dime for a Rubber? The Great Depression
13) Victory Will Ride on the Rubber You Save: The War Years
14) Backseat Bingo with My Classy Chassis: Let’s Get It On! From Baby Boom to Modern Plague
15) Abstain Was All He Said: In the Age of AIDS
The chapters communicate about an elongated history of the little device’s romance. The author talks of its ethics and depravity, its ups and downs as an actor fluctuating roles on the platform of antiquity. The chapters deal with how sex, birth control, population curves, venereal contagions, church, politics and men’s and women’s rights’ movements, all affected the discovery, growth, death and revival of condoms over the ages.
The author names, from Cleopatra to Casanova to G. W. Bush and expresses how these large and slight titles affected the lives and deaths of people who could, couldn’t, would, or wouldn’t use condoms.
The author traces the history of the condom itself throughout the book. The chapters are divided into titled smaller sections with demonstrated word bites, appropriate poetry, cartoons, portraits, and posters.
Take this word bite for instance, where the author speaks about the kind of contraceptives used in ancient Egypt.
WHAT DID THEY USE? -- Crocodile dung assorted with honey and placed in the vagina of a woman thwarts conception . . . 1850 BCE, a medical papyrus, written during the reign of Amenemhat III of the Twelfth Dynasty …
The whole book contains a treasure of info, all narrated in an even-tempered and relaxed style.
The book makes for a very very pacy read.
However one star goes for a toss as the flamboyance and rapidity of the author for some outlandish reason took a nosedive from the tenth chapter onwards.
Even then – a delightful entertainer.
Recommended.
The author says in her intro – ‘Condoms -- the little condom has a history that is anything but humble. Lauded and lionized for thousands of years, it has featured in the lives, loves, and letters of some of the most famous men in history: Shakespeare, Casanova, George Bernard Shaw, to name only a few. All appreciated the importance of using preventatives. But the story is about much more than who used them. It is a history of the human spirit, with all of its flaws and foibles.’
This sumptuous book looks at the condom from start to close.
Into the following chapters has the tome been divided:
1) Papyrus, Serpents, and Loincloths: The Ancients and the Condom
2) From Sex for “Delit” to the Great Pox: Love in Early Modern Europe
3) Three LeMale de Naples, laMal François, las Bubas, or the Venetian Disease: Columbus and the Great Pox
4) May Prick nor Purse Never Fail You . . . Parliamentarians, Poets, Pundits, and Provenance
5) Medical Arguments against Armour and a Case of Caveat Emptor: Doctors, Debates, Debauchees, and the Mrs. P’s
6) TheMost Famous, and Infamous, Users of All: The Celebrity Overcoat
7) Malthus, Skins, and Dead Letters: TheWest’s Culture Wars
8) A One-Man Fight against the Condom: The American Civil War and Comstockery
9) Nine Obscenity Laws, American Tips, and French Ticklers: Was There an English Comstock?
10) The Nineteenth Century’s Greatest Invention: Muckrakers,Moral Armour, and the Great War
11) Nookie in the Struggle Buggy: All That Jazz and the Age of Advertising
12) Brother, Can You Spare a Dime for a Rubber? The Great Depression
13) Victory Will Ride on the Rubber You Save: The War Years
14) Backseat Bingo with My Classy Chassis: Let’s Get It On! From Baby Boom to Modern Plague
15) Abstain Was All He Said: In the Age of AIDS
The chapters communicate about an elongated history of the little device’s romance. The author talks of its ethics and depravity, its ups and downs as an actor fluctuating roles on the platform of antiquity. The chapters deal with how sex, birth control, population curves, venereal contagions, church, politics and men’s and women’s rights’ movements, all affected the discovery, growth, death and revival of condoms over the ages.
The author names, from Cleopatra to Casanova to G. W. Bush and expresses how these large and slight titles affected the lives and deaths of people who could, couldn’t, would, or wouldn’t use condoms.
The author traces the history of the condom itself throughout the book. The chapters are divided into titled smaller sections with demonstrated word bites, appropriate poetry, cartoons, portraits, and posters.
Take this word bite for instance, where the author speaks about the kind of contraceptives used in ancient Egypt.
WHAT DID THEY USE? -- Crocodile dung assorted with honey and placed in the vagina of a woman thwarts conception . . . 1850 BCE, a medical papyrus, written during the reign of Amenemhat III of the Twelfth Dynasty …
The whole book contains a treasure of info, all narrated in an even-tempered and relaxed style.
The book makes for a very very pacy read.
However one star goes for a toss as the flamboyance and rapidity of the author for some outlandish reason took a nosedive from the tenth chapter onwards.
Even then – a delightful entertainer.
Recommended.
January 9, 2024
Very interesting
June 25, 2010
This book is a wide-sweeping history of condom production and use from the beginning of recorded history. I was expecting it to be really interesting, but the first half is kind of a snoozer. Since it covers such a vast span of time, the author has little time to devote to really significant, interesting details. Every few paragraphs are broken up into their own little sections, and there isn't a whole lot of cohesion between these different sections. The author says a lot, but doesn't end up explaining a lot, and I found myself wanting to know more about literally everything mentioned in this book.
August 31, 2008
This book was very good. I learned a lot about how the condom and sexuality evolved over time not only in the U.S. but in many developed nations. The book was very interesting and had many fun facts spread throughout the text. There were some sections that were a little on the boring side, especially the ones that dealt w/ the business end of condoms. But overall, the book was great. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is a sexuality buff!
November 6, 2013
It took me way longer than it should have for me to finish this- not sure if that's because I was busy starting grad school, or because the author took a potentially interesting subject and told it through historical anecdotes. It's interesting to read the historical attitudes towards contraception through the centuries, but the writing style manages to be both too informal and too boring.
Read
March 14, 2008a very interesting, entertaining, and edifying book. the layout was a little distracting, but all in all, i give this history a strong recommendation.
April 28, 2011
Some interesting facts but overall disappointing.
June 8, 2014
I have no intention of picking up this book again. Although it bills itself as "a history," there is not one modicum of scholarship evident in this book. Not worth my time.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews