Review: 'The Humble Little Condom'
A New Book Explores 2,500 Years of Prophylactic History
© Kat Long
Apr 6, 2008
One would be hard pressed to find a person on earth unfamiliar with the condom, the world’s most ubiquitous, cheap and available method for contraception and prevention of sexually transmitted disease. “The Humble Little Condom: A History,” (Prometheus Books) by University of Maryland assistant professor Aine Collier, provides an overdue survey of the condom’s evolution from custom made sheep-gut bags in ancient Egypt to multi-billion-dollar cornerstone of the global health marketplace in the twenty-first century.
Surprisingly, the idea of the condom has changed little in 2,500 years—ancient civilizations fashioned “caps” or sheaths that fit over the male member during intercourse to prevent the spilling of seed (a cultural and religious sin), which lessened the transmission of diseases like gonorrhea and syphilis. Collier describes these early condoms as made of linen, silk, or the pliable caeca (intestine) of an animal, handily acquired from the local butcher, with a dainty ribbon to keep it in place. Condoms are mentioned in Greek and Roman poetry, medieval vernacular slang, and Shakespeare’s plays, proving that, despite its association with sex and disease, condoms were omnipresent from the start.
The Modern "Rubber"
The turning point in condom history arose when Charles Goodyear, the American rubber magnate, invented the process of vulcanization in 1837: chemically treating natural rubber so it withstands extremes in temperature From then on, condoms could be cheaply mass-produced and meant for one-time use, rather than hand-fashioned with natural materials, custom-sized and intended for reuse. The market for “rubbers” exploded in the twentieth century, abetted by the two World Wars, the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, and the AIDS pandemic beginning in the 1980s.
“The Humble Little Condom” is often breezy and flippant, even when divulging the toll of STDs on soldiers fighting in World Wars I and II and the military’s misogynist propaganda, advising men to steer clear of “easy women.” Collier frequently employs broad conclusions to issues that invite more specific investigation. She claims “the hundreds, possibly thousands, of women entrepreneurs in the condom business, all happily defying [purity crusader Anthony] Comstock, were in it for the money,” which notes that condom making was an industry dominated and operated by women until the twentieth century, but offers little rationale or background into that unique situation. Collier instead concentrates on the anti-condom crusaders like Comstock and his New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (which Collier erroneously calls the Committee for the Suppression of Vice).
Curiously, Collier chose to include dry financial statistics of the international condom business to explain the condom’s impact on twenty-first century life, rather than real-world examples of the age-old controversies in action. For example, no mention is made of the U.S. government’s funding of abstinence-only sex education, which prohibits teachers from telling students about condoms (for contraception and as disease prevention) in sex education classes. Collier could have provided an interesting contrast between current American and European attitudes about condom use, or cite the success of condoms in AIDS prevention in Africa.
In addition to several factual errors, “The Humble Little Condom” has no footnotes, source citations or bibliography, weakening her arguments; her amateurish writing style detracts from the impact of her research. Even the book’s layout, which features colored sidebars, unattributed quotations and illustrations, distracts the reader from absorbing the information.
A well-researched and –written history of the condom is certainly needed, but “The Humble Little Condom” remains a little too humble. For additional examination of the purity crusaders of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, see Prostitution in the Gilded Age.
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