Posted by Jen B. and Ann G.
Recently we posted A Literary Cure for Spring Fever in which we suggested fiction and nonfiction on a single theme. Whether you prefer one or the other, we think it’s important to present good options for maximum understanding of other important topics – like safe sex, emotional intelligence and having fun. Sometimes our brains like a factual presentation – orderly and quickly absorbed — and other times, we prefer a story or metaphor which we understand on a different level.
For a non-fiction hit, Ann suggests Aine Collier’s book: : The Humble Little Condom.
I think it was the word “humble” in the title that drew me in. Really, is there humility in a condom? I had to read and find out! What I hadn’t bargained for, in this social history of our “little friends,” was how the condom’s path was so intertwined with the events of history (and even changed some of those events). We are used to having a range of ways to plan a pregnancy, and ranges of drugs to combat disease, but we’ve only had those advances for a blink of an eye in terms of human history, and this book makes the point that we mustn’t take them for granted. For a LONG time, the condom was pretty much all there was!
The author, Aine Collier, takes us step by step with a lively and assured voice through the development of the condom over the millennia. As humankind’s technical skill increased, condoms became more and more refined. For example, in renaissance Europe, sausage-makers and glove makers figured out that their respective techniques transferred quite nicely to the making of sheaths—which, by the way, could each cost up to a month’s salary, and so were re-used, and were also indicators of social standing. The real breakthrough (so to speak) was when Goodyear figured out how to vulcanize rubber—and incidentally revolutionized the making of condoms.
But, besides the science, there are the experiences of the people who used the condoms, and Collier doesn’t stint in telling their stories (some of which do fall into the risqué category, such as anything dealing with Casanova, who was a librarian, by the way). My favorite was 19th century Quaker educator Mary Gove, who braved gasps from her audiences in order to inform women about their anatomy and how it worked (and did the same for men). But sadly there was also Merle Youngs, head of the Trojan company, who allowed defective condoms to be sold in the name of business, and Queen Victoria, two of whose sons died of syphilis, presumably from lack of information about how to prevent it.
Turning to Fiction, Jen suggests Jane Green’s novel Tempting Fate. Prevention isn’t even registering in Gabby’s mind when she flirts with a (much) younger man in a bar. When her girlfriends ditch her, Gabby is left to extricate herself (or not) and find her own way home. Even though she has a sweet husband and two great kids, Gabby’s brain shuts down and her hormones take over in a cautionary tale often heard by teens but beginning to fade (apparently) for this middle-aged, insecure woman. Gabby does not consider the humble condom and loses a great deal when her secret indiscretion is revealed. Jane Green is a light, funny writer whose sharp wit skewers the unthinking, the unkind and the blindly hormone-driven!
You might also enjoy these titles:
And for more on the history of the condom, take a look at “Unrolled, Unbridled and Unabashed” in the New York Times.
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