Invention Playlist 3: The Condom

Condoms are an important part of human health and medicine, but where did this invention come from? Robert and Joe explore in this episode of Invention.

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Episode Transcript

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begins with us dot Org. Brought to you by the
Ad Council. Hi, I'm Robert sex Reese, host of The
Doctor sex Rees Show, and every episode I listened to
people talk about their sex and intimacy issues, and yes,
I despise every minute of it. She made mistakes too,
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(01:05):
We're all trapped here and there's nothing any of us
can do about it. So join me, won't you? Listen
to The Doctor sex re Show every Tuesday on the
I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get
your podcast. Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,

(01:26):
welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Joe McCormick. In today's episode is going to be on
a very important invention in the history of human health
and medicine, the condom. Now obvious statement on the subject
matter of today's episode, We're not going to be stigmatizing
sex or birth control, but just wanted to give you
a heads up in case this came on in the

(01:47):
car with the family or something and uh, it's uh
and you want to avoid any awkwardness or whatever, but hey,
if you want to keep listening, that's up to you. Yeah,
as always, we're gonna tackle the subject matter with decorum
here um. But but yeah, it seems like a great
invention to tackle on the show because it's one, as
we'll discussed, where the history is interesting and at times

(02:08):
not what we necessarily believe it to be in sort
of like the pop culture level of just you know,
vague understanding of of you know, the historical truth regarding things.
But then also we we have you know, obviously we
thought well this would be kind of a potentially sexy
episode of Invention to you know, to what extent any
episode of the Invention podcast is sexy. Um. I do

(02:31):
think it is an important note, um, that that condoms,
despite their their clinical history, still have a a sexy reality. Uh.
And that's one of I mean, that's one of the
key talking points on the material about condoms, uh, provided
by organizations such as Planned Parenthood. Um. And we'll come
back to that point in a bit. Yeah, that's a
really good point actually, I mean, despite their important you know,

(02:54):
their medical significance, I guess if you're trying to encourage
widespread use of them to you know, stop the spread
of S t I S and and discourage unwanted pregnancies,
you don't want to treat them as something that's like,
you know, people associate with like a hospital or you know,
like you want people to think of them as something
that's good to use in their recreational sexual activity. Yeah, exactly.

(03:18):
I mean human sexuality is this mix of the biological,
the things that we've evolved to do, and you know,
basically environmental conditioning. But then there's all this cultural and
societal conditioning as well. And so I think the understanding
of the condom and the treatment of the condom, and
ultimately like communication about the condom and other you know,
contraceptive um efforts as well. You know, have to like

(03:40):
take those two movements into account. Yeah, making the condom
sexy is a public health concern. Now, before we make
it sexy, I guess we should just say, what what
are the bare physical essential So the modern condom is
a physical barrier or sheath used during sex to reduce
the probability of both unwanted pregnancy and the spread of
sexually trying submitted infections. Uh. And of course there are

(04:02):
other methods and technologies that people have used and do
use today to try to prevent both of these things.
But the condom is important to talk about because it
was one of the it has been one of the
most widely used methods in history and around the world
today for both of these reasons. Absolutely. Again, one of
the other important things that we'll come back to is that,
like the condom doesn't you know, exist all on its

(04:23):
own within the uh, you know, the the the the
tool chest of contraceptive methods. It can be used, can
and should be used alongside these other methods as well,
which we'll get to Yeah, and so there are two
main versions of the condom that have been used throughout
the years. Uh. That I think the terminology that will
use is the internal condom and the external condom. The
internal condoms sometimes called the female condom, the external condoms

(04:47):
sometimes called the male condom. They essentially performed the same job,
but they're worn differently. Uh. And I also want to
go ahead and side at the top of this episode.
Probably my main source of for the research today. It's
an excellent paper on this subject by Jean Jacques Amy
and Michelle Thierry called the Condom A Turbulent History from
the European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Reproductive Healthcare. From

(05:11):
that was a really good resource, especially because it corrects
some previously widely circulated myths about the history of the condom.
That's right. There are a lot of just like basic
lists of facts on the internet that that you can
you know, they're not necessarily dangerous facts or anything, but
but they're not necessarily correct. And there is a lot

(05:32):
of stuff too that we'll get into some examples of
this where there'll be a story about the origin of
the condom and it sounds perhaps it sounds believable, but
is there any evidence for it? Uh. We'll discuss the
details as we proceed here. Yeah, So always on this show,
when we talk about an invention, we'd like to ask
the question of what came before this invention. And the

(05:52):
answer here is well, a lot of S t I
S and unwanted pregnancy, that's right. Uh, you know, it's
as humans. It's almost apiens were continuous breeders rather than
seasonal breeders. It's the same with with with our fellow
apes species. Um. There's no breeding season for us. UM. However,
various environmental factors do influence reproductive rates, so in a

(06:15):
way you can argue that this can produce so called
hidden human breeding seasons. Elsewhere in the animal kingdom, we
have seasonal breeders, of course, Um. There's a certain period
of the year during which they will breed, and then
there are also operative, opportunistic breeders who will breed during
favorable environmental conditions. But humans and other apes can make

(06:35):
year round and we've been this way for quite a while.
You know, we've been biologically stable as a species for
roughly a hundred thousand years. In this regard and sex
among our ancient ancestors was still sex right, meaning that
like there was a lot of it going on, and
there were a lot of things that sometimes I feel
like people can strangely think of as like recent additions

(06:57):
to human life and culture like S T I S.
Have you ever encountered this belief that it's like that's
a thing that happened recently. There's yeah, in in a
in a weird way like part of it in terms
of like like just nostalgia for the past, like the
recent past like this, Like I've encountered like a vague
idea that like during the nineteen sixties that were not

(07:19):
STDs or something, or the certain STDs didn't exist. Um.
And in granted, you know, there's a you know, there's
an ebb and flow to to our to both you know,
illnesses and diseases that are affecting us and more to
the point, our awareness of said diseases. Um, you know,
in addition to the the actual spread of them. Uh.
But but yeah, I've seen like shades of this in

(07:41):
terms of recent history. I don't know if I've encountered
it in terms of ancient history. Um, in part because
it just seems obvious that there have always been ailments
of this sort. Well, I just think I think it's
part of a sort of like naive moralizing that that suggests, like, uh, you,
sexual morality is not what it used to be in

(08:03):
the past, was better, and therefore it's like this this
fantasy that people weren't having sex in the past, and
part of that fantasy is that there wasn't you know,
any of the negative consequences that can come from unprotected sex.
So so kind of this um like magical belief that
that sexually transmitted diseases are a product of not only
um uh immoral behavior, but a product of recent immoral behavior. Yeah,

(08:27):
the false kind of moral degeneracy theory. You know, the
present kids are so bad these days now in terms
of ancient people though, according to David Buss, professor of
psychology at the University of Texas, who wrote a book
titled The Evolution of Desire Strategies of Human Mating, and
he points out that we don't know for sure what
sex was like for for you know, ancient humans. But

(08:49):
he points out, you know, something very much in line
with our past stuff to blew your mind, discussions on pain.
You know that that that human sexuality is a mixture
of the biological and the social. Uh. You know that
there's a part of it is like what the body
is doing and how we're we're reacting to the sensations.
But then on top of that, as with most things

(09:10):
that conscious humans engage in, there is that conscious understanding
and how that changes what is going on in addition
again to culture and society and societal pressures. Now, as
we've also discussed in Suffability your mind before, uh, other
organisms deal with reproduction and environmental demands, but humans alone
would seem to exercise conscious understanding of, and to an

(09:33):
extent control of their reproductive anatomy. We're also the most
advanced tool users on the planet, so it's become as
no surprise that we eventually turned our toolmaking and using
skills to our own genitals and an attempt to manage
our desires, the emotional aspects of sexuality and the purely
reproductive side of the act. And again that's just the

(09:53):
reproductive side of the equation, because humans have also had
to fight off an impressive parasite load but throughout the history,
throughout their history and and to deal with the risks
of diseases that spread through, among other things, sexual activity.
So it is definitely not effect that sexually transmitted infections
are recent. This is something we've been dealing with as
far back as as possible to imagine, right, and and

(10:16):
and this is another thing that should go without saying,
but I feel often needs to be stressed. Sexually transmitted
diseases are not merely a human thing. Like animals have
sexually transmitted diseases as well. This is just part of
being an organism. Yeah. Now, in terms of of ancient
accounts of sexually transmitted diseases to back the sort of
thing up, uh that there are a lot of examples.

(10:37):
One of the papers that we were looking at in
this comes from Frangio at All titled History of Anereal
Diseases from Antiquity to the Renaissance, and it points out
that some of our oldest records include details of manereal
disease quote clay tablets from Mesopotamia, Egyptian papyri, along with mythology,
paintings of erotic scenes and the presence of prostitute gives

(11:00):
a sufficient information to assume that some form of urethral
and vaginal discharge and also herpes genitalis were present among
people at that time, and that these diseases were considered
a divine punishment. Oh yeah, so bringing the magic into it, right,
And this has always been a you know, the history
of humans understanding their diseases and trying to understand their

(11:22):
diseases and laying on this level of society and culture.
But on top of that, you you look back to
the writings and the work of physicians throughout history, and
the Greeks, the Chinese, the Arabic, the Arabics, Indian physicians
as well, all wrote about this sort of thing. And
I think syphilis alone is a great study and just

(11:43):
how pervasive and influential a given venereal disease can be,
namely from at least the fifteenth century onward in Europe.
We've talked about this on again our other podcast, Stuff
to Bluw your Mind in the past, about just how
widespread syphilis was, how difficult, if not impossible, able to suppress,
and just you know, to the extent to which it

(12:05):
it affected society. It trickled down into culture too. I mean,
we've talked about everything. We even talked about the ways
it may have influenced some vampire lore. Oh yeah, Yeah,
there's some strong theories for that as well. But of
course without germ theory, there's only so much you can
do to control STDs, right, and the efforts are going
to range from herbal treatments which you know may or

(12:26):
may not have have you know, some degree of validity,
but two things that are just outright magic and superstition,
as well as plenty of classist and misogynistic treatments of
venereal disease. Like even in the twentieth century, as we
learned more and more about how these diseases actually work,
you still saw like a lot of like pretty awful propaganda,

(12:47):
especially or at least the main examples I've seen innovative
from US, the U. S. Military during the Second World
War for the First World War, that that play into
the notion of monstrous females being like the sole domain
of sexually transmitted diseases. Yeah, the idea that there are
these immoral women out there that you don't want your
you know, your young soldiers going off to war consorting with,

(13:10):
and you warn them about it, almost treating them like
their vampires, right, and then ultimately like placing all the
blame on on one gender. But throughout history, you know,
they've also been these larger scale social movements, um, you know,
involving generally abstinence, and they can't stop the spread of
these illnesses as well, because humans continue to engage in
this sort of sexual behavior, this kind of sexual behavior

(13:32):
they've evolved to engage in, and society. Society continues to
provide outlets of accessibility, be it in war, prostitution, etcetera. Plus,
you also have plenty of venerial diseases that can be
acquired via other other methods such as, uh, the you know,
the public baths in history, you know, but before we
really knew how to properly maintain them. Uh. And then

(13:52):
almos in ancient Rome and that that that sort of thing.
And then also in some times in places this sort
of these bad provide a social outlet for sexuality as well. Uh.
And then there are other cases where they're gonna be
other public health issues that make the spread of of
these illnesses possible. And then also syphilis is an example

(14:13):
of an STD that can be spread uh congenitally as well,
so it can spread from a mother to an offspring. Okay,
so obviously sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies are like
huge issues that people have been trying to avoid going
back millennia. Uh so this is one. This is I
guess where we should bring in the condom, and maybe

(14:33):
we should take a break, and then when we come
back from the break, we can explore the question of
who invented the condom. Today's episode is brought to you
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(16:46):
All right, we're back. We're discussing the invention of the condom.
We have not yet gotten to the part in the
episode we will make condom sexy because we're gonna be
talking about animal bladders here for a little bit. Well,
uh so we're asking question who invented the condom? We
like to ask this about any invention we talked about,
and this is one of those cases where we have
no idea. Uh, there is no known inventor of the condom.

(17:09):
So the use of animal tissues such as bladders like
the swim bladders of fish, or the bladder of goats
or sheep, or intestines or scum like the intestines of
sheep often, UH, these types of animal membranes and tissues
have been used as protective barriers during intercourse going way
back into history, and we don't know for sure how

(17:31):
far back. Our first direct physical evidence of the use
of an animal membrane as a as a condom is
from the seventeenth century, but that's just we have accounts
going back farther than that. That's just the oldest example
we have in the archaeological record, and we'll talk more
about that later. Um. So it's an ongoing debate among
historians and archaeologists whether anything like a modern condom was

(17:54):
ever widely used in the ancient world, and if if
it was used to what extent. There were believed to
be tons of different methods of sexual protection in the
ancient world, of course, there was a lot of use
of amulets and magic spells and potions and things like that.
We mentioned a little bit about herbal remedies. Before h

(18:15):
there was the use of of pessaries sometimes which would
be like an object placed inside the vagina. In an
eighteenth century b CE medical papyrus from ancient Egypt, there
is the claim that quote crocodile dung mixed with honey
and placed in the vagina of a woman prevents conception,
which that sounds gross, it might have actually worked some
of the time. I don't know. Maybe I don't know

(18:36):
that there have been any modern studies into this particular.
We're not advocating, but but yeah, what about condoms? What
about a protective physical barrier in the form of like
a sheath. So I've come across some claims that several
types of protective sheaths in the form of both internal
and external condoms were used by cultures like the ancient Egyptians,

(18:58):
the Romans, the Chinese, the people of New Guinea, and
the people of Japan and some others. As of just
one example of a claim like this I've come across.
I was reading apart from a book called The Humble
Little Condom of History by Anya Collier, and she writes
that before the fifteenth century in China quote Chinese condoms

(19:18):
yin Chia were alternately made from oiled silk paper and
lamb intestines, and she doesn't specify how far back this
is thought to have been used. She does say before
the fifteenth century, but she writes that this condom only
covered the top of the penis, and this is actually
common with a lot of models throughout history. Is not
common in condoms today, but many models, especially some you'd

(19:41):
see later in Europe, would only cover the glands. And
this was employed primarily with an understanding that it would
prevent pregnancy. It was not aimed at preventing disease, according
to a. Collier. But whether each of these individual claims
about condom use or earlier than the fifteenth century are
correct or not, it's clear or that some use of
physical barrier prophylaxis does go back into the fog of history.

(20:06):
And there is no known inventor of the condom. Some
of the people who have been given credit as the
inventor are definitely not the inventor right And of course
I think all of This makes sense because ejaculation would
have been identified as a key event uh in um
in inmating, in pregnancy, and therefore a physical barrier between
the opening of the male urethra, if not the entire

(20:27):
penis itself and female genitals would seem a likely tactic
that that even you know, ancient people's would have realized. Now,
I want to talk about mythology, because there are some
indications of something like a condom in uh in the
mythology of the ancient world. Here's an example that came
up in the paper by by Ommi and Thierry Uh.

(20:48):
Something like a condom appears in a fascinating Greek myth
as told by Antoninist liberalists in the second century CE
in his work Metamorphoses. Now, this is a pro Is
work that's a lot like Ovid's poetry work The Metamorphoses.
It's a collection of tellings of Greek myths in which
God transforms a person into something else. And this particular

(21:12):
story concerns Minos, the king of Crete, and his wife pacific. So,
in Liberalis's version of the story, Minos and pacific Or
married and they couldn't conceive a child because Minos was cursed.
His semen was apparently full of snakes and scorpions, which
which which would kill any woman that he had sex with.

(21:33):
So so on that alone, it sounds like you could
look at that is either possible, um, you know, magical
version of sexually transmitted disease like his his semen causes
some sort of illness that eventually is painful and could
even know bring death um. Or of course it could

(21:55):
just be a treatment of infertility. To say that, you know,
again kind of a mythy logical exaggeration. Uh. Yeah. The
method they're going to propose for fixing the problem in
this story, I think would not really correlate with it
being modeled on a disease. It would correlate more with
it just being like a magical convention in the story.
But then again, even if this is inspired by some

(22:16):
kind of real experience with the sexually transmitted infection or something,
you can still see how it could get sort of
warped and acquire different mythical baggage over time. But anyway,
so in the story, he's got this problem. His semen
is full of snakes, it's got scorpions, it's got centipedes.
It's a problem so to get around the problem, King
Minos is instructed to put the bladder of a goat

(22:38):
into another woman's vagina I think this is uh procris
and uh, and then to have sex with her, and
after that all the snakes and scorpions would be gone,
so he and Pacific could safely have sex and conceive.
And the implication is that the goats bladder here serves
as a protective barrier for this other woman so that
the serpents and the scorpie don't harm her. Now this

(23:02):
is straight because you can almost I don't know, could
they not think about other ways around this problem? Yeah?
I mean, on one level, it does sound like you
could also be an example of uh, you know, there
being some sort of situation, some sort of sexual situation
that needed to be addressed, and then the solution was here,
used this um, this bladder uh in intercourse as some

(23:26):
sort of a barrier. And then perhaps you just have
mythological explanations and story making on top of that, almost
as if like the people generating the stories don't understand
and or don't care what the original reason was, you know,
or it could just be a mythical invention. Certain but yeah, um, Yeah,
it's interesting to consider how it could have been inspired
by some real practice. Like basically, if nothing else, it

(23:49):
shows that during the second century c e. The idea
of using a physical barrier during a sex act was
at least in the zeitgeist. Right. It's it's at least
possible indication that there could have been some consciousness about
this in the culture. Basically, this would be the form
of an internal condom. Now, I do want to say

(24:10):
something real quick though about the you know, about the
use of intestines and and bladders in all of this.
I feel like it seems gross to people today. Yeah,
it can seem gross to us today, and I think
a lot of that is because we are so many
of us anyway, are removed from the culture of butchery
and can easily forget that animal bladders could be used
for a number of different things. A dried animal bladder

(24:32):
was essentially a balloon. Well, and these membranes and tissues
were used for all kinds of things in the ancient world.
I mean, this isn't the only use of a goat's
bladder or sheep intestine in the ancient world. They were, uh,
they were very versatile materials that were used in all
kinds of consumer goods. And we'll come back to this
in a bit. Okay, So, another thing that Ammy and

(24:53):
Thierry point out in their paper is that a lot
of sources point to a sixteenth century Italian physician and
anatomist named Gabrielli Phallopio as as the person who published
the earliest confirmed description of the condom, and so Filipio
lived fifteen twenty three to fifteen sixty two, and he

(25:14):
was very influential in his discoveries about the human body
and in overturning some of the misconceptions of physicians from
antiquity like Galen and through dissection of cadavers, Filipio made
a lot of important observations about about the human head,
about the ears, and about the reproductive organs. Uh He
discovered the tubes that travel between the ovaries and the uterus,

(25:35):
now known as fallopian tubes. But uh I Mean and
Terry dispute this tendency to give Filipio credit for the
first published description of the condom, and they disputed in
multiple ways. First of all, there is at least one
known example much earlier than this, of a published description
of a condom in the tenth century, the Persian physician

(25:56):
al A Kawani published a treatise in which he advocated
the use of an animal's gall bladder to cover the
penis during sex, and this was understood to be for
the purpose of preventing pregnancy. But Amy Interior also dispute
the Filipio ever described a condom as a barrier to
be used during intercourse. Well, then what's this dispute about. Well,

(26:18):
Filipio did definitely write about a thing that covers the penis.
According to Ammy INTERII, Filippio wrote about a sheet of
fabric that would be filled with a concoction of wine
and wood shavings and bits of copper and antler ashes
and mercury, precipitate, whatever that is um and that by

(26:38):
placing this sheet full of stuff over the glands, it
would protect a man from contracting syphilis. However, what the
authors here point out is that he actually doesn't recommend
using this during intercourse. He recommends using it after intercourse
has already taken place. Okay, Well, that that makes a

(26:59):
lot more sense given all the details of the ingredients
that are placed within. Yeah, and so obviously that's not
a condom. That's just more like a bizarre home remedy. Uh.
Filippio claimed that even men had used this method and
none of them ever got syphilis. I'm suspicious of that claim, yeah,
I mean, especially given how confusing syphilis, you know, historically

(27:21):
was to to document. It was called the great imitator,
for example, because it could was so often misdiagnosed as
other things, and then it can of course go dormant
for long periods of time and seem as if it
is cued. Yes, So, even though this doesn't actually describe
the use of a condom during intercourse, some historical writings
do indicate that by the seventeenth century, animal membrane and

(27:42):
linnen condoms were being used in various places throughout Europe.
So by the seventeenth century, there's definitely their writings all
over the place indicating people are using these things. They're
definitely in fashion by then. And another thing is the
physical evidence here. So we mentioned a while back that
the earliest surviving physical evidence of a condom goes back
to the seventeenth century. What is this physical evidence. Well,

(28:04):
in the nineteen eighties, archaeologists found sheep intestine condoms in
an excavation of an English latrine pit from the sixteen forties.
So it looks like they were used and then thrown
in the latrine sometime between sixteen forty two and sixteen
forty six. The pit was actually covered in sixteen forty seven,
and we know that. Uh. And this was at a

(28:25):
keep of Dudley Castle in West Midlands, England. Uh So
if anybody's been there and has seen the famous condom
pit right in, let us know. Now this brings us
to the obvious question condom, Like where does the word
itself come from? This is a huge debate all on
its own. Yeah, exactly, and and uh and and we
should note that you know that there's certainly the myth

(28:47):
out there of the British doctor Condom or colonel Condom
or colonel Yeah, who a reverend Condom. Well, I didn't
run across the reverend either, Captain. I mean, as long
as we're we're just clearly making him up. His holiness
the Pope Condom, Well, he said, well, probably not that one.
But he was said to have lived in the seventeenth century,
um uh in England under the reign of Charles the Second.

(29:10):
And it's pointed out by Amy and Terry in Condoms
of Turbulent History. There there's seemingly no basis for this
at all, but there is a whole lot of conflicting
stories on where the term condom comes from. Uh, just
be beyond this story. So if it's not from a
non existent English name, and that's the thing, like condoms,
not even an English name from that time period, then

(29:32):
where did it come from? Well, they point to a
few plausible theories. Uh, it could come from the verb
um conderie, which has numerous meanings, including to protect, to
protect or to sheath, or the corresponding noun condus, which
means one who stores that which preserves, or a receptacle.
Where it also could derive from the Italian word guantan,

(29:55):
which more specifically is it's a Phoenician variant gone them,
meaning a gauntlet or glove. Yeah, I love read. Another
thing that's great in this paper is a documentation of
many of the euphemisms that people have had for condoms
throughout the centuries, especially in the eighteenth century. You had
these great One thing about euphemisms for condoms is that

(30:18):
almost every national culture puts the name of another national
culture in the euphemism for the condom, so like the
the French sometimes called them the English writing code, and
the English sometimes called them quote French letters letters What
does that mean? The letters apparently comes from a common

(30:39):
word meaning envelope, so like you know, the letters would
be the envelope. So it's like saying the French envelope. Now,
I wonder where this comes from? It is it? Is
it perhaps tied to the invention actually, you know, entering
into the country from say France or or from England.
You know, are they actually contributing the source or is
it like this is the kind of it's be useful,

(31:00):
but it's the kind of thing that those French would
have come up with or correspondingly, this is a very
useful invention, but clearly the English did this there. I
wish there was a name for this. I know there
might be a name for it, I don't know of. Yeah,
this general phenomenon of um applying the name of another
country to an object or practice that doesn't necessarily come

(31:21):
from there, right or you know, another way of looking
at is is that since for so long contraception has
been you know, unfairly thrust solely upon on females in
these situations. I guess it's possible that it's it could
be due to men traveling to another country, say French
traveling to England, English traveling to France. Uh, in a

(31:43):
military scenario or outside of a military scenario, and then
it is you know, they attribute it to the nation
in which the females are introducing them to the technology.
Oh that's interesting. Yeah, but that's that's merely my guesswork. Okay. So,
by the nineteenth century, condoms had definitely become very popular
in Europe for both contraception and prophylaxis against infections, but

(32:06):
they weren't without problems. The most popular condoms were these
skin condoms. There were linen condoms to there were various
materials used, but the most popular were the skin condoms
made from animal membranes. And these could actually be expensive
and expenses a problem in contraceptives and in profile access
against infection. Yeah, I mean as as well, we'll discuss later.

(32:27):
To like, one of the big appeals of the modern
condom is that they are generally inexpensive and or free.
Uh So yeah, if you if it's expensive, that is,
that's that's not good for overall um, public health and
also just overall public usage of the technology. In terms
of animal membranes, Like we said, membranes and bladders, they
were used for a number of different purposes, you know,

(32:50):
the creation of wine skins or floats. The Aztecs would
use inflated bladders inflated with air for religious purposes. They
were like, you know, burned afterwards. And uh. You see
the sort of sort of thing pop up in other
people's writing too, sometimes the outside of of actual um,
you know, utilitarian use of the bladders. Uh. Leonardo da

(33:12):
Vinci wrote of inflating intestines as a means of better
understanding their structure, um, you know, after you know, after
dissecting cadaver. Uh. And he also wrote of the vessels
and the penis that were filled with wind to make
it erecked, which wind, which isn't exactly how it works,
but I guess it's the same idea, uh, you know.
And by the way, having access to rubber, some Mesoamerican

(33:36):
cultures used actual rubber in the creation of enema bags
for the administration of smoke or other substances. In other
parts of the world, such as Africa, animal bladders had
to be used to create such medicinal devices. Well, it's
funny you mentioned rubber there, because the revolution in the
condom world was definitely insured by the introduction of rubber
as a material that you could use in manufacturing these things.

(33:59):
So in eighteen thirty nine, when Charles Goodyear invented the
process of vulcanization, I think I think that was a
turning point, and this could even be the subject of
a future invention episode um. But in short, vulcanization is
a process used for improving the material properties of rubber
by chemically treating it. Specifically, you expose rubber to sulfur

(34:20):
and other additives and things called accelerants at high temperatures,
and the sulfur and the rubber and the additives they'll
combine and they form these these chemical cross links, and
the final product is much more durable and elastic than
untreated rubber. And vulcanization opened the door to using rubber
as a versatile industrial material and made it useful in

(34:41):
a huge range of consumer products. It sort of change
the the world of materials, and in eighteen fifty five
condoms became one of those products that used rubber on
the interior. Note that At the first World's Fair in
Philadelphia in eighteen seventy six, you could buy quote rubbers
people were calling them. They were quote handmade and as

(35:03):
thick as inner tubes had a seam, and being costly.
They were sold by the unit, so not really selling
all the advantages on those early ones. But the the
early model rubber condoms were not extremely popular since they
were they were expensive, a lot of people didn't like
how they felt. Some industrial modifications were made over the

(35:24):
years and how they were molded. But another major upgrade
was in the nineteen thirties when the process of using
latex was introduced and latex rubber is made from a
dispersion of rubber particles in a water based solution, and
latex manufacturing made condoms significantly cheaper and lead to people
widely thinking of them as disposable, single use products rather

(35:46):
than as like a reusable appliance. Both of these ultimately
um selling points for the modern condom right and of
course today they are also non latex condoms you can buy.
Some are still made from animal membranes actually like lamb secum.
Some are also made from materials like poly euthane, and
this can be useful for people who are allergic to latex.
Some people are, though, I believe the scientific consensus is

(36:09):
that animal membrane condoms don't protect against st I S
t I S like latex condoms do, and that poly
eurothinge condoms have a lower rate of effectiveness at contraception
and are more prone to breaking than latex. All right, well,
on that note, let's take one more break, and when
we come back, we're going to discuss more about the
current state of condoms, especially the benefits of condoms, some

(36:30):
of the statistics backing up why you should be using condoms. Hello,
I'm Mini Driver, and on my podcast Mini Questions, I
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(36:51):
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This season, I'm coming back with new trailblazers like Blondie
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(37:13):
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(38:21):
I'm Jake Halbern, host of Deep Cover. Our new season
is about a lawyer who helped the mob run Chicago.
We controlled the courts, we controlled absolutely everything. He bribed
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promised that he could take the mob down. I've spent

(38:43):
the past year trying to figure out why he flipped
and what he was really after. From my perspective, Bob
was too good to be true. There's gotta be something
wrong with this. I wouldn't trust that guy. He looks
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The moment I put the wire around the first time,
my life was over. If it ever got out, they
would kill me in a heartbeat. Listen to deep Cover
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever
you get your podcasts. All right, we're back, All right, Robert,
tell me what if condoms ever done for the world. Oh, well,

(39:24):
they've done a great deal for the world and continue
to do a great deal for the world. UM. I
was looking up some some good stats on this, and
one of the great sources you can go to is
the World Health Organization. UM. They point out that condoms
are safe and they're highly effective in preventing unwanted pregnancy
and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Like one of the

(39:44):
take comes from looking at the information is really like
there's no better time than now to make use of
condoms in terms of just where the invention is, just
how well engineered and refined everything is. It's come a
long way. It's no longer the thick inner tube rubber
with the scene sam right. Yeah, And if and like
you said, if you have one is allergic to latex, uh,

(40:04):
there are these other options as well. Uh And also
none of the made The World Health Organization points out
that none of the major manufacturers of male and female
latex condoms use mb T or ZMBT. This is a
chemical material that has recently been identified as a potential
carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Again,

(40:25):
you are not going to find that in um being
used by major manufacturers of male and female latex condoms.
And uh on. On top of that, evidence just shows
that male left a tex condoms have or greater protective
effect against HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. That being said,
we do have to stress that condoms are are not

(40:47):
one effective. Um you know that, and then that can
be said for for for most contraceptive methods, you know,
aside from abstinence. Uh. And by that I mean absolute abstinence,
not a striving for abstinence, because I think there is
an important distinction to be made there. Uh. Still, if
used correctly every time, they are proven means of preventing

(41:07):
the spread of HIV in women and in men. According
to Planned Parenthood, which if you if you haven't visited
the Planned Parenthood website, I recommended Planned parenthood dot org.
They have a whole host of services, uh, you know,
aimed at at educating people about reproductive health and reproduction. Uh.
And in fact, just the other day had a Planned

(41:30):
Parenthood representative come out and give like an age tailored
talk uh to my son and some of children from
from his school group. Um, you know on just like
the parts of the body and what the official names
for these parts of the bodies are, and you know
what's different from a boy and a girl, etcetera. You know,
just like a very base age level um. Uh, you know,

(41:52):
talk on on the the realities of our our different bodies.
That's a great service, because I think a lot of times, know,
if people don't know how to talk about reproduction and
you know, reproductive organs and stuff with kids, just like
the not having the right words and feeling awkwardness about
it can lead to not talking about it at all,

(42:14):
which can put like a kind of like shame or
stigma around it that there shouldn't be right, And that
can also be of course the same thing with the
use of contraceptives and condoms. I know, for for my
part um, like, the main bits of sexual education that
I was exposed to in school were like high school level,
like highly snickery class environments where like a football coach

(42:39):
was begrudgingly demonstrating a condom being applied to a banana,
that sort of thing, and I don't think anybody learned
anything from it. You know, you had to sort of
hope that that each individual in the class had somebody else,
some other um you know, group or individual in their
life taking an interest in explaining to them, you know,
what this was, how it worked, and how it fit

(42:59):
into um into healthy sexuality. Yeah, not teaching kids about
reproductive health and reproductive reproduction does not mean they're not
going to find out anything. It just means they're going
to learn mostly like dubious facts from their friends, right
or television which you know, depending on or or the
internet nowadays. Right. But again, Planned Parenthood UM a really

(43:22):
good source for information. UH. It's a nonprofit organization that
provides reproductive healthcare in the United States and globally UH.
And according to them, condoms are ninety eight percent effective
at preventing pregnancy if you use them perfectly and use
them every time you have sex, but making a room
for user air, the rate is actually more like eight

(43:42):
percent effective. So statistically they say, quote, fifteen out of
a hundred people who use condoms as their only birth
control method will get pregnant each year. Okay, So, as such,
Planned parent Whood suggests using condoms and conjunction with other
forms of birth control in the form of a pill
and i U D, an implant ring, or a shot. Basically,
the combo just increases your odds of preventing pregnancy. And

(44:05):
they also mentioned that employing a pullout method that means uh,
pulling the penis out prior to ejaculation with the condom
can also help, though on its own, the pullout method
is not recommended. Also we mentioned you know, internal and
external condoms, the male and the female condom, how they
you know, the usefulness of both. However, they should not

(44:27):
be used at the same time. Likewise, one should not
use more than one condom at once. Uh quote. Condoms
are designed to be used on their own, and doubling
up won't necessarily give you extra production. One condom used
correctly as all the production you need. But again that's
just the pregnancy angle. They also helped prevent the spread
of STDs like HIV, clamydia, and gono rhea. They also

(44:50):
point out the condoms are a great option for a
number of other reasons. They're you know, they're inexpensive and
sometimes free, like we mentioned, and they do not require
a prescription. Uh you can. You can buy them or
obtain them again sometimes for free, from a number of
different places. And they have no side effects, you know,
aside from you know, some individuals may have a latex
allergy or have sensitivity to latex. But again, there are

(45:13):
other condoms on the market made of say plastic, and
this can make is essentially makes this a non issue
and really the only downsides two condoms that the according
to plant Parenthood or that they do require just a
little getting used to. But again, I feel like that
can be said for pretty much everything in human sexuality.
So it's just one more thing to you know, learn

(45:35):
the ropes on. But but that it is. But but
also they stress that as part of a like modern
human sexual culture, they're actually part of the excitement of
sexual activity and and not a like hard stop to
the action, you know, like the the Again, like we
said at the beginning of the episode, like condoms are
and should be considered sexy and not something that's like

(45:55):
this purely clinical, like deeply serious thing that's going to
you know, take you out of moment, right, I mean, yeah,
I guess that's a really interesting issue. It comes up
throughout the history of the condom that we were reading, um,
you know, different reports about how the different technologies at
different times were said to feel and how people felt
about using them. Where they you know, excited to use them,

(46:17):
where they disinclined they kind of not really like having
to use them. Uh. These are the kind of things
that I feel like from from one type of like
medical or clinical approach, you would look at stuff like
that and say like, well, that's just extraneous details. You know,
what we want to know is like how effective is
it when it's used, But whether or not people feel
like using something is an important thing in public health.

(46:40):
That's going to tell you probably how often it actually
gets used in in people's real lives. Yeah, and you know,
this is an area probably where you know, things like
portrayal of condoms and media are ultimately important because if
the if the scene in which a condom is produced
is still erotic or titillating. Um. You know, that is

(47:00):
going to be part of the overall messaging that this
this is, This is not you know, a deterrent to
your sexual activity. This is a part of the sexual activity.
You don't want people thinking about it as like something
you've got to do but it's a bummer. Yeah. And
it's interesting to think about all this too, in in
comparison to other inventions, because there are probably let their

(47:22):
levels of this within the invention, like the invention not
only we've seen this in some of the examples we've
discussed on the show, where it doesn't only have to work, Uh,
it has to be something that people are you know,
have ease and using and want to use. You know,
see that in the history of let's say, you know,
the motion picture cameras that we've recently discussed. Yeah, that's right.

(47:42):
I mean it's not enough for a technology or technological
capability to merely exist. It has to be adopted. I mean,
you know, you can you can lead a horse to water, right,
but you can't make it wear a giant rubber condom.
I haven't looked this up, but I wonder what some
of the like marketing materials on those said. You know,
was it like vulcanized for extra strength, yeah, or just

(48:05):
you know, I can imagine them, uh, you know, like
selling this the science of the of the material you know,
I mean because ultimately the history of condoms as the
history of material science, because that, again, the basic concept
was was clearly evident to us, you know, thousands of
years ago. Uh, it's just been figuring out exactly how
they work and then figuring out the best uh you know,

(48:28):
use of materials to make it possible. Yeah. But now
now that we've had this conversation, it really doesn't make
sense to me that most of the marketing you see
around condoms is not based on like how effective they
are and how you know, It's not like citing statistics
about how good they are at stopping the spread of
diseases and and preventing pregnancy. It's more about trying to

(48:50):
make them sexy, like the brands tend to advertise with
sexually charged imagery and stuff like that. And I mean,
on one hand, you could just say, well, they're just
trying to sell their product, which they are. But on
the other hand, you could say, well, in a in
a way that's actually a public good. Yeah, yeah, I
guess ultimately you have to have both um streams of
communication going on, Like an individual needs to to know

(49:12):
like the the the hard medical side of the equation,
but also be exposed to like the you know, the
cultural sexy messaging of it. And uh, I mean it
would be interesting to look at, you know how you know,
what sort of tug and poll goes on with these
two streams of communication in the media today. But I'm
I'm guessing that we have perhaps a healthy balance of

(49:34):
the two, I should hope. So anyway, that being said,
clearly like we we still have to have to push
communication on the use of condoms, and there are plenty
of initiatives around the world in the US as well. Uh,
you know, to remind everyone, to educate people to keep
the you know, the fire burning on this topic and

(49:55):
make people aware that you know, this is what they are,
this is why you should use them, and uh and
and this is why they are effective. But also some
of these caveats like uh, like you know, it's better
if you use them in conjunction with these other birth
control methods as well. Right now with a lot of
as with a lot of inventions that we've talked about
on the show. Um, the innovation is not over. Oh

(50:16):
there are tons of modern variants and attempts to continue, Yeah,
changing it innovating, didn't the Was it the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation that was investing in prizes for essentially
I think that they were trying to create effective condoms
that that we're just like better from a sensation point
of view. Yeah, that was That was one of the

(50:38):
facts brought up to us by Scott Benjamin, who helped
us on the research for this show. He pointed out
that this was in March of Bill and Millindi Gates
Foundation issued a challenge the public develop econom that was
safe and effective while still preserving pleasure for the user.
UH twenty two grants were awarded to organizations claiming to
have the next generation of condoms. Um, you know, so
of talking about using things like graphing and nano a

(51:00):
break and hydro gel, etcetera. Which is which does bring
to mind the idea of someone creating like the stealth
bomber of condoms that is perhaps maybe not that all
you know, practical at this point, but you know, hey
could lead to just improved material usage in the future. Yeah. Well,
but also making them more and more appealing to the

(51:20):
user makes makes it likely that they will be used
more often in a greater percentage of cases. Yeah, exactly.
And yes, Scott actually included a list of like various
um uh possible future condoms that are in development, things
like spray on condoms or the galactic cap, which Scott

(51:40):
just tells us looks complicated. Um, things like the consent condom,
which requires four hands to open. Um. Yeah. So there
are a lot of different initiatives out there, both technological
and again uh you know, messaging initiatives to uh to
to let everyone know you know about the benefits of
condom use. All right, there you have it. Um, I'm

(52:01):
trying to remember if we've done any any other like
health related invention episodes. So we did the X ray
X ray and we did that's the main one I'm remembering. Okay, well,
I guess the call out to listeners a toothpaste toothpaste. Yes,
So yeah, we would like to continue to you know,
just sort of hit these different classifications of invention. So
if there's another health related invention you would like to

(52:23):
hear us cover on the show, Or if there's some
angle in this episode that you feel like we could
explore in another episode, let us know, like, for instance,
rubber as we discuss um, let us know we'd love
to explore those topics. And in the meantime, if you
want to check out other episodes of Invention, head on
over to invention pod dot com. That's where you'll find them.

(52:44):
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(53:08):
Tor Harrison and our guest producer today, Maya cole Uh.
If you would like to get in touch with us
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