Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Tudor Origins of the Condom

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

What were condoms like in Tudor times? Before you were able to pop to the supermarket to pick some up, where did people buy them?Joining Kate today is historian Dr. Kate Stephenson, to explore what the earliest evidence of condoms is, just how effective they were, and to smash some of the myths surrounding their history.This episode was edited by Tom Delargy, the producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.Voting is open for the Listener's Choice Award at the British Podcast Awards, so if you enjoy what we're doing, we'd love it if you took a quick follow this link and click on Betwixt the Sheets: https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/votingEnjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code BETWIXT sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscription/You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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the Sheets. We were so close to winning it last time, and that was because of you, lovely people. So let's see if we can push it and win it this year. For the rest of you, let's do it. Hello betwixters. Care to join me for a crafty afternoon. That's a crafty afternoon, by the way. They are all the rage. And today's crafts is 17th century condom edition. That's right. You simply lay out your dried pig intestine out in front of you. Have you done that? Excellent. Excellent. Now you want to cut it to length. Don't be exaggerating because that's not going to help anyone further down the line. And once we've done that, we're going to sew the top and thread a beautiful ribbon delicately at the base and voila you have yourself one reusable yeah you did hear that correctly 17th century condom simply dip it in milk to reactivate it keeps getting better and better doesn't it but what were the even earlier iterations of the so-called English raincoat were they any use at all well it's time to find out what do you look for a man oh money of course you're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you i make perfect

copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning enough and pushing the button. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, but beautiful, Dan. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Dary. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal in Society with B, K Lister. Kastanova called them his English raincoat. Other historical names include armor, machine, glove, sheath. But whatever it is that you call a condom, its history is a fascinating. one. How far back do they really date? Who was making and selling them? And did they do anything at all to prevent against pregnancy and venereal disease? Joining me today is the marvellous historian, Dr Kate

Stevenson, to help us find out more. Hello and welcome to Betricks the Sheets. It's only Kate Stevenson. How are you doing? I'm doing great, thank you. I'm so pleased that you're here. You are one of the most fun people that I've ever spoken to about condoms and thought I just had to have you. I feel like that's quite a small selection. It's the thing. It's like conversations about condoms don't tend to be a lot of fun despite the best efforts of sex ed teachers and trying to get everyone to be dead excited about it. But history of condoms is fascinating and hilarious. What brought you to study in this? How did you end up researching condoms? It was such an accent. as all the best things are. I was working for the National Trust for Scotland and we were looking

at ways to engage younger audiences and I said, let's do a sex tour. And everybody said, fine, Kate, off you go. So I went off and I researched and I wrote a tour around one of the Edinburgh properties based around the history of sex and tying in the history of those properties to it. And unsurprisingly, a lot of people had a lot of thoughts about it. because it wasn't often that the National Trust for Scotland talked about sex. So my name appeared in all sorts of newspapers and things like that associated with this tour. And from that point forward, I was fascinated, but also my name was out there. And from then, I've really developed this specialism with condoms.

Amazing. I suppose when we think about condoms, you do think of them as being super modern things because they're still very much with us today and very much in conversation. and hopefully everybody has encountered one in their, you know, well, at least most people who needed one will have encountered one. But they're actually, they're very old, aren't they? But how old are we talking here? Because you are very good at busting condom myths.

So let's talk about the earliest ones. Absolutely. Well, there are lots of stories out there. And suppose that's one of the things that you get right across sex history as a whole. But there are so many wild stories out there about condoms. even sometimes from very reputable sources. There are stories out there that potentially the Egyptians had condoms,

maybe the Romans had condoms, maybe even prehistoric French cave painters had condoms. No, just behave. Like what, made out of woolly mammoth skins? Come on. So that one's my favourite one, because the picture is, it's man, and he clearly has an erect penis.

I mean, it's all just lines. And at a stretch, you might say he had a penis sheath on, but I cannot see how you got condom from it. And honestly, it makes me wonder where they think he's going to put his dick because the nearest thing is a large bison. So I'm a little bit confused

about how they got condom from that cave painting. So I'm not massively sold on that theory, I'll be honest. Why does he have a bigger action near a bison in the first place? That's another question we should be picking up on here. So many questions. But moving swiftly on. So there's all these stories out there, and it is possible that they did exist much further in the past. I've heard Tutankhamun. Is that a nonsense?

Yeah. Well, again, it's unlikely. So there is, they did find among Tutankhamun's clothing a leather, penis cover, essentially. But it's much more likely to be a piece of clothing. And we know that the Egyptians wore penis sheaves. So it could have been. used as a condom, but it does feel a bit of a stretch to say that that's what it was used for. So possibly, possibly not.

We do know the first sort of verifiable reference we have to condoms comes in the 16th century. And that comes from a man called Gabriel Philopio, who is very interested in trying to prevent the spread of syphilis. So syphilis first really is recorded, although it may well have existed well before that, in 1495 when French troops are besieging Naples. And there is a huge documented outbreak of syphilis, which then spreads all over the world. It certainly comes back to Scotland

with Spanish mercenaries who are fighting for James IV, and it spreads down from Scotland into England, and it spreads all over Europe. So a number of physicians and doctors start trying to apply themselves to prevent its spread. And he's one of those, and he sets up this big experiment, where he tests essentially a condom, a linen condom, a material condom,

on about a thousand soldiers, and says that it prevents the spread of syphilis by putting a piece of fabric over your penis. Did he make a thousand soldiers have sex and then record the results? So again, so many questions. It's not really clear from the way he details it, what his scientific process was. Show as you're working out for Lopio.

But he's... It's just a side note. He's like, here's what I suggest you do. And by the way, I tried it out on a thousand soldiers and none of them caught syphilis. So I don't know whether he was just going around taking notes or whether there was a big study where he was encouraging people to have sex.

This is the same guy from Flopian tube fame, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. What was his condom? Like, what was this thing that he was kind of wrap around the willies of various soldiers? We don't know exactly. He does describe it. He basically talks.

about a piece of cloth and the way he phrases it, it's a bit unclear about how he's suggesting you use it. It seems to be quite short from his description. He's talking about it essentially just going over the tip. And he tells you to wash your genitals before sex. Great piece of advice. And then he, it's not really clear whether he then suggests you have sex and then put the fabric on your penis or whether you put it on for sex.

Although he does suggest moistening it with saliva, which suggests that maybe that's to help with lubrication, but it's quite an unclear piece of medical text. So if that's going on after sex, that's just screw the whole thing up and throw it out. That's not doing diddly squat, is it? Not doing anything at all. And there are, as far as we're aware at the moment,

no surviving fabric condoms. They get mentioned a few more times in various texts, but we don't know exactly what they looked like. But the questions I have is it's going to change. chafe if you're having sex with a fabric condom on. And certainly later texts talk about sex with one on. But nobody really talks about anything beyond saliva. And I think there must have been grease or fat or something like that involved in some way.

Because otherwise it's going to be a really tricky procedure. God, you're absolutely right. I mean, people bitch about how condoms make everything feel bad today, don't they? With like all of our rubber technology. And this is a linen tube. It's not going to be comfortable for anyone, is it? No. But it might be very effective at stopping people having sex at all.

They might just look at that and be like, ah, I'm all right, actually. Great way to prevent the spread of disease. All right, so we've got these linen prototypes that we're not really, like, we need someone to fill in the details, really, of like, how did you put it on? Was it before sex, after sex, what lubricants were being used? What are the reviews of this thing? And we don't have that. Exactly.

And we have a few little clues later, so a later Italian doctor, Hercules of Saxonia, best name ever. Wow, I want his condoms. Right. He talks a little bit more about them towards the end of the 16th century. And he talks about them being treated with some sort of concoction, which I assume is a spermicide or that they thought was a spermicide. But again, he's not really specific about what that is. But he's certainly talking about them being used during sex. Well, that's an improvement.

Exactly. And then we have a reference in the 17th century, again to linen condoms, being used in a porn novel, a brilliant porn novel. It is called The School of Venus. Oh, that's English translation. It was originally published in France in the 1650s. It was very, very successful. But it actually has a section in it where they talk about preventing pregnancy by using a cloth, essentially a cloth. essentially a cloth condom.

Wow. Okay. And do they give any more information? I suppose if it's a porn novel, they're not going to spend a lot of detail on the safe sex bit, are they? No, it's sort of a passing reference. It's like if you don't want to get pregnant, use a little cloth, it'll soak up the sperm, and then you won't get pregnant.

Would that work? I mean, I think I know the answer to that, but go on. My feeling is no. As far as I'm aware, no one has tried it out, probably for the best. But, yeah, my feeling is that these would not, not have been very effective. But I do wonder if they are lubricating them with the oil or grease or something,

that actually maybe that would have made a much better barrier and would have made them a little bit more effective. Oh, you could be right there. You could be on to something. It's kind of like sad to look back at this stuff and think that, you know, obviously it's a lot of fun. But it's also like they were really seriously trying to stop the spread of syphilis and get pregnant.

And they came up with these linen bandage things that must have felt terrible. and didn't work anyway. It didn't work. Yeah, but I suppose you can see them as a sort of prototype as a step on something that was a little bit more effective. Okay, that's a nice way of looking at it. Okay. So when do we upgrade from linen condoms? I haven't checked in a while, but I'm going to guess they fell out a favour at some point.

We're not still used to. Yeah, again, the linen condoms are so interesting because the references are so scattered. They're definitely there. They're mentioned a handful of times throughout the 16th and 17th century. but we know so little about them. But then when we get on to the next iteration of condoms, we know masses about them. And that is animal gut condoms.

Not brilliant. Well, different. They probably come in towards the end of the 16th century, early 17th century. Again, we don't know exactly when that sort of switch goes and they're probably the two are actually being used at the same time. We do know that they are definitely being, mass-produced and are in use by certainly the upper-middle classes by the mid-16-hundreds. And we know that because of the Dudley Castle condoms, which are this incredible archaeological find.

Tell me about them, please. Essentially, in the 1980s, they did a big excavation at Dudley Castle in the Midlands, and they excavated the medieval long-drop latrines, which had originally been built in the 12thundreds. and those were originally built there and hadn't been used for centuries. And then in the 1640s, 1642, they were opened back up for royalist forces to use while they were occupying the castle. And then the castle, later the defences and the latrines were all demolished in 1647. So we've got a very, very tight time frame in the 1640s where we know that those long drop latrines were being used. and whilst they were going through those layers

that were definitely royalist forces occupation, they found 10 condoms, 10 animal got condoms, right? Can you imagine the discussion that went around those where they're like, oh, I wonder what these are and finally someone was like, I think they might be condoms. Oh, God, to have been there, that's incredible. I know, absolutely amazing. So they think five of them had been used

and five were stored inside each other, like tucked up in a little like sort of folded into each other. And they think those probably hadn't been used. How many were there in total? So 10 in total. It's quite hard because they've been in the ground for a long time. They think they're not entirely sure what the original measurements would have been. But again, they think they were probably shorter than condoms that came later and just designed to go over the tip.

Wow. But certainly showing they were in use by the 1640s. They were in use by soldiers, certainly officers by the 1640s. and that they've done some research into the consistency of the condoms and it shows that it wasn't just a cottage industry at this period. They were clearly being produced on a reasonable scale and there was quite a lot of uniformity across them. So there was definitely production of condoms by that point,

which suggests that they came in earlier. I mean, there must have been really, that makes complete sense. If there's a soldier wandering around with 10 of them, all perfectly made, I mean, do we have any sources that might tell us who was making this? I mean, my God, to find a Tudor condom factory. It'd be amazing. A little bit later we do. So once we get into the early 18th century,

we actually have loads of sources about who's making them and almost exclusively women. And I just love that stumbling into this sex industry, it is just dominated by these incredible women who are, particularly by the later 18th century, extremely good at marketing themselves as well. because we have some of their marketing material left. And we know that they are producing on a large scale,

that they are selling wholesale, and that they are also supplying individuals who come to their factory or to their outlet and can buy them for themselves as well. But then they're supplying taverns and brothels and chemists as well. Those would be your kind of like your retail outlets. If you wanted a condom, you would like a pub or a brothel or, I'm just wondering if there'd be an actual condom shop

in the Tudor period. Yeah, so the only references I've found are the manufacturers essentially selling their goods themselves. So you can go up to their outlet and they will sell them direct to you as well as selling them to all the other places that will sell them off.

How would you make them? Kate, and I know that you've done some extensive research in this particular area. How would you make an animal gut condom? I have. So last year I decided that I should, since I talked about these, I should have a go of making some.

And essentially what you do is you get your animal gut. Traditionally, lamb was used, but also pig's gut, and occasionally fish skin as well. And again, there's not much recorded about the process of managing fish skin. But certainly with the gut, what you do is you get your gut, and the first thing to do is to remove all the fat. So you scrape that off, and then you soak it in a weak alkaline solution, which helps to remove it. So it's a lot of soaking and scraping and then washing very thoroughly. And then traditionally the animal gut was treated with brimstone. And we think that was probably to help disinfect it or to act as a preservative.

But again, we're not entirely sure. Why brimstone? That's so, would that have any kind of medicinal beneficial function that we know of? Mild disinfectant. But beyond that, it's quite hard to know exactly. And I think that's probably why it's in the process. I didn't do that bit of the process. I didn't fancy, you know, burning brimstone in the back garden.

I thought my neighbours might complain. Do you want a broomstone off eBay? Well, I got the animal gut off Amazon. How did that turn up, Kay? Did that turn up that you needed to scrape all the fat off of it? So, no, it was partly prepared already because I bought essentially sausage casings when I did them. But obviously there would be a lot more fat when you're dealing with the sort of straight from the butchers. Okay.

All right. So you've scraped it and you've brimbing. stoneed it, then what you two? Yeah, so you've basically got these long tubes of fat-free, stretchy animal gut. So then you need to cut it appropriately. And you're looking somewhere, certainly by the 18th century, when we have surviving examples, between sort of six and nine inches in length.

Gives you a good range. And the bit you really want, the expensive bit is the sealed, the blind end of the gut. but the others you need to tie a knot in the end. And then you want to dry them. So there's a few different ways you can dry them. Some places did it on oiled glass molds. Other places blew them up.

And that's what I did. You blow them up like a little sausage balloon. And then you dry it clipped up on long strings, drying racks essentially. And we actually have an image from the 18th century of them being made in that manner. And across the background, there's this big long washing line of drying condoms. inflated drying condoms. And then once they're dry, you've got this lovely flat, dry, very easy to preserve for a very long period of time. And you sew or you attach a little ribbon around the bottom. And that ribbon helps once you're using it to hold it in place. So they're really, really stable.

They'll keep for absolutely ages in this dry form. And then when you want to use them, you dip them in a liquid. It rehydrates them. They get stretchy again. And then you can pop them on, tie them in place with your little ribbon and off you go. Because you were kind enough when we last met to actually give me one of your homemade condoms and I'm holding it in my hands right now. It's a thing of beauty, Kate. It really is. Your sewing skills are just absolutely incredible.

But it did actually, it's got a pink ribbon on the end and everything, but it did actually give me a really good understanding of what these things would have looked like and how they work because the skin itself is so fine. It's like paper. It's like tracing paper. Think of it as like sausage cases. but incredibly fine. I've never actually been brave enough

to attempt this to actually use it. One day with a particularly brave man, I'll put this to the test. So the thing I did learn making these... Have you done that, Kate? I have not tried them out. But these are quite narrow. I used Pigs Gut.

And I think if I was going to do them again, I would look for a wider sausage casing because these are quite narrow, even when they've been rehydrated. and I think they might be a little bit tough to get on with the replicas that I've made. So I think they were probably using a slightly wider gut when they were making them.

But that's the joy of trying these things out for yourself. You get to learn about the manufacturing process. You must have learned so much more about this by making them. I've learned so much more about it because you've made them. It's like you realize that the artistry that goes into this. I know like people say, you know, a condom, ha-ha, it's funny. But like the stitchwork, the seam,

tying the ribbon on, cutting it to side. It's actually quite a beautiful object, which I wasn't expected. You know what? I think so too, and I keep showing them to people. It's going to my flat, let me show you my condoms. It's a great introduction. That's amazing. The question that we've got to ask is, would they have worked? Are they strong animal gut condoms? Because holding it in my hands, like I said, it feels like tracing paper. Feels very thin, but actually when they're rehydrated, they've got quite a lot of stretch to them. You can actually still buy animal gut condoms.

So they're still on the market. People with latex allergies can buy them. And the reason that they still sell them is they are very effective at preventing pregnancy. They are completely useless at preventing the spread of STIs. So depends what you want your condom for. So yes, in some ways they were certainly I would imagine better than the linen forerunners, but they weren't doing everything that people thought they were doing. And is it true that they would be reused?

They'd be washed out and reused. Yes. So not everyone advocated for that. but there certainly was an understanding that they were supposed to be reusable and that they could be used a number of times. It's pretty grim, isn't it? It is. Well, it gets more grim because essentially we know that people would buy their own condoms. They might rinse them, use them a few times themselves.

But we do know that certainly by the 18th century that they are being supplied in baudy houses and that they are obviously less careful about how they're washing them out, how they're resupplying them to their clients. and there's actually a number of texts published by doctors in the 18th century who talk about this process and are basically saying it's spreading disease because they're not being cleaned properly

and they're being used by different men. So the first man is infecting the second man. That second-hand condoms, wow. Poor. I know, I've had time to, you know, acclimatized to it. I've just thrown it out you there. What the hell?

Who thought that was a good idea? My God. at least doctors were there going, no, no, no, don't do that. This isn't a good idea. I imagine it was the women in those brothels because they were quite expensive because of how time-consuming this process was and how it was quite tricky to mechanise it. Animal gut condoms were relatively expensive.

So they were only really accessible to the middle and upper classes. So the body houses that are supplying them, they are likely to be higher end. But even so, they're quite a big outlay. So this is their way of making sure they've got their money's worth then they're probably not thinking too much about the consequences. That's like when you go bowling and you have to put on the bowling shoes that everyone else is.

Only way more disgusting. Yeah, if you were ejaculating into the bowling shoes, that's exactly the same thing. No. All right, okay. So they're being, how much would they have cost? That's interesting that you said that because looking at this beautiful object that you've made, that it is quite labour intensive. That is labour intensive.

So what price point, do we have any idea? about that? So I've really struggled to find any specific prices. So we've got these adverts where people are talking about the wares and the wares that are available. But until the 19th century, there's not often a price attached to them. So sort of how much these are being sold for in the 18th century is a bit of a mystery. But given who is using them and the processes and the way that they're being advertised, they certainly seem like a higher end product. Cassanova liked him, didn't he was a big condom. He did, yes. Not in his early stages. He doesn't write about them then, but he seems to become more attached to them in his later diaries. And I don't know whether that's

because they were becoming more available or because he decided it was, perhaps he was more concerned about things like STIs later in his life. So he did catch veneerial disease a lot, didn't he? Yes, yes. So it's possible that he had enough and he was like, look, there may be a solution to this, or it's just possible that they were something that became more apparent to him or more available to him. But yeah, he talks about them quite a lot. So there's an incident that he writes about he has a lover who's a nun called MM and he steals a load from her and she gets very angry and he has to give them back. But there's also an incident where he is with a government official and three young ladies and the government official pulls out some condoms and they all know what they are. So again,

it suggests that they're quite widely understood by that point and they then use them for the orgy that follows. He was actually quite a condom connoisseur was Kassanova. He preferred English condoms if memory serves. Oh, interesting. He called them English raincoats. Yes. So the names of condoms, actually much like the names of syphilis, not to compare the two directly. So syphilis gets called all sorts of things. It gets called the French disease, the Spanish disease, wherever you are, you're calling it something else. And condoms are a little bit similar. So in the UK, one of the names that they're known by as French letters, but elsewhere in Europe, they were known as English raincoats.

And actually, one of the reasons for that is because there was a lot produced in the UK and then exported to Europe. I like that, though. I like that we were the condom hub of Europe at one point and that, you know, English condoms were good, reliable condoms endorsed by Kassanova himself. Exactly.

And, you know, it's quite satisfying. And actually, later, we did lose that a bit. We fell behind in the early 20th century and the US actually overtook us for a while, rather surprisingly, and then we caught up again. Okay, so they must be being mass produced. We know that. We know that they are being endorsed by some fairly famous people.

Tell me about who was selling them on this scale in the 18th century, because you said by the time we get to the 18th century, we do have some records. So who are the big condom players of 18th century, England? Early in the century, one of the big names of London condoms is Mother Lewis. and she had a warehouse in St. Martin's Lane. And we know about her, or one of the big mentions of her

is in a poem that was published, all about condoms called The Machine or Love's Preservative. And it talks about the places that you can buy your condoms. So it says, Let not the joy she proffers be assayed without the well-tried condoms friendly aid by trusty Mother Lewis best supplied, nor at the rose or fountain air denied. And so those are two pubs that the whole.

sailors supplied to so you could go to the tavern and buy your condoms as well. There were also apparently by that point were women who would go out on the street and sell condoms that seem to have either been self-employed or directly employed by the condom warehouses. And then later in the century, we actually know a lot about so sort of 1770s because there is a war of words that exists between two London condom producers. And the big one of those is Mrs. Phillips and then there's Mrs Perkins, who's a little bit less well-known. And what we have is a number of surviving sort of handbills, essentially, flyers, advertising documents that they both put out trying to say how good their products were, but also to tarnish the others products. And it seems that

Mrs. Perkins started it, and she started a bit of a fight with the big condom producer, and Mrs. Phillips came down like a ton of bricks because she was bigger. What were they saying about each other. So they're basically, Mrs. Perkins seems to falsely put out an advert saying that Mrs. Phillips has died and it's actually an imposter who is making condoms under her name. And Mrs. Phillips comes out and it's like, I've been in the industry 30 years. It's me. If you want to know it's me, just check the quality. And so it does get quite silly. But it gives us a really good insight into how big the business was and that there were these two domineering presences. who are extremely good at publicity.

That's incredible. I mean, that's a hell of a marketing ploy, isn't it? Oh, she's dead. And very easy to disprove. Right, yes. And Mrs. Phillips later then comes out of retirement to be like, nobody is doing it as well as me. I've come back to the business

and she finds herself a new premises. So she moves from the one that she's had earlier, which is, so she has different signs where you can go in and you can buy the condoms. And the first is at the sign of the green canister. And then there's a lot of jokes around tea and sex. And later she sets at one at the side of the fan in Orange Court, which is now basically where Lester Square is.

I'll be back with Kate after this short break. I've read about Mrs. Phillips, and her advertisers say Mrs. Phillips wears. Because wears was a common name for a condom as well, wasn't it? What was the other sort of slang being used at the time? Apart from, you know, English raincoats, French letters, whatever it was, there was other slang. A lot, yes.

gloves, machine, armor, weapons, badrooshes comes in later. So you get a lot of different words, and then there's regional words as well. So we don't actually know when they started being called condoms. And this is another really interesting myth that's out there. There's so many stories about why they are called condoms and when they started being called condoms. So one of the biggest is that they were invented by Dr. Condom, who was trying to prevent child. Charles the second having any more illegitimate offspring. As we know, not true because there were definitely condoms before Charles II. And actually somebody has written a whole small book trying to find Dr. Condom and failing. Oh, that's a shame.

It seems that that's quite unlikely. And what we actually now think is that that myth came out of a satirical poem from the early 18th century, which puts forward this idea. But again, obviously they've been in use for centuries before that. And then there is a claim, and I would, actually, I would love to throw this open to your listeners. I have found a claim that they were first called that in the English birth rate commission from 1666. And I cannot find it. I cannot find this birth rate commission anywhere.

And I don't know whether it's just another myth or whether it really does exist and I've just not found the right documentation. So if that's something anybody has come across, I would love to hear from you. I've never heard of that. No, but it's referenced all over, but without any primary documentation behind it. And I've been trying to track it down for the last year or so without any success at all. So yes, if anybody's come across that, I'd love to hear about it. So at what point were we calling them condoms? When does that enter the lexicon?

So we definitely know that they start being called condoms in the early 1700s. The first verified reference we have of them comes from 1706. And it's a really fun story. So in the run-up to the acts of union between Scotland and England, there is this war of words in Edinburgh. So there are these broadsheets, these papers produced, where there are pro and anti-union songs and poems and speeches. And there is a series of poems that basically go toe-to-to-again against and for union. And it appears in an anti-union poem where basically the gist of the poem is saying, we don't want Scotland and England to form a union

because then all of the nasty sexual practices from England are going to come up to Scotland and take root here. And one of the sexual practices that they mention is condoms. That makes perfect sense. It's a strange word, isn't it? I can't even think what the root to it would be or it's just kind of lost to us is why they were called that. We don't know.

If you go into Google, there's all these theories. Yeah, obviously, Dr. Condom in France. It's a town in France. People coming up with that it came from, from Quondam and referencing Shakespeare. So there's dozens of theories, and we just don't know which one is right, if any of them are right.

And Rochester writes about them as well, doesn't they? The Bad Boy Rochester. Yes, he does. Yes, talks about how they are a useful thing to have. Yeah, I remember correctly, it's something like they help you avoid the squalling brat and the clap, or words to that effect. Yes, oh, shankers and court, yes.

It's different words. Oh, it's grim. All right, it's a word time we've got to the 18th century. We have a formidable war of women who are producing condoms. Have you ever found anything else out about Mrs. Phillips or her adversary? And any documentation at all? We know where they were based. We know a little bit about sort of how old they were, how long they've been in the business,

basically things that they tell us through their adverts because they're quite specific, where they're selling their wares to, but not actually as people. We don't know if they were married, whether the Mrs was honorary, whether it was because they were a businesswoman or whether they actually had actually we're married. There's a lot that we just don't know about their sort of daily lives. And where they came from, how they got into this industry in the first place. And I would be fascinated to know more about that.

We do know that Mrs. Phillips was famous enough that actually she crops up in a bunch of satirical cartoons and satirical writings. So there's an amazing Gilray print which has a reference to Mrs. Phillips in one side of it. So she was clearly very, very well known in London. God. So what's like the next big evolution in condoms then? Was there any great shakes in the Victorian period? We're still on animal gut condoms in the 19th century?

Yeah, so animal gut condoms become more and more embedded in society. We get more and more references as the 18th century goes on, but there really aren't any innovations until the invention of vulcanized rubber in the 1840s. So you've got this huge long period between at least the mid-1600s, if not earlier, right up to, yeah, the 1840s where there really isn't a lot. Possibly they get a bit longer condoms, but there aren't a lot of change. And then in the 1840s, suddenly rubber gets a lot easier to work with and to manage. And within about 10 years, they have brought out the first rubber condoms.

Now, they are incredibly thick. They have a seam all the way around them. And they have to be made to measure. But they are so effective. Like, they are so effective. So effective and everything. Pregnancy, STIs, they're absolutely brilliant. Any sensation at all?

Yeah, literally nothing, I would assume. But they do prevent the spread of anything. So they also, I mean, early ones, what a doctor's appointment to have to go to have your made-to-measure condom. God, yeah. Again, there's not a lot of records about exactly how that happened,

and it's fascinating. So they improve quite rapidly. So the early ones are not particularly popular because of how thick they are. But throughout the 19th century, they evolve quite rapidly and they get better and better. And they bring in new innovations. They bring in the teat comes in around 1900. They start rolling them around that time. And you get different designs made for different usages. And you also get new techniques being made around how to make those condoms. So they, find new ways of processing the rubber, which means that they can create them as a whole, and they don't have to have a seam around them as well, so they get much more comfortable to use. That was Julius Frome, wasn't it, from Germany, who came up without technique. Ah, I did not know that. I will file that way for future reference. Jewish fella, he had this huge condom industry. He was the one that came up with the dipping method, so it was latex rather than seamed down the side. Okay. So they get a lot more usable,

and people start to produce, and this is where we start to know how much they can, because you start to be able to get catalogs that survive from the late 1800s, early 1900s, which give three or four different models that you can buy and then tell us how much they are. But you also advertised on those rubber condoms, you're still finding animal gut. So people are still buying and using animal gut well into the 20th century. Wow. And then the big innovation, which basically brings us up to the modern condom is the invention of latex in the 1920s. And that is the point that you get.

proper disposable condoms coming in. So even these rubber condoms, these are intended to be reusable. And they are, because they're a bit thicker, because the early ones that were rolled, you couldn't re-roll them. You actually had to buy a special device to re-roll your condoms

because they were supposed to be reusable after you wash them out. Once you get latex, they are much cheaper to produce. They're much thinner. They're much more comfortable. They're made rolled, so they're much more discreet to carry

because they're cheaper and they're smaller. they're designed to be disposable. So that's really where our modern disposable condoms come in. Thank God. But very recent, only 100 years ago. Very recent. But I've always been quite surprised by the fact that your early birth control pioneers, like everyone's favourite eugenicist, Margaret Sanger and her crew,

I would have thought that they would have completely embraced the condom and they would have been like, brilliant, this is, I mean, even if they were sort of a bit animal gutty and minging, but they didn't. They really shunned them. And they were really quite sniffy about. them, which I thought was interesting. And it's so interesting. There's this hierarchy of contraception that develops depending on where you are and what your beliefs are and what you're trying to do

with contraception. Mary Stopes as well is quite weird about condoms. But she's suggesting all sorts of douches and sponges and things like that. Cap, cervical caps. Yeah, instead of condoms, which actually by that point are very, very effective. And it's not really clear why. I do wonder if they're focusing on women being able to control their own bodies rather than relying on men. But it's, yeah, it is a slightly weird way that they deal with it. I wonder if it might be because the condom is quite stigmatized. And it's still, in a lot of ways, is still quite stigmatized. Because it is like the go-to line of defence for casual sex, I suppose.

Like if you're just having a hookup, you're unlikely to go and get a cervical cap fitted for that. but a condom, brilliant. So I thought maybe it was associated with brothels and with promiscuous sex. Maybe that was what they were so upset about. Yeah, I think you might be right. And certainly in the 18th century, a lot of the records we have are very associated with men about town, men who are going out and having a lot of sex and a lot of casual sex. So you're absolutely right.

Yeah, there is almost certainly a hangover associated with it there as well. And particularly in things like working class communities, you get a real suspicion of anything that's seen as not natural. So if there was something that could be promoted as natural contraceptive, so sort of charting your cycle, pulling out, things like that, were much more favoured than direct interventions. So there's probably a lot going on in terms of social norms and social history and the origins of things.

So there's probably quite a few factors. And the other big condom moment in our history asper is in the 80s with the HIV, pandemic because that forced people to talk about condoms. So you get the first advertising in terms of directly promoting condoms during the World Wars. That early. Wow. Okay.

Yeah. So, well, so there's a huge issue in the first world war where both the UK and the US lose a lot of man hours to STIs because these armies are all over the world and they are away from home and there are us a lot of opportunity for sexual liaisons. And they suddenly realize, so Germany actually very early on starts issuing condoms to its army. But it actually takes the UK as 1917 before they start giving out condoms. But there is a big advertising campaign that goes alongside all of this and they start promoting the use of condoms to try and reclaim some of those lost man hours. And they learn from the First World War. And when the Second World War comes

around, there is a very consistent campaign, particularly by the US Army, to encourage the use of contraception and particularly condoms, mostly to prevent them losing sick days. So it's quite sort of selfish, but it also is the first two big campaigns that you get associated with condoms. And then, yes, you're right, the next big one is the 1980s and the AIDS pandemic. And there a lot of obviously a huge amount of surviving material around that and surviving and some very, very clever publicity to try and encourage people to use condoms. So final question. The condom has been with us for centuries now and it's had a very turbulent past of people attempting not to get pregnant, not get sick. What do you think is the

future of the condom? Because I was reading some research that said condom use is actually declining despite the fact that they are more effective, they are thinner, they are, some sensation is better than it ever was before, but we still can't get people to use them. What do you think is the future of condoms? So there's not really been a lot of innovation in condoms in 100 years. And there were some attempts about 10 years ago. Bill Gates sponsored some companies to try and develop new kinds of condoms, and none of them have ended up coming to market.

I know. It's such a weird, like, subplot in Bill Gates. It's so rude. Just put Bluetooth in it. It'll be fine. And I think it was about 10 or 13 different companies. And they were basically either trying to make them thinner, making them self-lubricating, making them stronger. So it was sort of direct developments of what we've already got. So I don't know is the answer. Whether it is making the product better as those companies are trying to do, or whether it's more sex education, or whether it's actually that as a society we're looking at other forms of contraception

and to prevent the spread of STEIs. But, you know, condoms is really still the gold standard. Maybe we're at peak condom. Maybe this is as good as they're going to get is that, you know, we don't have to reuse them again. They're not made of animal goods. You don't have to tie them on. Okay.

You have been so much fun to talk to today. Thank you. And if people want to know more about you and your work, and frankly, they should. Where can they find you? You can find me on my website. You can look me up. I will be giving a lecture during the fringe, if anyone's up in Edinburgh, on sex history in Edinburgh.

As part of the underground lectures, tickets for that will be on sale in May, so you can look that up. But other than that, I do tend to talk on various things, mostly about condoms. So I'm sure I will crop up at another point. Oh, thank you so much for talking to me. You've been so much fun. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening. Thank you so much to Kate for joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like review and follow along wherever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject or perhaps you'd just fancy dropping by to say hi, you can email us at betwixt at history hit.com.

We have got episodes on everything from the sex life of Henry VIII to the betrayal of Mary Queen of Scots. This podcast was edited by Tom Delagie and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The Senior Producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again Betwixt the Sheets, The History of Sex Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.