Contraceptives

Lysol was once advertised as a douche for contraception. The stuff we use to clean toilets.

Condoms, at the time, weren’t advertised as for prevention of pregnancy. They were sold to prevent venereal disease, aka STDs, in men. As long as a man didn’t get one, there was nothing wrong with what he did. If a woman ended up pregnant, she was ruined. If a woman had sex and didn’t get VD, she was still ruined.

It was pretty well known though that condoms helped prevent pregnancy, which made them controversial, and something married people weren’t supposed to use since, if they were married, surely they couldn’t get VDs from each other. Men weren’t expected to be faithful while a wife was pregnant though.

Condom brand names were sexual on purpose, to try to get across that they could be used for fun instead of just as a medical prevention of disease. Any decent man who visited sex workers didn’t want to risk the woman he had sex with to get pregnant, though this was often secondary in concern. Women wouldn’t take offense though as a man who used one, even if his rivalry concern was himself, was less likely to be the one to give them a disease, and meant that that encounter was less likely to result in a pregnancy.

 

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