SEXIS WRONG

Fearless, secure; nor Thought of future Pains
Resembling Pricks of Pin and Needle’s Point
E’er checks his Raptures, or disturbs his Joys
[Fryer, 1964, pp. 27-8]
The very crudest of animal condoms were made from unprocessed
skins sewn or pasted together to form a sheath. They
were both unreliable and unaesthetic. The best condoms
from animal ceca were produced by a lengthy and somewhat
expensive process that was described in Gray’s Supplement
to the Pharmacopoeia, published in 1828, but the method
must have been the same earlier. Gray said the intestines
of sheep should be soaked in water for several hours, then
turned inside out, macerated again in a weak alkaline solution
that was changed every twelve hours, then scraped carefully,
leaving only the peritoneal and muscular coats. Next, they
were exposed to vapor of burning brimstone and washed in
soap and water, after which they were blown up to see if they
could hold air. If they passed inspection, they were dried, cut
to seven or eight inches, tied or sealed at one end, and bordered
at the open end with a ribbon.
Some condoms were made of silk
that was cut, sewn, then oiled.
Baudrouches were made the same way but were distinguished
from ordinary condoms by undergoing further processing.
This entailed drawing them smoothly and carefully
onto oiled molds of appropriate size, where they were rubbed
with brimstone to make them thinner. Superfine baudrouches
were scented with essences, stretched on a glass mold, and
rubbed with a heavy glass rod to further process them.
There are actually some surviving condoms manufactured between
1790 and 1810, which were found in 1953 preserved
in a book in an English country manor.
Probably because prostitutes were often regarded as carriers
of disease, many of the surviving references to condoms
come from the literature of prostitution. Houses of prostitution
are known to have displayed a variety of condoms in the
eighteenth century, but they also recommended the use of
sponges. Sponges did not protect the customer from disease
but did have some contraceptive value, and this might indicate
that condoms were sometimes also used as contraceptives,
as well as prophylactics.
A good description of condoms appears in the writing of the
eighteenth-century Frenchman Jean Astruc, who was determined
to prove that syphilis originated in America, not in
France:
I heard from the lowest debauchees who chase
without restraint after the love of prostitutes, that
there are recently employed in England skins made
from soft and seamless hides in the shape of a
sheath, and called condoms in English, with which
those about to have intercourse wrap their penis
as in a coat of mail in order to render themselves
safe in the dangers of an ever doubtful battle. They
claim, I suppose, that thus mailed and with spears
sheathed in this way, they can undergo with
impunity the chances of promiscuous intercourse.
But (in truth) they are greatly mistaken. [Astruc,
Book ii, Chap. I, p 2]
Giovanni Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt’s (1725-1799) erotic
memoirs list 116 lovers by name, although they leave nameless
hundreds more women and girls he had sex with, ranging
in age from nine to seventy and in occupation and social status
from chambermaids to noble women. He reported having
intercourse standing, sitting, and lying down in coaches, on
boats, in beds, and even in alleys. He also said he knew of
and used condoms. Sometimes he called them the “English
riding coat,” but he also referred to them as “preservative”
sheaths and “assurance” caps. Casanova describes
an “English overcoat” as being made
of “very fine and transparent skin,” eight inches
long and closed at one end, with a narrow
pink ribbon slotted through the “open end” (with which to
hold it up or tie it). He apparently used his sheaths not only
for prophylactic purposes but to prevent his partners from
becoming pregnant. He blew them up like balloons to pretest
them. Some were of better quality than others, since he
reported that some broke. Some were made of animal ceca,
a practice he once mentioned as “suiting” himself up with a
piece of dead skin.
It was a common practice to use condoms over and over
again, washing them out after each use. The most expensive
of condoms were those known as goldbeaters’ skins. They
got their name from the practice of beating gold into foil or
leaf. Such sheaths were carefully processed by beating them
until they were elasticized. Madame de Sévigny, writing about
contraception in a 1617 letter to her daughter, described such
condoms as “armor against enjoyment and a spider web
against danger.” Some condoms were made of silk that was
cut, sewn, then oiled. Condoms made of bladder were advertised
in eighteenth-century England. The bladders might well
be those of the blowfish common in the Rhine River, which
were being described as early as 1788.
Condoms undoubtedly existed in eighteenth-century America,
but so far no historical record of them has been uncovered.
It is believed that colonists probably fashioned their own con-
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