Sex In The Public Square - Contraceptive Comic Books - Comments

Pregnancy and disease were

Visitor — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 20:59:19 -0700

Pregnancy and disease were pretty controversial - or impolite in any case - but distributing smutty materials under the banner of 'protecting' morals or good health definitely has a long history, back into the Victorian era at least. I love all those code breaking movies from the 30s that were nasty as you please until the final reel when the sinners (usually the girl) gets their just desserts at last.

For the prevention of disease only....

Elizabeth — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 20:19:23 -0700

Chris, what a find! I hope you'll put a link on the "Links" page too! Maybe we need a "historical" category.

I wonder if the "Sold for the prevention of disease only" marketing strategy was used because disease was what single men were most concerned with, or because the idea of preventing pregnancy was too controversial or, probably, both. I'm thinking about the comic book you linked in the original post. It also makes me think about the recent Fox refusal to air Trojan ads because they mentioned the prevention of pregnancy.

Then, too, I think it's just plain cool that there were condoms advertised with names like Amazon!

Protection!

Chris — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:04:11 -0700

I forgot to mention.... Persoff also includes a gallery of paper condom envelopes from the 1930's and 40's as a bonus treat. Not quite as bizarre as the comic itself, but certainly engaging in their own right.

Contraception, Comic Books, and Court Cases

Elizabeth — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 06:38:50 -0700

Chris, what a great cultural artifact! I'm pasting here, and will also put in the "Court Cases" section of the links page, links to the two Supreme Court decisions that legalized birth control across the country.

Griswold v. Connecticut, in 1965, was the first, and that one is also the one in which the "right to privacy" that supports Roe v. Wade is first really drawn out. (I've written before about how that was a weak decision in some ways because the Constitution doesn't contain such a clearly stated "right to privacy" but instead Justice Douglas found that there are "penumbras" and "emanations" that form from the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights to "guarentee zones of privacy."

The second, Eisenstadt v. Baird , extended the right to contraception to unmarried people in 1972. The law in question in the Eisenstadt v. Baird case was a Massachusetts law that made it a felony to distribute contraceptives to ummarried people!

Contraceptive Comic Books

Chris — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 14:29:07 -0700

If Ethan Persoff did not exist, it would be necessary for the Internet to invent him. Perhaps it did. In any case, Ethan Persoff's website is one of the stranger corners of cyberspace. Persoff is a cartoonist and comics artist, and in addition to showing off his own work, he's archived some really fascinating flotsam and jetsam from the pop-cultural subconcious. Especially interesting is his section of "educational" comics called Comics With Problems. The comics here are the free comics that get passed out to schoolkids or distributed at community centers to addressi social issues like sexual abuse, marijuana, and the medical value of wearing an eye patch. The most recent addition to the archive is a real classic: a comic distributed by Planned Parenthood first in 1956 and then in a revised edition in 1962 titled Escape From FEAR.