Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: American anxieties have followed the condom since moral crusader Anthony Comstock made it illegal during his campaign against vice in 1873. Many mid-century Americans still found the condom taboo – associated with promiscuity due to their promotion as a way to combat venereal disease among soldiers. Second-wave feminists shifted sexual discourse by publishing Our Bodies, Ourselves (1973) and founding Ms. magazine. Later, the AIDS crisis rescued condoms from obscurity. This article uses visual culture, including U.S. military posters stored at the University of Minnesota’s Social Welfare History Archive, and Ms. magazine advertisements from Saint Mary’s College magazine collection, to trace the shifts in attitudes toward sex and contraception. While the U.S. government’s wartime attention to contraception was a critical moment of disseminating candid sexual health information, the 1980s were a turning point when condom information became widely accessible.
DOI: 10.61736/alizes.251
Author: Jamie Wagman
Institution: Saint Mary's College
Language: French
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4407086942