A Short History of Condoms

An ode to the disappearing prophylactic

TEXT BY SHIV KOTECHA

PHOTOGRAPHY BY GUSTAVO GARCIA-VILLA

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It’s not surprising to me that the first time a condom appears in the history of Western literature, it is to help a sad king breed: In Antoninus Liberalis’s 2^nd-century Metamorphoses, the precum of King Minos of Crete is comprised of snakes, millipedes, and scorpions, making sex with him lethal for everyone but his poor immortal wife, Pasiphae. The princess Procris MacGyvers the situation, fashioning a bag to trap the beasts out of the bladder of a goat, providing safe passage to the subsequent money shot.

Before the introduction of non-vulcanized rubber in the mid-19^th century, it was common to use the internal tubes of animals (including sheep, goat, lamb, fish, and pig, as well as the hard shell of tortoise and the horns of deer) to outfit the extrusions and insides of one human body from the aroused emissions of another. There were versions that cupped the glans alone, while others dressed the shaft entire. Some were doused in medicine and meant to wrap and sterilize a post-coital cock, while others came with a drawstring to tie them to your base, like a little gift, or a cock ring.