Swabbing It Out After Sex: Ouch
From this article about the history of the condom, some pre-condom efforts at venereal disease prevention that I hadn’t heard about before:
In 1905, in an effort to combat common infections like gonorrhea and syphilis, the Navy implemented the first trial system of chemical prophylaxis dispensed by staff doctors. Though the treatment was strictly post-intercourse, its results impressed Navy brass enough that the procedure became standard on all ships by 1909. However, one of the system’s major flaws was its dependence on self-reporting to a doctor, so the following year prophylactic kits or “pro-kits,” were distributed to soldiers for self administration. This was highly preferred to an exam, and though still painful, the pro-kits protected many recruits from being court martialed for contracting VD.
During World War I, American soldiers weren’t issued condoms; instead they were given a “Dough Boy Prophylactic Kit.” The idea behind these kits was that soldiers who “went out on a weekend furlough and had sexual contact would then clean themselves up afterwards with antiseptics and urethral syringes and so forth.” Edmonson points out that this method was like “closing the gate after the horse is out of the barn; not very effective.”
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Being as the “Pillsbury Doughboy” didn’t arrive on the scene until 1962, one can’t help but wonder about his inspiration…
Why does he giggle so, when poked with a big fleshy finger?
Exactly how did he get that provocative nickname “Poppin’ Fresh”?
…and why does the little eunuch (He has no “dough nuts”…), giggle and blush so profusely, saying “Hoo-hoo!”, (which according to Jeff Foxworthy, is Southern vernacular for “penis”), when he gets poked?
I’m a pharmacist. I worked in an old store, The owner had some of these in deep storage. I just thought they were condoms coated with mercury. As bad as that seems today, in grade school we would pass a small ball of mercury through the class.
Read a book on the history of contraception a while ago that claimed said that because condoms were restricted in the US at the time STD’s were so common that during WWI the army had to waive it’s rule about signing up infected men.
Chas, the linked article says much the same thing.
I once saw some excepts from a US Army WW2 training film that showed how you could find a Prophylactic Station and get treated after you had a quickie in some bar. Apparently these stations were set up in the local honky-tonk district where guys took their leave. What was stranger still is that a complete duplicate of the film was done with an all-black cast, since the military was still segregated.
[…] and discipline (not to mention institutional or social morality) intersecting in complex and sometimes painful ways. Honestly, I’m not unsympathetic to the view that our marines ought to be able to take a […]
The term “doughboy” is linked with the doughnut, which were commonly distributed at USO’s and railroad stops by women called “doughnut dollies” who worked or volunteered with the USO and Red Cross. Later on it was decided that the name doughnut sounded too “heavy” so the spelling changed to the more marketable “donut” after the war.