Contraception & Castration
Largest condom manufactured
To commemorate international AIDS awareness day on 1st December 2005, a 67-metre pink condom was made and placed over the Obelisco (obelisk) in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
On 1st December 2003, Benetton in collaboration with ACT UP Paris placed a giant condom (22 metres high and 3.5 wide) on the obelisk in Place de la Concorde in Central Paris.
Manufactured by Church & Dwight Inc., Co., Trojan Magnum XL condoms are 30% larger than standard condoms.
First recommendation of coitus reservatus
Coitus reservatus, whereby a man puts his penis inside a woman's vagina but aims not to
ejaculate, has been practised for a variety of religious, moral, contraceptive and other reasons.
According to one authority it was first advocated by Dr Alice Stockham of Chicago at the end of the nineteenth century, and later by Dr Marie Stopes. Stockham can be quoted "Manifestations of tenderness are indulged in without physical or mental fatigue; the caresses lead up to connection (coupling) and the sexes unite quietly and closely. Once the
Pessaries first marketed
The chemist W. J. Rendell began making up quinine and cacao-butter pessaries in about 1880,
which he
distributed among the poor who lived around the Clerkenwell area of London, where his shop
was situated. The
demand soon became so great that producing the suppositories became a full time job.
Rendell, in common with
many of the conception pioneers in the nineteenth-century, was a convinced freethinker: when
he advertised
himself in Bradlaugh's National Reformer in 1885 he styled himself "M.N.S.S." (member of the
National Secular
Society).
Vasectomy: Inducements first introduced
It is one thing to devise a means of contraception, quite another to get people to employ it. In
some
circumstances they can be bribed. The payment of inducements for vasectomy was first
introduced in Madras
State (Tamil Nadu) in 1956, where thirty rupees was paid to each man agreeing to submit
himself for the
operation. Later, payments were even made to anyone who successfully induced a man to
undergo vasectomy.
First F.P. Association in U.K.
The British Family Planning Association was founded in 1930 on a voluntary basis. A number
of other countries
had already set up similar organisations.
Oral contraception: Most persistent British critic
The most persistent critic of the pill in Britain has been the Australian-born specialist in human
metabolism,
Professor Victor Wynn, head of the Alexander Simpson Laboratory for Metabolic Research at
St. Mary's
Hospital, London. His concern over the subject grew out of his study of the pill's effects on
how the body handles
carbohydrates, and on the pattern of blood fats in women. His studies in this area have been
extensive.
Most famous case of self-inflicted castration
The single most famous case of self-emasculation is that of Origen who severed his own
genitals in a fit of
religious devotion. Whole sects grew up to practise self-castration and the emasculation of all
men and boys who
fell into their clutches. In one of the "Dialogues" of Lucian there is a famous tale of self
castration. A young
Syrian nobleman named Cambobus, ordered to accompany the queen on an extended journey,
decided to castrate
himself so that he would not betray the king en route. He had his testicles placed in an ornate
casket, which he
Condom: First invented
![]() Casanova, one of the first men to use a condom as contraception rather than to prevent VD, seems to have never sired a child. |
Vasectomy: First thwarted by Nature
Vasectomy, normally achieved by tying or cutting the vas deferens to prevent sperm being
ejaculated in the
seminal fluid, is by no means a foolproof method of birth control. The sperm ducts have the
astonishing facility,
in some rare circumstances, of joining themselves up again, so hard will Nature struggle to
thwart efforts to
tamper with its processes! Spontaneous recanalization of the divided vas has been known since
it was first
reported by Rolnick in 1954.
