10 March 2000, 844 words
Ever since it was invented, the Catholic Church has been staunch in its condemnation of the condom. More Popes have issued more pronouncements against condom use than against the use of guns, landmines and thermonuclear weapons put together. Still the condom remains the second-most popular form of birth control in the Western world, although in Trinidad many women swear by a hot Guinness.
Thanks largely to the power of the Catholic Church and human stupidity - the former, of course, depending greatly on the latter - ancient methods of birth control are still practised today. This is a major reason the Earth's population is now six billion. One alternative method promoted by Soranus, a Greek gynaecologist who worked in Rome in the second century CE - was for a woman to hold her breath, cough, jump and sneeze after intercourse. Some scholars suspect that Soranus knew this didn't stop conception, but simply liked a good laugh.
Coitus interruptus is another method practised since the times of antiquity, although after what happened to Onan many Christian men avoided pulling out until the invention of the lightning rod. Muslim men favour it particularly as a method of birth control, mainly because they prefer their wives not to achieve orgasms. Catholic men are also allowed to interrupt their coitus, but if they time it wrong and ejaculate they must confess and do penance. Otherwise, they will go to Hell. Catholics are also allowed to use the rhythm method, but this works well only for white people, who have no rhythm. Coitus interruptus is forbidden to Orthodox Jews, since that is the only pleasure they get from their wives.
Despite religious strictures, however, progress has taken place over the past centuries, and some of these antediluvian methods are no longer practised. The ancient Egyptians used crocodile dung as spermicide, but with the end of slavery it became difficult to find a man willing to stick his hand up a crocodile's behind. The Jews used onion juice as a spermicide, and so never realized their wives' tears were really those of frustration or, in many cases, laughter. It is reported that Casanova used to insert half a lemon in the woman's vagina, but it is not known what he did with the other half.
Obviously, women had little or no say in these matters, although it was them who would be getting pregnant. One suspects, however, that they had their revenge: after all, it was they who prepared the onion soup or mixed the Tom Collins. (I won't even speculate what happened with the crocodile dung.)
Which brings us to the condom. It was the 16th-century physician Gabriel Fallopius (who discovered the Fallopian tubes and simultaneously invented the perversion known as "fisting") who designed a medicated linen sheath for the tip of the penis to prevent venereal infection. The sheath was also used by men who were simply shy. Early condoms were generally made of animal gut, which men favoured because it made their penises seem larger, especially if they didn't remove the animal's last meal from its gut. Other condoms were constructed out of fish membrane, which women liked since they could blame the smell on that.
By the 1840s, condoms of vulcanized rubber were being manufactured. These were very popular and, in an emergency, could also be used as a tyre patch. By the 1930s, condoms were made of latex, so called because the dulling of sensitivity made men late. The Catholic Church now preached regularly about the evils of preventing conception by artificial means, although the Vatican managed to keep its mouth shut when Jews were being gassed at Auschwitz.
Now, with the advent of AIDS, the Vatican is even more adamant about not using condoms. Teaching people about safe sex is "a dangerous and immoral policy" it says. True, the Vatican preaches that people with HIV must be treated with love and compassion, but only after they contract the virus. And if any Catholic cleric dares preach that compassion might mean telling people to use condoms, as did a French bishop in 1995, he is immediately fired.
Trinidad and Tobago has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the Western hemisphere. But not only Catholic, but Hindu and Muslim and Pentecostal leaders oppose sex education in schools. They all also object to condoms being made available to sexually active schoolchildren, apparently preferring that they use Penna Cool wrappers, foil, tissue paper, or just ride bareback. I suspect, though, that this policy will backfire, because only the unattractive and asexual will be able to obey it. Indeed, one can see the results already, since in Trinidad the main spokesperson against condom use is Professor Courtenay Bartholomew, an AIDS researcher and Catholic fanatic who says, "Whereas the faithful use of a condom may indeed lower one's risk of HIV infection, unfortunately, on the other hand, it promotes and increases promiscuity."
In other words, people who fornicate deserve to die. Maybe that's the real reason membership in the Catholic Church has declined so greatly.
Copyright ©2000 Kevin Baldeosingh