As a public service, to advance the world's awareness and understanding of the origins of curse words, swear words, dirty talk, and sexual slang, and to whet your appetite for more, we offer for your pleasure a page from each chapter. These samplers provide a good sense of the subject matter of each chapter, each of which is self contained. They are cool both for reading and as a gift. Individual chapters can be downloaded at a mere $1.99 each. Such a bargain!
It is said that President Carter is considering changing the Democratic party emblem from the jackass to a condom, because it stands for inflation, protects a bunch of pricks, halts production, and gives a false sense of security while one is being screwed.
Anon., reported by Reinhold
Aman, Maledicta, 1978
The device is said to draw its name from the mysterious Dr. Condom or Conton, a physician at the court of Charles II (c. 1660-1685) who allegedly created the item to help put a cap on His Majesty's growing number of illegitimate children. Students of that period, though, have been unable to locate the good Doctor, and they're not even sure he really existed.
Other theories regarding the origin of the word range from a Colonel Condum in the Royal Guard to Condom, a town in Germany recorded as a fortress of considerable strength, to an oilskin case that held the colors of the regiment (18th-early 19thC). Some think the word may even be a unique blend of cunnus (for the female pudenda) and "dum" or "dumb"-together rendering the organ incapable of functioning.
Another claim regarding the invention of the condom, and its first published description, was made by Gabriello Fallopio (1523-1562)-whose name is most closely associated with the Fallopian tubes in De Morbo Gallico, published two years after his death, in which he encouraged use of linen sheets as condoms.
It must have been great between the sheets. From what we know, however, the condom actually originated long before, in the slaughterhouses of medieval Europe where lamb intestines and the membranes of other animals were dried and then well lubricated to make them soft and pliant. In those days it apparently took guts to have sex.
Letter Perfect
The condom achieved its greatest popularity during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, often appearing in print as c-d-m and frequently spoken of as a letter (French, Italian, or Spanish, the letter and envelope being virtually one), a form of correspondence which absolutely, positively, had to be there overnight.
Its ability to deliver the goods was dramatically extolled in a pamphlet coauthored by the Earl of Rochester in 1667, "A Panegyric Upon Cundum," in which he wrote: "Happy the man who in his pocket keeps, whether with green or scarlet riband bound, a well-made cundum." Not everyone agreed. In 1862, Pope Leo XII damned the use of the discovery "because it hindered the arrangements of providence" a statement received in many quarters as so much papal bull.
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