Ever wondered what a nearly 200-year-old condom might look like? Probably not, but thanks to a rare specimen now on display at a museum in Amsterdam, you’re about to find out anyway.
Curators from the Rijksmuseum were at an auction six months ago when they spotted an unusual lot – a condom dating all the way back to 1830 with a print on it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they were the only ones who bid on it, per BBC News.
With the sheath secured, it was then determined that the contraceptive was likely made from a sheep’s appendix, and may have been given out as a souvenir at a brothel. According to a statement from the museum, it’s only one of two such objects that have survived to this day, and though delicate, it’s apparently in excellent, unused condition – not that we’d recommend using it, or any other expired condom for that matter.
What makes the condom so rare is its print. The explicit illustration features a nun sitting in a chair with her tunic lifted and legs apart, pointing at three clergymen in a similar state of undress who are, quite frankly, a bit eye-pokingly over-illustrated.
The real question is why we don’t have condoms with drawings on now tbh.
Image credit: Rijksmuseum
Underneath the print is written “Voilà mon choix”, French for “This is my choice.” The museum suggests that this is a parody of celibacy, but also the Judgement of Paris. In this tale from Greek mythology, Trojan prince Paris is asked to judge which of three goddesses – Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite – is the fairest of them all. He picked Aphrodite; she’d bribed him with the promise of a beautiful young woman named Helen of Sparta. Spoiler: that didn’t end well for him.
Wife-stealing and giant wooden horses aside, putting the condom on display (which it will be until the end of November) isn’t just a matter of showing off a rare find, or to give people a bit of a chuckle – it also aims to give us a better understanding of sex and society at the time it was made.
“Acquiring the condom has enabled us to focus on 19th-century sexuality and prostitution, a subject that is underrepresented in our collection,” explained Rijksmuseum. “It embodies both the lighter and darker sides of sexual health, in an era when the quest for sensual pleasure was fraught with fears of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases – especially syphilis.”
While attitudes towards sex have varied over time, the existence and idea of birth control go back much further than the 19th century – to the very beginning, in fact.
Source Link: 200-Year-Old Condom Made Of Sheep Appendix Contains A *Very* NSFW Drawing
