Speaker 1: School of Humans. Hey, filth heads, So I lie to you.
Speaker 2: In fact, I'm not doing another Bedfellow's head Fellows episode today,
Speaker 2: And that was the past few episodes where we were
Speaker 2: looking at different people throughout history, throughout American history who
Speaker 2: might have been a little bit gay. But the reason
Speaker 2: I'm not doing the episode today is because we're actually
Speaker 2: gonna do it at our first American filth live recording.
Speaker 2: A drum roll, that's a terrible drum but yes, we're
Speaker 2: gonna do the next Bedfellows Headfellows episode live. It's gonna
Speaker 2: be fun. So if you're gonna be in Atlanta, Georgia
Speaker 2: on Saturday, June twenty ninth, come out to the show.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be at this fun little venue called Dynamic
Speaker 2: El Dorado, and there will be history, frivolity, antics, bad jokes,
Speaker 2: some good jokes, stand up, even improv is.
Speaker 1: Gonna be there.
Speaker 2: The ticket link is in the show notes, or if
Speaker 2: you visit us on Instagram at American Filth Pod you
Speaker 2: can find all the information there. And yes, I will
Speaker 2: be reminding you over the next few weeks in the
Speaker 2: episodes might even be a little annoying about it, so
Speaker 2: please come out on June twenty ninth.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be fun. But now we're gonna move on to.
Speaker 2: Another juicy, totally not controversial topic, birth control.
Speaker 1: Have you guys heard of this?
Speaker 2: People have been trying to avoid having babies since the
Speaker 2: dawn of time. Literally, like even at the beginning of
Speaker 2: the universe, the universe was like, just because I did
Speaker 2: a big bang, that doesn't mean I want.
Speaker 1: A big baby.
Speaker 2: That is the type of bad joke that will probably
Speaker 2: be included at the American filth Live event anyway. But
Speaker 2: also since the dawn of time, people have had very
Speaker 2: strong opinions about birth control, big opinions, and a lot
Speaker 2: of the conversations we have today we've actually been having
Speaker 2: for hundreds of years. There's always been a lot of
Speaker 2: people being like, yeah, you should only have sex for
Speaker 2: the purposes of having a baby, not for the lols,
Speaker 2: not for the pleasure doo. We must suffer, and especially women,
Speaker 2: especially people with uteruses, because they are whores. And one
Speaker 2: man who tried to get rid of people's access to
Speaker 2: contraceptive devices was this little Christian boy named Anthony Comstock.
Speaker 2: He was so Christian that he worked at the Young
Speaker 2: Men's Christian Association for a while aka the YMCA, which
Speaker 2: I think it's fun that that was a Christian organization
Speaker 2: because later it became the spot to go to if
Speaker 2: you were trying to cruise around and pick up another
Speaker 2: gay man. Wow, everyone's gay. It's all related. But Anthony
Speaker 2: Comstock's also funny.
Speaker 1: His name's Comstock. Suck.
Speaker 2: We're well stocked with com anyway. Near the end of
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century, Comstock became the crusader against American obscenity.
Speaker 1: And birth control. Mm mmmm mmm.
Speaker 2: That is for sinners, And in eighteen seventy three, Congress
Speaker 2: actually passed the Comstock Act, which affected birth control, which
Speaker 2: affected art, which changed the censorship landscape in America forever.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean for a long time. Anyway.
Speaker 2: Cue the theme song. This is American Filth. I'm Gabby Watts.
Speaker 2: Every week I tell you a filthy story from American history.
Speaker 2: This week's episode come Come, Come, Come, Come, Come Stop
Speaker 2: Part one. Sorry, guys, I was imagining it kind of
Speaker 2: like shots shots, shot shots, shot shots. But colm anyway,
Speaker 2: I hope you guys enjoyed the episode. Ah, filth heads,
Speaker 2: you're not gonna believe this, but we're actually gonna break
Speaker 2: format yet again.
Speaker 1: But it's gonna be fun, I promise.
Speaker 2: Before we get into the American history stuff, we thought
Speaker 2: that it'd be interesting to hear some more about birth
Speaker 2: controls throughout time, many of which have been very filthy
Speaker 2: and gross. And so I actually have my pal slash
Speaker 2: colleague slash, one of the American filth writers, Julia Chris
Speaker 2: Gao here, Hey, hey, Julia.
Speaker 3: What's up? Oh, hey, what's up? I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, crazy, you're on the show now, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: how do you feel?
Speaker 3: Very excited?
Speaker 2: Yeah, our seventeen to thirty six listeners are going to
Speaker 2: be thrilled to hear about these things.
Speaker 3: So stoked. It's gonna be so fun.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Julia, have found a bunch of relatively well
Speaker 2: kind of like unbelievable sort of birth controls people have
Speaker 2: used throughout history. So we're going to go through some
Speaker 2: of those. Like, you know, there was literal shit in
Speaker 2: some of them. So yeah, here we go a brief
Speaker 2: history of the filthiest versions of birth control.
Speaker 4: A Hippocratic text, probably the earliest one circle like four
Speaker 4: hundred BC, used to recommend drinking copper and salt mixed
Speaker 4: with water and yes, It's true copper does mess with
Speaker 4: sperm's motility, but it also messes with your body by
Speaker 4: like poisoning it.
Speaker 1: Wait, would men drink this one?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: No, women, it was always right, okay, good well, thank goodness,
Speaker 2: we've always been the ones had to be responsible, all right.
Speaker 2: So another one was then after that was in ancient China,
Speaker 2: people would mix.
Speaker 1: Lead and mercury. Mmmm, it encaged. You didn't know this.
Speaker 2: Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that is heavily regulated today
Speaker 2: because it messes up your brain. But back then, you know,
Speaker 2: dudes were like, hey, maybe this could also prevent pregnancy,
Speaker 2: and it.
Speaker 4: Mess you up so much that there's no way your
Speaker 4: body could be a place where a baby could grow
Speaker 4: if you have a bunch of mercury in it. So
Speaker 4: in eighteen fifty BC, there are reports of people using
Speaker 4: crocodile dung like actual hoop from a crocodile and honey,
Speaker 4: and the acidity of the dung acted as a spermicide.
Speaker 4: And then they were like, honey is antimicrobial, so it
Speaker 4: kills the bacteria from the dung.
Speaker 3: Well that was not true.
Speaker 4: They would though, sort of like coat the dung in honey,
Speaker 4: and that would act as like a physical.
Speaker 3: Barrier aka lube. They would lube it up.
Speaker 4: With some honey, and then some cultures even added acacia leaves,
Speaker 4: which actually does ferment to create a sort of spermicide.
Speaker 1: But none of these.
Speaker 4: Were safe or effective whatsoever. There was lots of bacteria,
Speaker 4: lots of infections.
Speaker 3: Not a good thing to do use poop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this just sounds like a uti. Just give yourself
Speaker 2: a really bad uti.
Speaker 3: That's so painful, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Then we have like the ancient Greeks, they use
Speaker 2: a giant type of fennyl like plants as an oral contracept,
Speaker 2: and by one idea, it became so popular that it
Speaker 2: was worth more than its weight in silver.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then eventually that plant went extinct because too
Speaker 4: many people were using it, because too many people were fucking.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's the constant throughout history is just
Speaker 2: people stay fucking no matter what people do.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's sort of moral too, of the
Speaker 1: story that we'll get.
Speaker 3: Too later exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, people will always everybody poops and everybody fucks. So
Speaker 4: the Greeks, because it went extinct, they had to kind
Speaker 4: of pivot. So this one dude, suggested that as the
Speaker 4: male ejaculates quote, the female must hold her breath and
Speaker 4: draw herself away a little so that the seed may
Speaker 4: not be hurled.
Speaker 3: Too deep into the cavity of her uterus.
Speaker 4: Very Greek, very dramatic, then getting up immediately she should
Speaker 4: be squatting down. She should induce sneezing and carefully wipe
Speaker 4: the vagina all around.
Speaker 2: It is kind of like an opposite like pull and prey,
Speaker 2: where it's like the woman has to pull herself out
Speaker 2: into the man pulling himself out.
Speaker 4: Yes, basically, so hopefully he pulls out, and she has
Speaker 4: to also just like draw herself into a corner squat
Speaker 4: and try and induce sneezing to like queep out all
Speaker 4: the sperms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, queeth out the sperm. That's what I've always been saying.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. And then there was also the Greeks.
Speaker 2: What they would also do is they would they would
Speaker 2: use lead concoctions that blacksmiths would provide, so then instead
Speaker 2: of mercury, you would be drinking like run off from them,
Speaker 2: making armor and blades a little like iron juice exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you're anemic, that might be good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, getting that iron shut your iron in similar to
Speaker 4: the to the inducing sneezing. While squatting. In tenth century Persia,
Speaker 4: women were told to jump backwards like seven or nine times,
Speaker 4: because those were sacred numbers seven and nine. So the
Speaker 4: women that we're doing this, we're hoping that God would
Speaker 4: intervene and thwart the convergence of the sperm and the egg.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you jumped eight times, heaven forbid, I
Speaker 2: think you'd get triplets.
Speaker 3: Oh God, I didn't.
Speaker 2: Know they could count that high back then. That's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2: Well counting the new innovation, yeah for real. Ooh, and
Speaker 2: then we got into the eleventh century, is that we
Speaker 2: got the crocodile dung is being substituted for elephant dung.
Speaker 4: And then in the Middle Ages fifteenth century or so,
Speaker 4: they would use animal dung along with juniper berries and
Speaker 4: tar because that was a thing. And then they would
Speaker 4: take this concoction and instead of like putting it on
Speaker 4: the penis, using it as loub doing that whole thing,
Speaker 4: they would just smear it all over there vagina before
Speaker 4: intercourse and after intercourse.
Speaker 2: But okay, going beyond the dung stuff, though, women in
Speaker 2: the Middle Ages were advised by magicians.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the first red flag.
Speaker 2: Being advised by magicians to tie weasel testicles to a
Speaker 2: tree during intercourse, and if the testicles weren't available, they
Speaker 2: would tie an amputated foot around their neck.
Speaker 1: Instead.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's apparently that's going to prevent pregnancy, because this
Speaker 2: one seems more of like a ViBe's based contraceptive. Where
Speaker 2: before you know, you had sort of like this physical dung.
Speaker 1: Now the magician's like this is some magic.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, and then these sort of like the feet
Speaker 4: and the testicles started to be packaged. So this ambulets
Speaker 4: sort of started to become popular to be worn during intercourse,
Speaker 4: and they could do to your like sometimes tied around
Speaker 4: your thigh, sometimes tied around the tree outside your living space, super.
Speaker 3: Magical, super woo woo.
Speaker 4: And these these amulets would contain things like cat bones
Speaker 4: or the liver or the anus of a.
Speaker 1: Rabbit, the two choices, the two body parts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and a cloth soaked with menstrual blood. And if
Speaker 4: you're using a cat for these cat bones in your amulet,
Speaker 4: it has to be all black.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Alternatively, if you didn't want testicles or amulets or anything,
Speaker 2: you could walk in circles around the place where a
Speaker 2: pregnant wolf has urinated.
Speaker 1: That was another choice you could do.
Speaker 2: I mean like there's a variety of sort of like
Speaker 2: you can have sort of like a device, or you
Speaker 2: can kind of like do a process, you know.
Speaker 4: So then by the late sixteen hundreds, fish bladders emerged
Speaker 4: as a very very popular form of birth control, which is,
Speaker 4: if you can imagine it, it's like you know thin,
Speaker 4: its durable, little effect on sensation, and they were especially
Speaker 4: used at first among the soldiers of King Charles.
Speaker 2: The first ooh, this is kind of sounding like a condom,
Speaker 2: a condom that's emerging.
Speaker 4: Exactly, So before they would use them, they would hopefully
Speaker 4: clean the bladder, hopefully clean the bladder thoroughly, and tie
Speaker 4: it at the end with a ribbon, basically.
Speaker 3: Creating the first condom.
Speaker 4: Ooh. Unlike modern condoms, though, these fish butters were often reused.
Speaker 2: Wow, a sustainable option. That is actually our new American
Speaker 2: filth merchandise. You can go to Americi dot common. I'm
Speaker 2: just kidding, guys, we don't have that yet. So while
Speaker 2: that was like the primary contraceptives for like seventeenth century England,
Speaker 2: the ancient Romans, though they might have also had a
Speaker 2: condom type thing where they used intestines and bladders as
Speaker 2: protection from STIs. So that was smart, you know, I
Speaker 2: guess yeah, you see guts, You're.
Speaker 1: Like, I could put that on my dick exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're like, hmm, that looks like I could make
Speaker 4: something else out of it. And then around that same time,
Speaker 4: in seventeen hundreds, this guy actually named Giovanni Casanova, he
Speaker 4: invented his own version of a cervical cap with a lemon.
Speaker 4: So I feel like this is like sort of common
Speaker 4: knowledge when you and I were growing up a little
Speaker 4: bit like that. Sometimes people just like shove a lemon
Speaker 4: up there.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's just me.
Speaker 5: Well, you grew up.
Speaker 2: In a bohemian New York city. I was down here
Speaker 2: in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: We didn't do shit like that.
Speaker 5: At that's true. I never did it, but I heard tell.
Speaker 4: But yeah, So this is basically the emergence of like
Speaker 4: what we recognize as like the first kind of cervical cap.
Speaker 3: And you basically it's.
Speaker 4: A partly squeezed half a lemon and it's inserted into
Speaker 4: the cervix before intercourse.
Speaker 5: And of course the level of acidity was very damaging
Speaker 5: to his lover's bodies. But who cares if it works
Speaker 5: right as long as he's getting what.
Speaker 2: He needs exactly. Boo women, That's what I'm always saying. Oh,
Speaker 2: but don't worry birth control. It got even more grim
Speaker 2: during the fur trade era of the eighteen hundreds, women
Speaker 2: from New Brunswick, Canada would drink dried beaver test skull
Speaker 2: soaked in moonshine. No one really knows the rationale for this,
Speaker 2: except that bieber testicles were often used to cure common
Speaker 2: colds and other ailments. I'm sure they cured them, and
Speaker 2: that the testicles contained a very potent smelling substance, and
Speaker 2: the smell itself might be enough to just.
Speaker 1: Drive your partner away.
Speaker 2: And that's a great way not to get pregnant, is
Speaker 2: to smell bad and nobody wants to be around you.
Speaker 4: But towards the end of the Industrial Revolution, though, finally,
Speaker 4: in eighteen forty four, that good old good Year patented
Speaker 4: the volcanization of rubber. I like the tire people, Yeah,
Speaker 4: thanks for the tires, Thanks for the all the rubber
Speaker 4: things that are birth control related.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then in eighteen forty six, a diaphragm was patented
Speaker 4: and called the wife's protector. So yeah, of course, through
Speaker 4: all this time, avoiding pregnancy also involved. But stuff masturbation, abstinence,
Speaker 4: and coitus interruptis basically pulling out uh yeah.
Speaker 2: And then eventually there is douche powders, positories, vaginal pessories which.
Speaker 1: Are like early iud's, and all of.
Speaker 2: Those came about and remained part of the home contraceptive conversation,
Speaker 2: and then we have you know, to this day, there's
Speaker 2: different things you can use, of course, but there is
Speaker 2: also still a lot of coitus interrupt us less dung though,
Speaker 2: I feel.
Speaker 3: Like overall, oh lot less dune. Yeah, there's other things
Speaker 3: you can do.
Speaker 1: For sure, safe at BET is to just not touch anyone.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, right, I forgot about that. I forgot about
Speaker 4: that as an option.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Have you heard of this thing?
Speaker 2: It's called abstinence, And here on American filth we are
Speaker 2: teaching abstinence.
Speaker 3: I've never known obstinence, which.
Speaker 2: Is this Uh, Julie's gonna come back in after the break.
Speaker 2: But now we're going to learn a little bit about
Speaker 2: the trends of what was happening in the comstock era
Speaker 2: in terms of birth control. So when it comes to
Speaker 2: the US and the nineteenth century, between the eighteen thirties
Speaker 2: and eighteen seventies, there's actually a lot of information out
Speaker 2: there about different types of contraceptive devices. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of books that were published on the subject. There were
Speaker 2: traveling doctors and lecturers who would tell young women about
Speaker 2: different types of devices. In fact, there was so much
Speaker 2: information out there about birth control that in the eighteen
Speaker 2: sixties there was this New England doctor who said, there
Speaker 2: is scarcely a lady in New England, and probably it
Speaker 2: is so throughout the land who did not receive information
Speaker 2: on contraceptive instrumentalities. Of course, though in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 2: people weren't just being like.
Speaker 1: Ah, birth control, let's talk about it.
Speaker 2: Whenever people would try to advertise birth control or talk
Speaker 2: about it, they would use coded language. You know, they
Speaker 2: would say things like, oh, we're cheating nature or frustrating reproduction,
Speaker 2: or m did you hear about.
Speaker 1: These secrets not known to animals?
Speaker 2: And many of these products through birth control were actually
Speaker 2: advertised in magazines and newspapers with this kind of coded language,
Speaker 2: and often what would happen is women would see these ads,
Speaker 2: and then they would send a letter to the address
Speaker 2: provided and then they could receive their birth control in.
Speaker 1: The mail.
Speaker 2: And to kind of get how prevalent birth control was
Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century. From the beginning of the nineteenth
Speaker 2: century to the end, the birth rate among US born
Speaker 2: whites was almost cut in half. And this is where
Speaker 2: Comstock comes in. See in the late eighteen hundreds, in
Speaker 2: the wake of the Industrial Revolution, New York City was
Speaker 2: booming with industry and commerce.
Speaker 1: Folks from more rural areas were like, looks.
Speaker 2: Like, I got to move to the big city to
Speaker 2: make some money, and so NYC saw an insane influx
Speaker 2: of humans urbanization, industrialization, and out of this emerged what
Speaker 2: the New York Historical Society called an anonymous booming subculture
Speaker 2: of dealers, buyers, and sellers in obscene materials. And some
Speaker 2: of those obscene materials included ads and literature about birth control.
Speaker 2: And a lot of the prude elitists of New York
Speaker 2: City did not like that this information was out there,
Speaker 2: and in eighteen seventy three, the New York Society for
Speaker 2: the Suppression of Vice was founded by our guy, Anthony Comstock. Yes,
Speaker 2: he had previously worked for the YMCA. He was also
Speaker 2: a special agent and inspector for the United States Postal
Speaker 2: Service and was appalled when he saw that women were
Speaker 2: sending and receiving birth control merchandise through the mail. So
Speaker 2: Anthony Comstock founded the New York Societ for the Suppression
Speaker 2: of Vice. Its goal was to suppress the trade in
Speaker 2: and circulation of obscene literature, illustrations, advertisements, and articles of
Speaker 2: indecent and immoral use. He was like, anything dealing with
Speaker 2: birth control, contraceptives, abortion, all of that stuff is obscene.
Speaker 2: It's pornographic, and my Doom Patrol needs to go confiscate
Speaker 2: and destroy all of it. Then Comstock went before Congress
Speaker 2: and was like, guys, did you know that all this
Speaker 2: stuff is being mailed all over the place. We need
Speaker 2: to do something to stop it.
Speaker 1: Also, have you.
Speaker 2: Seen how the birth rates of white people are going down?
Speaker 2: We need to make sure people are having more babies.
Speaker 2: They don't need any contraception yuck. And Congress was like, ugh,
Speaker 2: you know what, fellow white dude, you're right. So they
Speaker 2: passed the Comstock Act, essentially making birth control illegal, and
Speaker 2: Congress put them in charge of enforcing these new law.
Speaker 2: So Comstock was like, hell, yeah, I can start arresting people.
Speaker 2: One person he arrested was author Ezra Haywood, who was
Speaker 2: a feminist and wrote a book called Cupid's Yokes. This
Speaker 2: book took a stand for women having their right to
Speaker 2: control their own bodies, and Comstock was like, that's obscenity.
Speaker 2: And Ezra had mailed a copy of his book to
Speaker 2: one of his friends, and then Kumstock went and arrested
Speaker 2: that guy too. At first, while Comstock was overjoyed with
Speaker 2: his success, most of the country was like, ugh, whatever,
Speaker 2: so just don't.
Speaker 1: Go to New York for birth control.
Speaker 2: But then twenty four other states enacted their own versions
Speaker 2: of these laws, and people were getting arrested left and right,
Speaker 2: facing fines and imprisonment. There are records of married couples
Speaker 2: facing punishment for using contraceptives.
Speaker 1: In their own home. In eighteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2: The National Liberal League and the National Defense Association presented
Speaker 2: Congress with a petition signed by over five hundred thousand
Speaker 2: people requesting a repeal of the Comstock laws.
Speaker 1: They were like, the law's anti.
Speaker 2: Obscenity provisions have been enforced to destroy the liberty of
Speaker 2: conscience and matters of religion against the freedom of the
Speaker 2: press into the great hurt of the learned professions. But
Speaker 2: Congress was like sorry, they were refused, and these laws
Speaker 2: went unchecked for a long ast time. The first successful
Speaker 2: change came in nineteen sixteen when Margaret Sanger was arrested
Speaker 2: for opening the first birth control clinic, and the law
Speaker 2: case I grew out of this situation resulted in the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighteen Crane Decision, which allowed women to use birth
Speaker 2: control for therapeutic purposes my favorite therapy not having a baby.
Speaker 1: After all that, Sanger didn't give up.
Speaker 2: She was like, hey, the Comstock laws are still really
Speaker 2: bad and super unethical. So then another amendment was made
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty six that made it possible for doctors
Speaker 2: to distribute contraceptives across state lines. So thanks Margaret Sanger,
Speaker 2: except for the fact that she also.
Speaker 1: Loved eugen X.
Speaker 2: But as we were talking about earlier, it seems a
Speaker 2: thread throughout human history is that humans will try just
Speaker 2: about anything to prevent pregnancy, from crocodile dung to beaver piss,
Speaker 2: to weasel balls to fish condoms. So even though Comstock
Speaker 2: was like no, no, no, no, we shan't have any
Speaker 2: of this birth control mess, people were still like, hey,
Speaker 2: we got an idea for you of how you could
Speaker 2: prevent pregnancy. In one company circa nineteen nineteen saw an
Speaker 2: opportunity to make some cash. Yay capitalism. This company made
Speaker 2: cleaning products and thought, well, our products killed germs, so
Speaker 2: maybe we could tell people that they also kill sperms.
Speaker 2: So using the euphemism of feminine hygiene to sell these products,
Speaker 2: Liesol for decades was heavily advertised as a viable form
Speaker 2: of birth control.
Speaker 1: Yep, you heard that right, Lysol.
Speaker 2: So we'll be right back after these soothing advertisements. So
Speaker 2: I recently used Lysol to clean out my tub. But
Speaker 2: in the early to mid twentieth century, Lysol was like,
Speaker 2: you should use our products to clean out your tub
Speaker 2: down there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: I'm using the tub as a euphemism for vagina, but anyway,
Speaker 2: it's true. Throughout the twentieth century, Lysol launched some pretty
Speaker 2: serious marketing campaigns encouraging women to douche with their cleaning product.
Speaker 2: On the surface, they were like, ah, do this to
Speaker 2: control your feminine odors, But really what they were trying
Speaker 2: to say with this was, hey, you can use this
Speaker 2: as a birth control and when they were like, hey,
Speaker 2: our product kills germs, what they were saying is it
Speaker 2: also kills sperms even if they are hiding in deep
Speaker 2: crevices aka your vagina. And Lysol is like, so, yeah, gals,
Speaker 2: go get some lysol and then make sure you douche
Speaker 2: with it after you have intercourse. And let me just say,
Speaker 2: in case you were thinking about mixing up your birth
Speaker 2: control options, I'm just gonna say, lysol is not.
Speaker 1: A good option, Okay.
Speaker 2: It used to have even harsher chemicals in it that
Speaker 2: could cause skin irritations, cramping and blistering, burning coma, and
Speaker 2: even death. And yes, women were dying from lysol douches.
Speaker 2: Like in nineteen eleven, one hundred and ninety three people
Speaker 2: got poisoned from lysol, including five women who had died.
Speaker 1: Because of douching with it.
Speaker 2: And those were just the ones who reported their symptoms.
Speaker 2: And who can we in part thank for this gross
Speaker 2: misrepresentation of Liesol's uses. Well maybe mister Comstock. By censoring
Speaker 2: knowledge about birth control and making contraceptive devices illegal, this
Speaker 2: led to everything going underground. People started seeing more unlicensed doctors,
Speaker 2: quack doctors, and started using products that were super harmful
Speaker 2: to them. Can you believe it? Limiting access to birth
Speaker 2: control doesn't stop people from trying to get birth control
Speaker 2: and actually leads to dangerous health practices. Who would have thought,
Speaker 2: But you know, it wasn't just Comstock who we have
Speaker 2: to think? Like, the FDA, for example, didn't give two
Speaker 2: shits about female troubles. So when Lysol hopped on the
Speaker 2: market being like, Hey, we'll treat your vaginal smell aka
Speaker 2: kill germ slash sperms, they didn't say anything about it.
Speaker 2: One thing that did happen was in nineteen twelve, the
Speaker 2: Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association
Speaker 2: was like, hey, Lysol and other companies who make disinfectants,
Speaker 2: we suggest that you don't tell consumers to put your
Speaker 2: products into their bodies. The Lysol was like, uh, no thanks,
Speaker 2: And so for decades to come, Liesol continued marketing itself
Speaker 2: to women as a birth control option, and it was
Speaker 2: a primary birth control method until the nineteen sixties, when
Speaker 2: the first birth control pill was released on the market,
Speaker 2: and finally, by the end of the nineteen sixties, birth
Speaker 2: control was decriminalized, but that was just for married people.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until the nineteen seventies when single people could
Speaker 2: use birth control. But here on American filth, let's have
Speaker 2: a little bit more fun. We're gonna get Julia back
Speaker 2: on because she found some of Lysol's advertisements that they
Speaker 2: used throughout the twentieth century, and some of them they're
Speaker 2: pretty amusing, but amusing in that sort of way where
Speaker 2: it's like, ah, my soul hurts, and.
Speaker 3: So Julia, okay, tell us about some of these ads.
Speaker 4: Okay, there's so many that it was hard to choose
Speaker 4: which ones I wanted to describe to your sweet ear drums.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: One of them features a woman trying to open the door.
Speaker 4: Superimposed on the door are these locks, and each lock
Speaker 4: is labeled one is doubt, one is inhibitions, and one
Speaker 4: is ignorance.
Speaker 3: And her face has this.
Speaker 5: Look of like sheer, utter, like pain and frustration, and
Speaker 5: in huge.
Speaker 3: Letters, the headline says, please Dave, please don't let me
Speaker 3: be locked out from you Lisol. Liesol clean away your doubt, inhibitions,
Speaker 3: and ignorance. Yeah, it's not even subtle, No, it's not subtle.
Speaker 4: They basically were saying, like, if you're not clean or
Speaker 4: you're not trying to prevent pregnancy, then your husband is
Speaker 4: not going.
Speaker 5: To love you. So I'm going to read a bigger one,
Speaker 5: a longer one, But this one features a woman. It
Speaker 5: looks like she's standing in like a pool with her
Speaker 5: hands like fully raised like ruefully to the sky, like
Speaker 5: she's cursing the sky, very Greek, and it kind of
Speaker 5: looks like she's prepping for like a synchronized swim routine.
Speaker 5: It's got like the cap on and the sweet like
Speaker 5: pin up bathing suit.
Speaker 2: And a necklace in full makeup, yes, a pearl netourse
Speaker 2: and full makeup.
Speaker 5: And it says, uh, too late to cry out in anguish,
Speaker 5: beware of one intimate neglect that can engulf you marital grief.
Speaker 5: And then the article reads too late when love has
Speaker 5: gone for a wife to plead that no one warned
Speaker 5: her of danger. Because a wise, considerate wife makes it
Speaker 5: her business to find out how to safeguard her daintiness
Speaker 5: in order to protect precious.
Speaker 3: Married love and happiness. One of the soundest ways for
Speaker 3: a wife.
Speaker 5: To keep married love in bloom is to achieve dainty
Speaker 5: allure by practicing effective feminine hygienes such as regular vaginal
Speaker 5: douching with reliable Lysol. Germs destroyed swiftly is like a
Speaker 5: little side note headline, Lysol has amazing proven power to
Speaker 5: kill germ life on contact truly cleanses the vaginal canal,
Speaker 5: even in the presence of mucus matter.
Speaker 2: I guess by mucus matter they mean ah sperms. I
Speaker 2: also just think it's like they were. It's very subtle
Speaker 2: that it's like birth control, but it does seem that
Speaker 2: the the main issue is a vaginal smell. And I
Speaker 2: like how that's on the hierarchy of what is important
Speaker 2: to people's bodies.
Speaker 3: And what's important to a marriage.
Speaker 2: Like, yes, it's one of the pillars of marriage is trust.
Speaker 1: Vaginal smell? Love, I guess is important love?
Speaker 3: Maybe, I guess, I mean.
Speaker 4: And then, okay, here's one that really pissed me off
Speaker 4: to it's the headline.
Speaker 3: Is you always want to leave.
Speaker 4: And there's like this couple that seems to be like
Speaker 4: leaving a party and they're like in a fight. She
Speaker 4: has a very furrowed brow and he's putting her coat
Speaker 4: on reluctantly, and it says a familiar pathetic figure the
Speaker 4: wife who always gets tired and leaves the party before
Speaker 4: anyone else.
Speaker 3: So often it's her own fault.
Speaker 4: No woman who has a normal foundation of good health
Speaker 4: can be forgiven for failing to stay young with her husband.
Speaker 3: I mean, what the fuck does that?
Speaker 4: Even?
Speaker 2: I can't young and fun and flirty, you know, and
Speaker 2: now it makes you not young and fun and flirty
Speaker 2: having a baby or being pregnant.
Speaker 4: Be sure you get the facts about feminine hygiene. Send
Speaker 4: for the free booklet offered below. It contains the facts
Speaker 4: and simple directions you must have. It was written for
Speaker 4: a woman by a woman physician. Fads in personal antiseptics
Speaker 4: come and go, but the number of women who use
Speaker 4: Lifesyl disinfectant is increasing at a greater rate today than
Speaker 4: ever before.
Speaker 1: Thank goodness, thank.
Speaker 3: God, Oh my god.
Speaker 5: Their business is booming because everybody wants to douche.
Speaker 1: I want to poison my pussy, Thank.
Speaker 5: You, thank you very much, And then says, don't experiment,
Speaker 5: don't be misled by false theories, make no mistake.
Speaker 3: Only a poison can kill germs.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's hear just one last ad.
Speaker 4: This one says caught in a web, and it's like legit.
Speaker 4: A man sitting reading a newspaper grumpily. He's like sitting
Speaker 4: there annoyed, reading his stupid newspaper, and there's a gigantic
Speaker 4: spider web behind him, and behind the spider web is
Speaker 4: a woman, like.
Speaker 3: A god in the spider web like a fucking bug.
Speaker 5: And it says, day after heartbreaking day, I was held
Speaker 5: in an unyielding web, a web spun by my husband's indifference.
Speaker 3: I couldn't reach him anymore. Was the fault mine?
Speaker 5: Well, thinking you know about feminine hygiene, yet trusting the
Speaker 5: now and then care can make all.
Speaker 3: The difference in married happiness.
Speaker 5: As my doctor pointed out, he said, never to run
Speaker 5: such careless risks. Prescribed Lifesyle brand disinfectant for my douching always.
Speaker 5: And then there's a picture of the same guy, and
Speaker 5: the web is busted open, and she's now sitting in
Speaker 5: his lap and they're like cuddling and happy, and the
Speaker 5: big headline writt reads, but I broke through it, Oh
Speaker 5: the joy of finding Tom's love and close companionship once more.
Speaker 5: Believe me, I follow to the letter my doctor's advice
Speaker 5: on feminine hygiene. I always use Liesel for douching. I
Speaker 5: wouldn't be satisfied now with salt, soda or other homemade solutions,
Speaker 5: not with Lysol, a proven germ killer that cleanses so
Speaker 5: gently yet so thoroughly.
Speaker 3: It's easy to use too, and economical. The very best
Speaker 3: part is Lysol really works, I mean really works. Oh
Speaker 3: my god. It's so Also, like, do you need that
Speaker 3: whole story? Like I don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was convinced just right at the beginning I
Speaker 2: didn't need it. I'm about to go buy some Lyesol.
Speaker 3: I know it's so silly.
Speaker 2: Also, the ad copy is bad because in the second
Speaker 2: part she says what her husband's name is, Tom, And
Speaker 2: now it's like what you could have just said his
Speaker 2: love because like now you're introducing like a whole new character.
Speaker 1: I know, they're very confusing.
Speaker 4: I know it's just bad writing, really, I mean, whoever's
Speaker 4: writing this copy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the copy is the worst thing that happened.
Speaker 2: And I guess we should also say, you know, just
Speaker 2: in case with this episode, even if it's not Lysol,
Speaker 2: douching's not good for you. And I mean I think
Speaker 2: it's more compleman knowledge now than it used.
Speaker 1: To be that it's bad for you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's true, and there's so many they still sell
Speaker 4: them at all the grocery stores and drug stores here.
Speaker 3: I always notice them, but.
Speaker 2: They're also like often covered in like I feel like
Speaker 2: a little film of like dust totally.
Speaker 3: They're like this will clean your vagina right up?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I also I remember in like middle school, seventh grade,
Speaker 2: that's when we started calling everyone like a douchebag. And
Speaker 2: then I remember when people like found out what a
Speaker 2: douchebag was. They're like, you play, you regin them, and
Speaker 2: I don't know. We were all like tittering lill thirteen
Speaker 2: year olds figuring out. But so at least we weren't
Speaker 2: raised with it. So isn't that nice? Little thirteen year
Speaker 2: olds don't know what it is exactly? Yeah, So the
Speaker 2: world is healing. If you're listening in you're thirteen, you
Speaker 2: probably shouldn't be. But don't douche. You don't need to.
Speaker 2: We love you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think maybe that's, uh, you know, one of the
Speaker 2: lessons we've learned on the episode today.
Speaker 1: Don't douche. Yeah, don't be a douchebag, but don't douche.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this week we're talking about birth control and comstocks
Speaker 2: relationship to that, But next week we're gonna We're gonna
Speaker 2: make it even spicier, and we're gonna be talking about abortion.
Speaker 1: Ooh, a very.
Speaker 2: Non controversial topic. No one's gonna have any opinions on that.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, thank you Julia for joining me.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. This was really fun.
Speaker 1: You guys know what's next. Cue the credits.
Speaker 2: American Field is a production of School of Humans and
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcasts. It was hosted by me and this episode
Speaker 2: was written by Julia Chris Gal who is also the
Speaker 2: special guest for Today. Jesse Niswanger and I made the
Speaker 2: theme song, and our executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Elsie Croley,
Speaker 2: and Brandon Barr. You guys can check out the podcast
Speaker 2: online on Instagram at American Filth Pod and that's where
Speaker 2: you can find the ticket link to American Filth Live,
Speaker 2: happening June twenty ninth at Dynamic El Dorado in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 2: I will also have the link in the show notes.
Speaker 2: As always, please like, subscribe, review, force your friends to
Speaker 2: listen to the show. I hope you guys have an
Speaker 2: excellent week.
Speaker 1: Talk at you next time. School of Humans