Talk:History of condoms

Current worldwide condom popularity?
Seems a little strange that the last mentions of overall contraceptive popularity here are from 40 years ago (1960s and the pill). Most recent information I have seen ranked sterilization as number one and IUD as number two (worldwide) (WHO 2002, reference in the IUD article). 18.6 billion condoms seems like a lot, until you figure that is only about half a dozen or so per person of reproductive age. Would be nice to have something on how condoms rank now. Zodon (talk) 03:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The condom article does have a prevalence section, if that helps. LyrlTalk C 01:20, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I missed that. Looks like condoms 4th most commonly used method among married couples worldwide. Zodon (talk) 08:44, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

GA?
You know, after a good copyedit, this might meet GA class. Perhaps we should beg for help at the League of Copyeditors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Research by Edward C. Green
Like it or not, this Harvard fellow, Edward C. Green, is an important person in the history of condoms, in that he questions the wisdom of its use in African AIDS prevention. Mr. Green argues that married couples in long-term relations are among the most likely to get AIDS because of the complex network of semi-polygamous African social relationships, in which people eventually stop using condoms after a certain time, but later contract the disease after one of the heterosexual partners commits adultery and transmits it to his or her mate. ADM (talk) 00:00, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Source
The source used for much of this article has a problem.

It may need checking for each ref used.

The sentence "In the late 15th century, Dutch traders introduced condoms made from "fine leather" to Japan. Unlike the horn condoms used previously, these leather condoms covered the entire penis" appears to be incorrect as the ref does not appear to say that.

Can someone check things a bit more thoroughly please as I can only see it in snippet view ?

Chaosdruid (talk) 04:36, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Reference to 15th century removed since the first japanese-western contacts were not until 1543: --Regge (talk) 05:35, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I have undone your edit as per our discussion at IRC I am not convinced that the source is wrong. I have tagged it as needing verification however.
 * As for previous trade with the Japanese, it is possible that contact existed prior to that date.
 * Chaosdruid (talk) 05:53, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * (ec)There is no consensus for the change. I told you that on IRC, I posted the note here asking for discussion, I undid your change made after I specifically asked you not to do it. I have posted again on your talk page to try and explain again how this process works.
 * Consensus (that means agreement) must be achieved for the text to be changed.
 * WP:BRD states (as noted on your talk page) that you change, I revert, we discuss and reach consensus. You have ignored that and undone again without achieving consensus, or discussing here. You have not persuaded me that the date is wrong. 2RR is going to be achieved if you undo this again.
 * Chaosdruid (talk) 13:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I have put the change in place again. A side mention in an article on the history of a punctuation sign does not carry the same weight as a standard 10 volume work on the history of Japan, especially not on such a pivotal moment in Japaneses history. Please also check the Brittanica article on Japan itself. There it says "In 1543 several Portuguese were shipwrecked on the island of Tanega, off southern Kyushu. These were the first Europeans to arrive in Japan". See here for a snippet view: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/557776/history-of-Spain (contains a part of the article on Japan). The book on condom history that was originally referenced did indeed mention 15th century, so no need to check the source. However, this book was wrong somehow as has been made clear by these other sources. The start of contact between Japan and the Western world has been a thousand times better documented than condom history. I think we agree that the way the section is phrased now is not incorrect, so I suggest we leave as is for now in case you want to discuss further. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Regge (talk • contribs) 13:05, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The first to arrive in the land does not mean there was not contact beforehand. You agree the source is correctly quoted, yet you persist in removing the text which you say is correctly sourced and cited. The only logical ting to do is to open discussion, tag the text for verification and await the discussion process. Please do not undo again until others have discussed. If no one discusses after a few days there are other options. The third opinion board, posting on the project pages, asking for verification on the reliable references board, and others.
 * I suggest you leave it as I have left it until such process have been followed as there is clearly no consensus for you to remove what you say is a quote properly cited.
 * I repeat again, in case you forgot what I said in IRC. The quote is correct, properly cited and the book is reliable. No-one else has questioned a text that has been used for 99 references. Chaosdruid (talk) 13:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It is the same as if this book on Condom History would say condoms were introduced to American Indians by the Spanish before 1492. It would be senseless and unnecessarily bureaucratic to go through all the possible Wikipedia steps in such a case. Any minor background research in this case will clearly tell you there was no contact between the Japanese and the West before 1543 (and between the Japanese and the Dutch before 1600), especially since the research in this area is so vast. I have changed the article to my original edit. Please do not revert my edits again and leave it in a state that we both have consensus on is not incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Regge (talk • contribs) 15:13, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

On a separate note I agree that this book requires further investigation as a source for this article. As is written here and here the writer of the book admits using a pseudonym! As the writer (a university college of London professor) of the review writes "Provenance is everything in history, but here even the author remains mysterious.". Also "an absence of references and picture credits makes it far from scholarly" and "On some occasions, Collier is clearly wrong", including examples. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Regge (talk • contribs) 15:50, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * This is the sort of discussion that should have taken place after my first reversion to your edit. WP:BRD and consensus is the most important part of creating articles here. For you to assume that I would not listen to any further evidence was really bad faith on your part. To remove the text after we had discussed it on IRC, and I told you that I would not support you removing it, shows that you do not care whether someone agrees with you or not and that is not going to go down well.
 * Just because you do not agree with a book does not mean that you can remove text which is correctly sourced and refd. After all if you remember it was you that persuaded me that the quote, source and ref were correct. More importantly after you knew I would not support such a removal you should have realised that there would not be consensus for removing the text, at least until discussions had started on the talk page.
 * After I advised you to just tag it and put a note on the talk page explaining your doubts you have ignored all attempts to stop you from entering an edit war, ignored advice, refused to wait until discussion are over, removed it again without consensus, and generally shown bad faith.
 * There are many avenues for asking for consensus on the source, as I told you earlier, these should be consulted before you undid my first revert though. Things take time on here, discussion cannot be expected to be over in an hour or so.
 * I am busy at the moment so I will take a look at your links in a little while. Chaosdruid (talk) 03:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You can always add a note at the reliable sources notice board and ask for advice on the source. Chaosdruid (talk) 03:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * pages 6-7 14??. It states that he was born in 1394. If he lived to 70 and it was "within a century" that is no later than 1460. If the Portuguese were in the Indian ocean there is also a possibility that they traded with Japanese merchants around Java etc. It is not my place to say that there was no contact between the Japanes and Dutch traders prior to 1609. Several sources say there was. Yet again, it does not necessarily have to have been Europeans going to the islands of Japan, they could easily have met off island in some other country.
 * I have not forgotten, but this was somehow missed during a lost session. I will check your links later. Chaosdruid (talk) 04:06, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, guys, to intervene in your discussion, but I dont know how to use wiki talk. But there were no tortoise or horn condoms (how do you think they were using them anyway?), book author Collier clearly talking about these things AKA kobutogatas AKA penis extenders. -Guest

convenience break
OK, I have looked at your latest links. First of all let me point out that they are written by the same person Chris McManus. In reality they are just one opinion. The two main points about unreliability: Cook did indeed sail into the Antarctic circle, not the pole, and gas lighting was first used at the end of the 18th century, start of the nineteenth Gas_lamp - I suspect that not many pictures exist of the first ones, the street lights being much more common.

As a matter of interest the NYT seems to find no problems though the review may not be that much indepth.

Using a pseudonym is not really an issue is it ? Boz, Lewis Carroll, Leslie Charteris, Joseph Conrad, C. S. Forester, James Herriot, George Orwell, Ayn Rand I do not really need to go on though?

I do agree that a book which lacks sources is perhaps more suspect than one that does not. I have already given the link for the correct noticeboard to raise that issue at. Chaosdruid (talk) 07:54, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I do appreciate that you care about proper procedures and that you are spreading the word on how to use them. However in this case we are talking about such a well established fact (start of Japanese-Western contact) that I truly feel it would have been more efficient to do some minor background research yourself. As I said: it is like we would be doing this if the book had said condoms were introduced to American Indians by the Spanish before 1492. Please also note that I did not change the contentious timing in the article, but just left it out. All in all it was far from a "bold change".


 * I am going to leave this with you for a while. Here are some things I want to leave with you.
 * The articles are indeed by the same author. I included both because one includes more information and the other includes the job title of the author (so he is traceable) and was published on the website of a national British newspaper.
 * A pseudonym is not an issue if it is by a fiction writer, but it is in a work of knowledge. In this case we are unable to contact the writer and discuss contentious parts of her book with her.
 * In order for a source to be reliable Wikipedia requires it to be verifiable. This is obviously not the case with the book on condom history. I think we can come to that conclusion on our own, but feel free to ask the reliable sources notice board for advice on that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Regge (talk • contribs) 11:22, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The issue of first contact is not the same as "first Europeans trading in Japan" - contact could have been off Japanese soil, China, Malaysia, etc.


 * Noted - also another review mentioning the unreliability (although I cannot post here as it is on the Wikipedia spam blacklist).
 * Not really an issue though as any contact with the author would probably not achieve anything we could use here. Although it might be useful to find a source for that particular phrase, the book is used in (I think) 99 refs in the article. If it is indeed useless, then most of the article would need to be changed. That is why it is such an important issue. I really think we should both start looking at the other 98 "facts" and not concentrate on just this one - if it is indeed proved to be an unreliable source then there is a lot of work needed to fix the article!
 * Not quite correct. If a source is to be used as a ref it has to be WP:RELIABLE.


 * As I said, there is too much usage of the book to simply look at this one small part of the text. If the source (the book) is not usable as a ref due to it being unreliable, then they must all be removed. One final point is that although the author pseudonym is not a problem, the fact can be used against reliability as per Verifiability Chaosdruid (talk) 11:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

"Greece, and Rome preferred small families"
And of course, the main family size limitation method was infanticide (exposure). AnonMoos (talk) 23:50, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You know, that is another topic. Though, I don't disagree with you, but we have to stick to the topic. 112.198.90.211 (talk) 16:56, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Dubious
In the section "World War I to the 1920s," the following statement seems to be false: "In 1918, just before the end of the war, an American court overturned a conviction against Margaret Sanger. In this case, the judge ruled that condoms could be legally advertised and sold for the prevention of disease."

The source does not provide this fact. Additionally, the case in question, People v. Sanger, did not result in an overturning of her conviction, and the judge ruled that "condoms could be legally advertised and sold for the prevention of disease" only by medical professionals.

65.112.8.198 (talk) 06:59, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on History of condoms. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070714101959/http://www.populationaction.org/Publications/Reports/Condoms_Count/Special_Topic_History_of_Condom_Use.shtml to http://www.populationaction.org/Publications/Reports/Condoms_Count/Special_Topic_History_of_Condom_Use.shtml
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060721104435/http://www.billy-boy.com/english/info/ to http://www.billy-boy.com/english/info/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 10:23, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on History of condoms. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130205201853/http://goeurope.about.com/cs/sex/a/condom.htm to http://goeurope.about.com/cs/sex/a/condom.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070214022738/http://www.bartleby.com/61/44/C0554400.html to http://www.bartleby.com/61/44/C0554400.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 02:16, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Ireland
I'm puzzled by the following sentence: "In Ireland the 1889 Indecent Advertisements Act made it illegal to advertise condoms", In 1889 what is now the Irish Republic was still part of the UK. Therefore this Act would have applied throughout the UK. Rwood128 (talk) 00:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The sale of condoms in Ireland wasn't banned until 1935, though they remained readily available in N. Ireland. However, the advertising of them was banned under the 1929 Censorship Act, and this wasn't lifted until the 1990s. Rwood128 (talk) 00:32, 1 September 2023 (UTC)