Part 10 (1/2)
_03:: Trojan Wars of the 19th Century A number of mechanical methods of birth control were created and used in the 1800s, but they were only affordable for the wealthier Victorian women. Of course, they weren't exactly effective. The first generation of v.a.g.i.n.al diaphragms and cervical caps were developed but the quality of the rubber was poorthat is, until the invention of latex in 1884. However, in keeping with the Victorian ethos, a law, known as the Comstock Law, defining condoms as obscene went quietly into effect in 1873. That didn't keep prophylactic science from making advances, though. Toward the end of the 19th century, the forerunners of IUDs (intrauterine devices), intracervical stems, or pessaries, became available. However, the devices were unpopular from the start, as they often led to infections. Oddly enough, the courts wised up to the fact that diaphragms and condoms were effective for disease prevention, and made them legal as medical treatment. However, they still weren't so fond of the idea of birth control, and the courts maintained that using the products as contraceptives should remain illegal.
_04:: Protection au Naturel While not everyone could afford the premier forms of birth control, it didn't stop less affluent Victorians from jerry-rigging their own homemade remedies. In fact, one of the most commonly used ”natural methods” of birth control was the injection of fruit juices or naturally produced chemicals into the v.a.g.i.n.a, known today as ”douches,” shortly after intercourse. Of course, that wasn't the only recipe. A variety of mixtures were used, including baking soda, alum, vinegar, and quinine. Other birth-controlling techniques involved using small, natural sea sponges dipped in acidic or naturally spermicidal mixtures with a ribbon or string attached. And there were cheap solutions for the men, too! Condoms made of sheepskin, also known as ”French letters,” were particularly popular, and a notorious favorite with men who frequented brothels. After all, the rubbers didn't just aid in birth control, but also kept the syphilis at bay. In fact, it's this sordid use for birth control that gave condoms such a bad reputation and made them taboo in the eyes of the general public.
From Wags to Riches:
4 Royal Mistresses Who Made Good
It's no surprise that a lot of kings have kept a lot of ladies-in-waiting. Of course, not all of these gal pals were content just to wait. In fact, the following mistresses quickly found their way from the bedroom to the boardroom, making sure they were involved in more than just one of the king's affairs.
_01:: Diane de Poitiers (14901566) Considered one of the most powerful women of the 16th century, Diane de Poitiers was the mistress to French king Henri II. And what a mistress! Although married to Queen Catherine, Henri basically let Diane run France by his side. In fact, she got all sorts of executive perks, from signing official doc.u.ments to appointing ministers and handing out t.i.tles, to even dabbling in estates and pensions. And as a member of the Privy Council, Diane even routinely gathered money for the royal treasury. But for those skeptical few who want proof of her power in writing, just inspect any one of the numerous official doc.u.ments the good king and his gal pal literally cosigned: they actually read ”HenriDiane!” Of course, this dubious union did not exist without protest. When church officials questioned Diane's role, she simply had them sent to Rome. When Henri pa.s.sed away, he was calling out Diane's name. However, Queen Catherine (pretty understandably) prevented Henri's mistress from attending the funeral and, in fact, demanded that she return any crown jewels. Strangely, though, Diane was not arrested for treason as expectedmainly because she was popular with the French people for helping Henri rule so well.
_02:: Nell Gwynne (16511687) During the reign of Charles II of England, mistresses weren't exactly few and far between. In fact, less-than-chaste women were almost as plentiful around the palace as were catfights between them, and Charles was basically an equal opportunity cad. In fact, his favorite mistress was a prost.i.tute from London's slum known as Kindhearted Nell. Renowned for using her influence with the king to help others, Nell also harbored a wicked sense of humor. For instance, when she heard that Charles planned to bed another mistress, Nell offered the gal a bunch of sweets. Little did the lady know Nell had laced the goodies with a laxative and an evening of bedding quickly turned into an evening of chamber-potting. But while Charles frolicked with Nell he let another mistress, Louise de Keroualle, run the country, and there was no love between the two. During a period of anti-Catholic sentiment, Nell's coach was surrounded by a mob thinking it contained the Catholic Louise. The quick-thinking Nell exclaimed, ”Pray, good people, be civil, I am the Protestant wh.o.r.e.” Amused, the crowd laughingly let her move on.
Touch of Evil Camilla Parker-Bowles's family has been trying to get into the royal pants for decades. Her great-grandmother was reportedly the mistress to King Edward IV, Chuck's great-great-grandfather.
_03:: Madame de Pompadour (17211764) Probably the most powerful of all royal mistresses, as King Louis XV's lady on the side, Madame de Pompadour served as the unofficial French prime minister for 13 years. It worked out well for both parties. Louis, being a ridiculously lazy king, wasn't all that fond of making decisions, while Pompadour reveled in the power. All messages to the king and all requests for an audience had to go through her. Not just that, the Madame also controlled all t.i.tles, court positions, and honors and quickly began replacing high-level officials with her supporters. She even took over as France's minister of war during the Seven Years' War (17561763), and cleverly chose to appoint all the generals more on their social standing than their experience. Pompadour died of a lung disease in her early 40s, but for all her power-tripping she remained faithful to Louis till the end. In fact, court etiquette wouldn't allow Louis to attend Pompadour's funeral, but the casket was made to pa.s.s by his castle. Upon viewing the cortege, Louis reportedly cried, saying that tears were the only thing he could give her.
_04:: Mary, Countess von Waldersee (18661941) Unlike most royal mistresses, Mary played the role of the matronly adviser. The daughter of a wealthy New York grocer, Mary was married to Colonel Alfred von Waldersee, the quartermaster general of the German army. As such, Mary opened a salon in Berlin and soon found herself entertaining German royalty, including young Prince William. Enamored of the old gal (she was, after all, two years senior to his mother), William decided to make her his private adviser. In 1888, William became Kaiser Wilhelm II, and he started referring all political matters to Mary before making decisions. However, the power went to Mary's head, and she attempted to get Wilhelm to replace Chancellor Bismarck with her husband. Wilhelm did remove Bismarck, but not for Alfred. Instead, Wilhelm began to view Mary as his biggest compet.i.tion and to get rid of her he demoted her hubby and moved them both to Hamburg. Without mother Mary's sage advice, though, Wilhelm was lost, and his weak, egocentric decisions helped bring about World War I.
When s.e.x Doesn't Sell:
5 Risque Ad Campaigns That Got Canned
There are two cardinal rules in advertising: ”s.e.x sells” and ”There's no such thing as bad publicity.” Here are a few advertising missteps that proved one or both of them wrong.
_01:: Abercrombie and Flesh It may sound odd for a clothing manufacturer to use nudity to sell clothes, but that's exactly the strategy campus mainstay Abercrombie & Fitch employed in their catalog/photo magazine A&F Quarterly. Over a series of years, the models somehow got younger and younger and began wearing fewer and fewer clothes. In fact, nudity wasn't uncommon, and consumers complained of suggestions of pedophilia, s.e.xual irresponsibility, underage drinking, and h.o.m.oeroticism. But the Winter 2003 edition was the one that went too far. The catalog featured over 100 pages of photos of young men and women frolicking naked in streams and waterfalls (in a winter catalog?), and one spread espoused the joys of group s.e.x in both photos and text. The outcry from angry parents was so loud that sales for November 2003 dropped over 13%, and the company discontinued the A&F Quarterly altogether soon thereafter. Despite the hubbub, though, A&F has been a little slow to learn from their mistakes. Since then, they've been criticized for marketing T-s.h.i.+rts with ethnically insensitive slogans and for marketing thong underwear bearing phrases like ”Kiss me” and ”Eye candy” to teen girls.
_02:: Calvin and Kiddies Designer Calvin Klein has always used s.e.x to sell his clothes, and it's usually worked. After all, who can forget the slinky Brooke s.h.i.+elds proudly proclaiming ”Nothing comes between me and my Calvins”? But in 1995, CK creeped out just about everyone with its ads for jeans and underwear. The commercials featured teenagers wearing almost nothing, standing in what appeared to be a poorly lit bas.e.m.e.nt in front of cheap wood paneling. What's more disconcerting than cheap paneling? Well, maybe the fact that the models are being interviewed with eerie questions, like ”That's a nice body. Do you work out?” Or ”Why don't you open that vest up?” Although the resulting controversy did increase sales, it also prompted an investigation by the FBI to see if the ads qualified as child p.o.r.nography. In fact, the campaign is still referred to in the industry as the ”kiddie p.o.r.n” campaign.
_03:: PETA's s.e.x Kittens (Literally) It seems logical: What better use for s.e.xual imagery than to promote...having your pets fixed? People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, long known for their publicity stunts, tried it in 2001. The ad by industry giant Saatchi & Saatchi depicted animatronic cats ”doing it” in all sorts of positions while their owner is away, while the copy reminded us that over 2.4 million unwanted kittens are born every year. It's actually very funny and effective, and PETA even tried to run it as a paid ad, not as a free public service ad. But MTV rejected it, saying they do not allow the depiction of ”fornication” on their networks. Umm, excuse me? Apparently MTV's (s)executives have never actually watched MTV. And the aforementioned fornication wasn't even being done by real cats. They were puppets.
_04:: Candie's Bathroom Humor Lots of companies use models to sell their shoes. But only Candie's used models going to the bathroom. A controversial series of ads from the late 1990s showed Playboy model Jenny McCarthy wearing a pair of Candie's shoes while sitting on a toilet, panties around her calves, reading a newspaper. So, just how racy was the spread? Both Vogue and Cosmopolitan pulled the ads from their pages. Another series featured child-star-turned-s.e.x-symbol Alyssa Milano in a bra and panties, rifling through a lover's medicine cabinet full of condoms. But she's stopped by an unexpected find: a bottle of Candie's perfume. Another has Alyssa about to be mounted by a naked man in the back of a limo. The ads weren't just suggestive, they were downright obvious. In fact, the ads were considered so risque that they were banned in several countries, and the TV versions were even rejected by the WB, the network that carried Alyssa's. .h.i.t show Charmed.
_05:: Miscellaneous: The DisGraceful Awards At the height of the late 1990s dot-com boom, Silicon Valley professional Sylvia Paull founded GraceNet, a San Franciscobased networking group for the ever-growing number of women in high-tech fields. Every month GraceNet hands out the DisGraceful Awards for ads that crossed the line into s.e.xism or offensiveness. And back during the boom, with all that ad money flying around, they had plenty to choose from. DisGraceful ”winners” include an IBM Lotus ad showing a man using Lotus to learn ”discounted cash flow techniques with 40 other a.n.a.lysts,” while a woman uses it to finish her crossword by finding ”a five-letter word for 'bellyb.u.t.ton'”; and an ad for Hong Kongbased games maker Lik-Sang International, featuring a young girl licking her lips over the line ”We don't have young j.a.panese girls on sale right now, but we do s.h.i.+p more than 300 products directly from Hong Kong!”
Dear Dowry:
6 Crazy Historical Trades for Brides
Before the whole ”old, new, borrowed, and blue” wedding tradition hoo-ha, there was another must-do part of any nuptials: the dowry. And through the years, lots of things have been given or received to sweeten the blessed deal. Here are a few things that have changed hands in exchange for (or in addition to) brides.
_01:: Foreskins: David and Michal If you know where to look, you can find all kinds of crazy stuff in the good book. So grab your King James Version and flip to chapter 18 of the first book of Samuel for the story of David (yes, that David, with the stone and the sling and the Psalms) and Michal. After David smote the heck out of Philistine bada.s.s Goliath, he went to live with King Saul of Israel. Saul, afraid of David and troubled by evil spirits, began to plot his murder. When Saul's daughter Michal revealed her love for David, Saul made her a deal: Have David bring back 100 Philistine foreskins, and he can marry you. Now Saul had no particular affinity for foreskins; he just wanted David to get killed trying. But Dave and his posse, with G.o.d's help, brought back 200 for the good king. Saul couldn't help but bless his daughter's marriage to such a go-getter.
_02:: Heads: The Dayak of Indonesia Journey to the Indonesian island of Borneo and you'll find an indigenous tribe of people called the Dayak. But try not to overstay your welcome, as the Dayak were historically headhunters and cannibals. In fact, their economy seems to have been predominantly skull based. If, for example, someone wanted to marry a chief's daughter, the suitor would have to impress the chief by presenting him with three or four enemy skulls. This modern tribe had given up their headhunting waysthat is, until recently, when settlers from the overpopulated Indonesian island of Madura were caught encroaching on the Dayak's traditional land. The late-1990s ethnic struggle proved that old habits die hard. Thankfully, though, things seem to have simmered down since, as the Dayak have figured out better ways to get a head.
_03:: Political Prisoners: Ramses and the Hitt.i.tes In the 13th century BCE, there were two superpowers in the Middle East: the Egyptians and the Hitt.i.tes. And, as rival superpowers are wont to do, they hated each other. The main bone of their contention? The city of Kadesh, which served as a strategic linchpin located in modern-day Syria. After decades of fighting, King Hattusili III ascended to the Hitt.i.te throne, and he saw the wisdom of bargaining with the great Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II. So, he proposed a treaty. Ramses agreed to marry Maat-Hor-Neferu-Re (or Manefrure), Hattusili's eldest daughter, and in exchange he got an alliance with the Hitt.i.tes, control of Kadesh, and the release of all political prisoners. Not a bad deal. But what did the blus.h.i.+ng bride get out of it? Well, the lucky gal got only what every princess dreams of...to be the primary consort in a harem of more than 200 wives and concubines.
Touch of Evil It was suggested that Henry VIII marry Anne of Cleves to help form a bond between England and Germany. After viewing a flattering portrait of Anne he agreed, but upon first meeting her he made it clear that he was disappointed by her looks, saying she resembled ”a horse.”
_04:: 100 Knights and a Table: Guinevere The story of King Arthur has been told by many, and one of the best-known versions is Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. In his version, the famous Round Table was given by Uther Pendragon, its original owner, to a fella named Leodegrance, who happened to have a daughter by the name of Guinevere. When Guinevere was married off to a certain King Arthur, she brought to the marriage a most unusual dowry: the Round Table and, just for good measure, 100 knights to sit around it. But this was one serious table: it could seat 150. So magician Merlin threw in the rest of the knights to fill it. One hopes the happy couple registered for 150 place settings at Ye Olde Crate & Barrel.
_05:: England: ”The Dowry of Mary”