This site from the San Francisco City Clinic is chock full of sexy sex stuff for you to peruse and fall in love with/hate. This includes polls on Best Porn Films and even Best STD Reference in A Film, and a contest for the Best Sex Poster in the past 100 Years, with examples that are sometimes awesome and sometimes kind of hateful (the numerous “Prostitutes Spread Disease” examples). These all seem like things we need to be abreast of, just saying. Examples of awesome hatefulness include the picture to the left.
Because, well, if someone was accusing me sight unseen of having V.D. I’d probably pose like that too…before pouncing on them like a jungle cat. What kind of statistic is that though? 4 out of 5? Really? Did you just poll the bar on the way to work?
Moving on to the next poster–first of all, where did she get that dress? Second of all, Booby Trap is an excellent way to draw the eye, because we all know tits sell. Thirdly, doesn’t it get boring retelling the same “Sluts are dirty!” story over and over? I have a feeling the soldiers got it (and passed it on to their kids, who passed it on the theirs, and that’s how we have misogynists after all this time) in the first round of slut-bashing posters. Could you guys have come up with something else?
Apparently not. But! There are some posters that are spot on. Ones where shame is being pointed out as something that can kill you, specifically. I have a feeling shame is at the root of most dysfunction, but that’s just me.
This one should be plastered everywhere! I am consistently befuddled when people tell me they’re scared to get tested. Scared for what? That the people at the testing site won’t know what to do with you and your brand new STDs? That you will be the person they make fun of, even though they’ve been trained not to do that? That you’ll bump into a case full of samples and everyone in the building will end up with some crazy mix of stuff and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT? No? Then what? Ok. Also, let me know if it’s difficult balancing that kind of self importance with such obvious insecurities, ok? And, let me know when you get tested too!
“4 out of 5 pickups have VD”?
That’s a terrible attempt at fear-mongering! We all know most men would just think “hey, I’m sure I can spot the 1 in 5 who doesn’t.”
Much better would be “Prostitutes will Bite Your Penis Off!” Or perhaps “Every time you pay for sex, your penis shrinks a little more.”
I mean, seriously, if you’re going to spread malicious lies and disparage an industry, at least do a good job of it. Use something that’ll actually scare men.
I agree that the fear-mongering is awful, and that their statistics are probably blown out of proportion but it’s also likely that sex workers WERE more likely to be carriers of disease during the 1940s and 50s. At the time there was an even larger stigma attached to sex work of all kinds and resources for education about and testing for VD was significantly more limited. As we all know, lack of education and testing resources leads to more disease and less treatment, especially in women who often don’t show symptoms.
I’m not saying that these advertisements are fair, and blaming it on the prostitutes is certainly not the way to go about things, but the wide world of STDs was much different than it is now.
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