Once kept in the back of pharmacies, condoms have become common and familiar items in the 1980s and 1990s because of the AIDS crisis. Apart from sexual abstinence, condoms represent the safest method of preventing the transmission of the HIV virus through sexual intercourse, and, consequently, condoms figure prominently in safer-sex campaigns. The increase in demand has led to a diversified production to suit all tastes, so that condoms have been marketed not only as protective items but also as toys that can improve sex. Condoms are so ubiquitous that conservative writer Richard Panzer has despaired that we all live in a Condom Nation and a world of latex.

Condoms are as old as history: a type of modern-day condom may have been used by the Egyptians as far back as 1000 B.C. History blends with myth, and several legends record the use of primitive condoms: Minos, the...