In the last decade of the twentieth century, the «safe sex» message – advocating the use of condoms to prevent pregnancy and curb the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases – has endured relentless attacks by conservative religious groups who seek to instill doubt and promote an abstinence-only theme in American public schools. The essays in this book provide a stimulating historical and cultural inquiry into the multiplicity of meanings attributed to one prophylactic: the condom. Given the vast array of sexual attitudes toward condom usage within American culture and around the world, Culture and the Condom will provoke readers into examining significant dominant discourses and alternative perspectives by viewing condoms through the lens of cinematic and television imagery, artistic representations, statistical analyses, commercial advertising, and animation.

The Editors: Karen Anijar is an associate professor of curriculum and cultural studies at Arizona State University. She has a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. She is the author of numerous books on curriculum, pedagogy, and popular culture, including Science Fiction Curriculum, Cyborg Teachers, and Youth Cultures and Teaching Toward the 24th Century: Star Trek as Social Curriculum. Thuy DaoJensen is a doctoral candidate in curriculum and cultural studies at Arizona State University. As the recipient of a Spencer Fellowship, her research focuses on sex education curriculum, along with the narratives of abstinence-only and abstinence-based sex educators.