I’m going to date myself here.

Back when I was a teenager, you couldn’t get a lot of things over the counter.  Mostly because of the mores and inhibitions that pervaded American society back then.  (Still now?)

If I wanted to get a package of condoms, I’d have to wait in line for the pharmacist and request the brand and quantity I desired. (Nowadays, of course, there are slews of varieties, all stacked on shelves for one to compare and contrast the claims of the vendors. Obviously, it was never the aim to educate us young’uns as to what choice would be best.)

It kind of reminds me when I was at summer camp and it was “Color War”.  They declared my bunk to have the nickname “The Trojans”.  They clearly had something else in mind- and they took great umbrage at the “theme song” we developed to the tune of Hey Look Me  Over, a song that was popular a few years back.

 

But, I digress…

This story is about the guy that changed the way condoms- and a bunch of sexual aids- were sold across the USA.

Phil Harvey noticed the ridiculous situation across the USA while he was grad student at UNC, studying family planning.  (His undergraduate degree was from Harvard- in languages!)   And, that led him to start a mail-order condom business.  Warning college kids of the dangers of unprotected sex, he advertised his wares in college newspapers.

The only problem was that violated the law.  The Comstock Act.  This prohibited the use of the postal service to send obscene materials and/or items of “immoral use”.    Moral Majority, the plaything of Jerry Fallwell, the Baptist preacher, and the founder of the Liberty Baptist University of Lynchburg VA, decided this was the perfect target to attack.  (Fallwell was a great promotor of Ronald Reagan.)   The good thing was that Falwell’s attack dogs were far more effective at curbing Harvey’s competitors- and not Harvey’s own company.  (While he was charged with nine felonies in Alamance County (NC), it took the jury about 45 minutes to acquit him.)

As his company grew, he renamed the enterprise “Adam & Eve”.  (Actually, that was it’s nom de guerre; the firm name was really PHE, Inc.)   And, in short order, it because a multimillion dollar company. (That would be like a billion dollar enterprise in today’s environment.)

Over the years, it proffered X-rates movies, sex toys, erotica, massage oils, and lingerie to its customers.  (Part of the profits went to support reproductive health programs- and some sexual health programs across America.)

Mr. Harvey back in the late 1970s sued New York State over the regulation of contraceptives- you know with the rules that minors could not purchase them; even though they were non-prescriptive nature of the devices, one could only purchase them from pharmacists. (He won by exposing the goal of the governments to prosecute firms with identical charges in multiple jurisdictions, so they would run out of money before they could win a case.)

One of Mr. Harvey’s books was  “Let Every Child Be Wanted”.  The book served to explain public health goals and the use of affordable contraceptives.  He took great umbrage when governments defined “bad people” as those who discussed or trafficked in sexual materials.

The problem is that while few people are prosecuted under such laws, they still exist on the books. Despite the fact that companies like “Adam & Eve” still survive- and “Penthouse”, “Hustler”, and “Playboy” are distributed everywhere.

You can thank Phil Harvey, who died about two months ago in Cabin John MD, for changing the way we look and purchase contraceptives.