Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/26/how-to-get-syphilis-a-psy.html
…
1 Like
Don’t forget the classics!
3 Likes
I’ve always wanted to know how to get syphilis.
6 Likes
From back when a round of penicillin would pretty much cure anything.
Also:
12 Likes
“But, for now, she is cured.”
I don’t like the tone in his voice.
4 Likes
Also his constant beeping is annoying.
4 Likes
I already know how to get syphilis. What I need is a filmstrip on how to get rid of syphilis.
3 Likes
I did nothing in high school or college EXCEPT try to get a venereal disease, and I never even got close. Where was this when I needed it?!
8 Likes
How very sensible. What is the equivalent these days?
“This is Mary Jane. She has syphilis. Syphilis is God’s punishment because she is a cheap whore. She is going to hell. Here is her boyfriend. He is also going to hell. He has not got syphilis, but he is infected with base lust. The symptoms of lust include touching your privates. No, we aren’t going to show you a picture of your privates. But you can be treated with electric shock therapy. It will cost. It will be private unless all your names and addresses are leaked on the internet and used by blackmailers. Some people prefer to go in disguise and give a false name. This is useless as God is still watching. Remember kids: the only 100% effective cure is prayer and abstinence.”
beep
4 Likes
I watched the whole thing. Yeah, it’s heavily dated and the choice of a psychedelic style is a bit condescending. You can almost imagine a bunch of well-intentioned earnest men with skinny ties and horn-rimmed glasses sitting around a table trying to figure out how to make it seem valid to “the young people”.
Honestly, I wish a lot of people in the 1970’s had watched it as well. It was non-judgemental, informational and understandable and contained advice that was good at the time, like the use of a condom and the admonition that it had to be put on before any sexual contact occurred. Sure, some of the advice like douching is incorrect, but the film appears to have been fully vetted by a well-respected doctor who specialized in women’s health and epidemiology, Elizabeth Barrett Connor MD, at UC San Diego.
The era of free love did have some drawbacks…
2 Likes
My thoughts exactly.
If this level-headed but dated looking take on things is where the US was in the 1970s, why, just think what a few decades of progress will have done:
5 Likes
Inducing malaria was actually a method of attempting to cure syphilis. Neal Stephenson was absolutely not making that up in System of the World. The idea was that if the malaria didn’t outright kill you, perhaps you’d run a high enough fever to burn out the syphilis. It was pretty much the only method that could possibly work at the time, even if it did have some major drawbacks…
4 Likes
“They begin to multiply by division” is a pretty funny statement.
3 Likes
Also, that patriotic condom is boss.
My favorite image is of Johnny Syphilis Seed, wandering the countryside spreading syphilis from coast to coast.
4 Likes
Good job, 70’s, on making a non-judgemental, factual sex education film.
That said, Coily the Spirochete Sprite says, “NO SPRINGS!!!”
4 Likes
Also, it gave some practical advice/information: emphasizing the anonymity of the testing, your parents/teachers will not be informed, how you can go to a different town if you want, use of condoms.
Compared to teh Republican version: abstinence, parental notification, shame, ignorance, abstinence.
1 Like
Sources? …
