{"id":26355,"date":"2017-02-17T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T13:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=26355"},"modified":"2017-02-17T08:47:28","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T13:47:28","slug":"sti-transmission-wives-whores-and-the-invisible-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2017\/02\/17\/sti-transmission-wives-whores-and-the-invisible-man\/","title":{"rendered":"STI Transmission: Wives, Whores, and the Invisible Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flashback Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n

Monica C. sent along images of a pamphlet<\/a>, from 1920, warning soldiers of the dangers of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). In the lower right hand corner (close up below), the text warns that “most” “prostitutes (whores) and easy women” “are diseased.” In contrast, in the upper left corner, we see imagery of the pure woman that a man’s good behavior is designed to protect (also below).\u00a0 “For the sake of your family,” it reads, “learn the truth about venereal diseases.”<\/p>\n

The contrast, between those women who give <\/em>men STIs (prostitutes and easy women) and those who receive <\/em>them from men (wives) is a reproduction of the virgin\/whore dichotomy (women come in only two kinds: good, pure, and worthy of respect and bad, dirty, and deserving of abuse).\u00a0 It also does a great job of making invisible the fact that women with an STI likely got it from a man and women who have an STI, regardless of how they got one, can give it away.\u00a0 The men’s role <\/em>in all this, that is, is erased in favor of demonizing “bad” girls.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

See also these great examples of the demonization of the “good time Charlotte” during World War II (skull faces and all)<\/a> and follow this post to a 1917 film urging Canadian soldiers to refrain from sex with prostitutes (no antibiotics back then, you know)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This post was originally shared in August 2010.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flashback Friday. Monica C. sent along images of a pamphlet, from 1920, warning soldiers of the dangers of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). In the lower right hand corner (close up below), the text warns that “most” “prostitutes (whores) and easy women” “are diseased.” In contrast, in the upper left corner, we see imagery of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":69873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,2091,252,253,272,304,120,291,23705,309],"class_list":["post-26355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-gender-healthmedicine","tag-healthmedicine","tag-history","tag-marriagefamily","tag-the-state","tag-sex","tag-sex-work","tag-vintage-stuff","tag-warmilitary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2010\/08\/13-760x1024-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26355"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69871,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26355\/revisions\/69871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}