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| Say, where have I seen that font before? Oh, no. Oh, god, no. |
NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021).
The article: "That Lingering Social Disease." Originally published in Orgy (Pendulum Publishing), vol. 4, no. 1, April/May 1972. Credited to "Dick Trent."
Excerpt: "Any guy or girl who makes the scene over and over again with many many partners is letting themselves in for a very bad time of it. Gonorrhea is far from painless. But the guy who has contacted the disease becomes lazy about it. Perhaps he has heard that it will go away in time and if not he will sooner or later, at his convenience, take some shots and that is bound to clear up the infection. However, the longer he waits the more factually he will find himself suffering the consequences of extreme pain."
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| A vintage propaganda poster about VD. |
Reflections: In most of Ed Wood's sexology articles from the early 1970s, he marvels at the progress we as a society have made in just the last few years. Eddie wants us to know that America's young people are no longer shackled by the puritan beliefs of their parents and grandparents, many of whom were taught that sex is strictly for procreation rather than pleasure. Today, things are much freer and more open. People are discussing sex more boldly than ever before and writing about it in terms everyone can understand. More importantly, people are experimenting with everything from group sex to sadomasochism.
Unfortunately, there is a downside to all this fun-seeking, and it comes in the form of sexually-transmitted diseases or STDs. In Ed's day, such maladies were referred to as "social diseases," a term I like because of its gentility. It seems we no longer have the patience for polite euphemisms anymore. The 1972 article "That Lingering Social Disease" is Ed's relatively straightforward treatise on STDs of the pre-AIDS era, back when a few trips to the doctor could knock out just about anything. In his writings and interviews, John Waters has occasionally pined for the swinging 1970s, back when scabies was the worst thing you could get from sex. That would soon change.
Social diseases do not play a major role in Ed Wood's movies, unless there are some obvious examples that I'm forgetting, but he visits the topic fairly often in his books and articles. Syphilis is such a motif in his writing that Ed will sometimes shorten it to "syph." There's even a character called Syph in his 1968 biker novel Hell Chicks. And let's not forget "The Whorehouse Horror," Ed's 1974 story in which prostitutes are intentionally infected with syphilis. In this article, Eddie writes about both syphilis ("the disease of the sheep") and gonorrhea, detailing their causes, symptoms, and cures in a more-or-less encyclopedic style. Eddie keeps his trademark idiosyncrasies in check here, but I enjoyed this fanciful little passage:
Where about a decade ago gonorrhea was almost wiped out of this country it has now returned in epidemic proportions. And the disease is not being spread only by the prostitutes, it can come just as easily from the pretty girl in the frilly pink dress who lives in the high rental areas.
That bit about the "frilly pink dress" is classic Eddie.
In this case, Eddie knew first-hand what he was talking about. According to James Pontolillo's The Unknown War of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (2017), Eddie himself was treated for syphilis in April 1946 after experiencing a body rash and painful bowel movements. He seems to have contracted the disease after a "pick-up date" with a prostitute in Beaumont, CA in December 1945, although Eddie claimed to have worn a condom during that encounter. In "That Lingering Social Disease," he further advocates for condom use:
There have been many men who claim the rubber is too much of a constricting force for him and that he cannot enjoy full climactic satisfaction when using one. But the new materials of this day and age belie that fallacy. And it is better to have some small discomfort than a real discomfort which can last for many months or more. However most medical men say that using the rubber is the most healthy way and that it is all in the minds of any man when he complains about the constriction.
Perhaps the humble condom had been improved between 1945 and 1972. I would hope so.
Once again, Ed Wood turned to the Beta tabloid The National Informer for his source material. Specifically, that publication ran an informative story about gonorrhea in its December 1971 issue. (I don't know if these tabloids were weekly or monthly or what.) At first, he just refers to it as "an article," but he later gives us a title and an author: "Things You Should Know About Gonorrhea" by Russ Truman. Alas, Mr. Truman and his article have both vanished into the endless reaches of time, apart from being mentioned by Ed Wood.
Next: "Seek and Ye Shall Find" (1973)