Radioactive Sex

Just the idea of putting something up the ass is unpleasant enough but radium suppositories? WTF?

This clipped ad was an insert to an article on a radium scandal I read on-line. But since I saw it through the internet, I could not really tell if the ad and the product it pushed really existed once upon a time or if the ad was just a crafty fabrication for the gullible.

Considering how wary we are of radiation contamination nowadays, it is incredibly hard to imagine that there were once items such as radium suppositories which were supposed to be inserted up the ass- err rectum- to enhance sexual performance. Did people really use them before? I wonder how soon people got sick after using this 'wonder product'. Did anyone sue the manufacturer when they got sick or were they too embarrassed to let others know about their radioactive sex practice?

I have no answers to these questions because all I saw was this clipping of the advertisement. I was reading another article regarding a radium related scandal sometime in the 1930's that caused the deaths of untold number of factory workers who were mostly women- for which reason the victims became known as the Radium Girls. During their time, not much was known about radium yet, especially its lethal radioactive aspect and so the workers did not take precaution in handling it. Some women even used the radium containing chemical they handled to brighten their teeth or to make their hair glow.

I was actually thinking of an April Fools entry today. But I thought, if this clipped ad is real, then this truth is horribly weirder than the fiction I can concoct.