How World War II transformed sexual health practices and condom use in Sweden

During World War II, Sweden was officially neutral, but life at home was anything but untouched by the conflict. A new study from Stockholm University shows that the war years fundamentally changed Swedish thoughts about sexual health, helping turn the condom from one protective option among many into the dominant safeguard against venereal disease. The effect was a long-term transformation of sexual health practices in Sweden.

"Before the war, there was a wide range of products available to prevent pregnancy and infection," says Anna Inez Bergman, PhD in Economic History and lecturer at the Department of Public Health Sciences at Stockholm University. "What we see during World War II is a narrowing of that market, where condoms gradually came to be framed as the most effective and responsible choice."

In an article published in Enterprise & Society (Cambridge University Press), Anna Inez Bergman examines how wartime public health campaigns and commercial marketing worked hand in hand to reshape the market for protective products.

Veneral diseases wartime problem beyond the battlefield

During the war, venereal diseases were a growing concern across Europe, and Sweden was no exception. Between 1939 and 1945, more than one million Swedish men were conscripted into military service. This large-scale mobilization meant that people moved to new places, formed new relationships, facing them with new risks of becoming infected.

Although Sweden did not distribute condoms for free to soldiers - unlike some of the nations directly involved in the war - the government launched extensive public health campaigns encouraging protective practices. These efforts were part of a broader expansion of wartime information and propaganda aimed at guiding citizens' behavior during the "years of preparedness" (beredskapsåren). "The state relied heavily on information as a tool," Bergman explains. "Public health campaigns became a way of steering sexual behavior without direct coercion."

Public health meeting advertising

Bergman's study draws on wartime health campaigns and condom advertisements to show how government messaging and commercial interests increasingly aligned. Condom retailers strategically adapted their advertising to echo official concerns about infection control to increase sales.
Ads emphasized responsibility, protection, and national health, mirroring the language of public health authorities. This alignment helped recast condoms as practical medical tools rather than morally suspect products.

"Businesses were quick to adapt and take advantage of public health campaigns," Bergman says. "By aligning themselves with state messaging, retailers presented condoms as essential tools to both personal and public health."

The result was a powerful convergence of state-led social engineering and market-driven consumer engineering. Together, they helped normalize condom use and elevate it above alternatives such as chemical spermicides, douches, and diaphragms.

A neutral country, a lasting shift

One of the study's most striking findings is what happened after the war. In countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, public authorities largely reverted to stricter moral frameworks once the conflict ended. Sweden, however, took a different path.

"Swedish authorities continued to prioritize infection control in the immediate postwar years," Bergman notes. "There was no sharp return to prewar moral standards."

This continuity meant that condoms retained their newly established legitimacy, both in public discourse and on the consumer market. What began as a wartime response to rising infection rates became a long-term transformation of sexual health practices in Sweden.

Laying the groundwork for the welfare state

Beyond the history of condoms, the article speaks to a larger story about governance and communication. During World War II, Sweden greatly expanded its use of public information campaigns to manage everything from food consumption to personal behavior. In previous research, it has been argued that these wartime efforts helped shape the more interventionist welfare states that emerged after 1945.

Bergman's research adds sexual health to this picture, showing how wartime propaganda and advertising laid the foundation for enduring relationships between public health policy and market strategies.

"The war conditions fostered a more permissive stance toward condom use that extended well into the postwar years," Bergman says. "Driven by both necessity and opportunity, these shifts helped lay the groundwork for broader cultural change, including the more open public discourse on sexuality that gained momentum in Sweden in the 1960s."

By tracing how condoms rose to dominance during World War II, Bergman´s study reveals how moments of crisis can permanently reshape everyday practices - and how the boundaries between state intervention and consumer markets can blur in the process.

Facts

In the study, Bergman has examined public health campaigns and commercial advertisements for condoms in newspapers and brochures. According to Bergman, these advertisements are valuable sources for investigating cultural, rhetorical, and ideological dimensions used to construct attitudes toward prophylactics and contraceptive use. In total, Bergman have studied sixty-four brochures from four dominant Swedish condom retailers, as well as newspaper advertisements, mostly in daily press but also in military press, from 1939 to 1950.