This month’s issue of Canadian gay travel/culture mag The Guide provides an educational timeline about the history of lubricants, bringing us from the dark days of Vaseline (which originated on oil rigs) to the advent of long-lasting, sheet-staining, silicone-based lubricants like Gun Oil in the 80s.

Biggest take-away: It turns out that despite petroleum jelly becoming verboten for condom sex, Vaseline has a long history in the gay world and still has its (mostly elderly) fans!:

By 1880, there were Vaseline factories across the British Empire. By the end of that decade, a bottle was sold in the U.S. every minute. The translucent grease not only sat in bathrooms and workshops, but lodged in the cultural firmament. By the early decades of the 20th century, a quarter-mile stretch along New York’s Central Park was dubbed Vaseline Alley — a term that’s since become monicker for any number of places men cruise… But the jelly still has fans. “It’s just perfect as far as I’m concerned for masturbating,” says Arthur, a 63-year- old Bostonian who’s been dipping into the jar for nearly half a century…”It has the ability to go up and down easily — just enough so that you’ve got firm contact.”

You don’t say, Art. We always found it sticky and hard to wash off!  Anyway, we sort of wish the article had reached a little further back to the olive oil days of the Greeks and Romans, but here’s their abbreviated timeline of lube through the recent ages.

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