So I just watched the movie "Lola Montès" (1955) by Max Ophüls and it's based on a true story about this femme fatale who was sedusing a lot of men, some of them in high places, all over Europe in the 19th century. During this movie I was wondering how she managed to never give birth to a child and if she even got pregnant in the first place? Did european women (also sex workers from that time) who had many different sexual partners but who didn't want to get pregnant just had sex during specific times of their menstrual cycle? Where they aware of this cycle? Did their partners just "pulled out" or practiced anal sex? Was Lola Montès infertile? Or did women like her just got a lot of abortions?
Bonus question: How did they practice safer sex in the early 20th century?
I also wanted to ask why she didn't get a shitload of STDs, but apperently she suffered and probably died from syphilis.
The use of condoms is well documented from the 1560s onwards and was used by the wealthy initially to prevent STDs but later to prevent pregnancy (and was certainly known for that use by by the 19th century).
Dating back millennia there has likely been (it is a matter of some historical contention) a tradition of contraceptive and abortifacient herbs that were relatively common knowledge among sex workers as well as practiced by medical experts and "witches".
Outercourse was also a common practice and was what you might call the "standard service" for sex workers throughout much of the medieval period, primarily intercrural sex (between the thighs), while still practiced it's popularity had reduced by your time period as a result of better alternatives becoming more easily available.
Throughout Lola Montes' lifespan there was a significant cultural war occurring on reproductive rights as the Malthusian League and early feminist movements advocated for legalization of contraceptives and defended those who published books on how to prevent pregnancies though such texts had circulated covertly for a long time previous.
In summary there was no shortage of methods though they were significantly less convenient than modern contraceptives and a successful and relatively wealthy sex worker like Lola Montes would generally not have trouble finding viable methods.