The Blowfish Blog

OTAKU MAnKO: Sex in Space, Russian Style

Earlier this month, the Museum of Hoaxes reported that a certain set of nerdy rumors were making the blog rounds once more: rumors of sex in space. Or — and here I should be painfully specific, because for the time being these two things are synonymous — sex in the space program.

When I say “space program,” I’m really talking about two space programs, the Russian and the American. The Chinese manned space program has existed for such a short time that any orbiting sex there would be furtive at best, and in any event no one seems to be speculating about it yet. More about us horny Yanks later; for now it’s the Russians strongly denying that there were any experiments performed on sex in space, as related in this Bankgkok Post article on an Interfax report about Valery Bogomolov, head of Russia’s Institute of Bio-Medical Problems, that Russian and US cosmonauts had most explicitly not been “testing sex in space.” “There is no proof  . . . that on any mission cosmonauts had sex,” said Bogomolov. “Cosmonauts, too, are regular people, but  . . . I have not heard about any sex in orbit.”

Specifically, the reports and rumors centered on a supposed Institute study in which six cosmonauts (five men, one woman) spent two weeks isolated ina zero-gravity capsule, as part of an experiment to simulate conditions that might occur on a trip to Mars. Bogomolov claimed “there were no complaints over the absence of sex,” which doesn’t surprise me. Personally, I have a helluva time sitting through a poetry reading without ducking into the loo to adopt a “narrow stance” for a few minutes, but then, I’ve never been considered for astronaut training (and now I know why). A two-week period of isolation might not generate too much sexual desperation in your typical type-A number-crunching Slavic geniuses, but an actual trip to Mars would take at least 260 days, so if it comes down to it I think Mr. Bogomolov and his cronies might want to spring for a silver bullet and a Fleshlight or two.

Rumors — some would say “wishful thinking” — about sex in space have been around since the beginning, not least because science fiction in the pulp era was published in magazines and paperbacks that often featured silver bodysuited space jockeyed and scantily-clad humanoid aliens. Aliens and future Adonises were the wish-fulfillment of an industry fueled by testosterone and wonder, and 25-cent paperbacks were never respectable to begin with. When space flight became a reality, it’s not surprising that people started projecting onto it their fantasies of a little intergalactic bootay; what’s surprising is that it doesn’t happen more.

The Soviet space program was marked throughout with the extreme secrecy that typified that regime. After the cold war, for instance, it was revealed that a much larger number of people had died in the Soviet space program, and to this day a fairly well-researched conspiracy theory exists that the Lost Cosmonauts were would-be space travellers who were simply stricken from the records. If the system could “disappear” whole cosmonauts, what would be the challenge in covering up a spacebound boink or two?

But for whatever reason, the Americans are usually the beneficiaries of spacefuck rumors and urban legends. US astronauts Jan Davis and Mark Lee got married just before travelling on the Space Shuttle in 1991. In what appears to be an enduring urban legend, NASA was reported to have tested multiple sex positions in zero-gravity, utilizing elastic bands and other helpful equipment. This report periodically surfaces and makes things interesting (and no doubt exasperating) for NASA press representatives. NASA does not ban sex between its astronauts, but a spokesperson said that “We depend and rely on the professionalism and good judgment of our astronauts . . . There is nothing specifically or formally written down about sex in space.”

Yeah, maybe. As with most government agencies, just because there are no guidelines about how or when to fuck doesn’t mean that NASA won’t deny that anybody’s fucking. About a year and a half ago MSNBC and other sources reported on NASA’s voluble denials of sex on board the Space Shuttle. The denials in that case were in response to a hoax in which NASA was said to have conducted a survey — apparently related to the 1996 hoax — on whether any of its astronauts boinked on board the shuttle. Equally important to the zero-G fucking hoopla was Laura Woodmansee’s August, 2006 book Sex in Space. The MSNBC story also incorporated the proposal of science fiction writer Vanna Bonta (who incidentally contributed a story to “Star Trek: The Next Generation”) that sex in space was crucial to the long-term survival of the human race. Bonta’s novel Flight included a garment called thhe “2suit,” which faciliated zero-gravity sex by including Velcro strips, zippers and breakaway sections as well as an inner material that would absorb the perspiration generated by sex — which, in a low-pressure zero-G environment, would be less likely to evaporate and more likely to get in strange and irritating places.

Around the same time, Violet Blue proposed the well-reasoned rationale that sex in space was going to need to be facilitated by bondage. I concur. As anyone can imagine if they’ve ever nerded-out over videos from NASA’s website of the STS Crew (the Space Shuttle astronauts to you laypersons) strapping themselves down for sleep or work, zero gravity sex would not be all floaty intimacy. On the contrary, without a tiedown or two, it would be like trying to get off while doing midair gymnastics. Which could be fun in its own way, but seems unlikely to be sexually satisfying. Blue later included the sex in space story in her top sex stories of 2006.

But the human fantasy of sex in zero-gravity was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be. Back in 2000, a film called The Uranus Experiment Part 2 was nominated for a Nebula award. In the sci-fi porn movie, stars Sylvia Saint and Nick Lang have sex in microgravity conditions — which were simulated by flying a plane in a parabolic pattern, which basically generates the same gravitational conditions, briefly, as those onboard spaceship in orbit.

Clearly, microgravity porn hasn’t taken over the erotica market. But all it really takes is a DC-9 with an open cargo bay and a whole lot of craft foam — or red velvet pillows, if that’s your gig. Can it be far away? Only the Russians know for sure, and they’re not talking.

Thomas Roche is the managing editor of Eros Zine, teaches at San Francisco Sex Information, and also blogs on sex, drugs and cryptozoology at thomasroche.com.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 December 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.