PornHub's Space Sex Tape: An Awesome Idea That's Probably Not Going to Work
The online porn repository is crowdfunding a giant leap for sexploration.
PornHub calls itself the "#1 free porn site in the world," (link is NSFW, obviously) but has now decided that tagline is too modest.
"The production of the video will begin when the spaceship takes flight. Filming will commence upon takeoff and as the ship climbs, so too will the lovemaking…As soon as the ship reaches its maximum altitude there will be weightlessness for at least a few minutes. Our actors will be having sex and climaxing within that time frame—ideally, of course." PornHub Vice President Corey Price explained to the Huffington Post.
The site is looking to raise $3.4 million to train and equip astronaut/porn stars to send them into space. PornHub has already chosen the actors, including the charming Eva Lovia pictured at right. The rest of the plan seems pretty vague, and so far it's only 1 percent funded.
Believe me, I want to see space porn as much as the next gal. And I believe in the power of pornography to drive new technologies, so I think interest in zero-g smut would likely provide a boost for even more important space commerce, such as asteroid mining and colonization.
But here are a few boner-killing things PornHub execs should probably know before they (literally) launch their space porn initiative:
1) Sex in space can be tricky. I reported on this important topic for Reason back in 2007:
According to Vanna Bonta, a poet and space sexpert with a sweet, breathy voice, ?"Zero gravity could cause a slight decrease in the size of the erect penis because of the heart not working hard, or low blood pressure.?"
2) Sex in space could have tragic results:
?"One of the by-products of sex is people,?" said Bonta. Unlike in Vegas, what happens in space does not stay in space, and there?'s a major concern that babies born off planet would not be able to return to Earth. It?'s pretty clear that conception doesn?'t require gravity, but ?"there may be some problems with embryo survival.?" And fetuses can?'t take gravity-simulation countermeasures, such as exercise with weights and running on a treadmill, which even adults staying in space for a relatively short period must do.
3) PornHub isn't the first company to have this idea: In 2006, Laura Woodmansee wrote a book called Sex in Space, which chronicled plans to make a porno on the (late) Mir space station. They didn't work out.
4) The physics are going to be tough. (But there's a silver lining to this one):
There may already be a fetish community out there tailor-made for this market: bondage. According to Bonta, space sex will require ?"stabilization rooms?" with handles, cubicles, Velcro, and bungee cords. It turns out that Newton?'s Third Law?—the one about equal and opposite reactions?—makes sex in low gravity something of a logistical challenge.
5) Newt Gingrich has been totally into this idea since at least 1984:
In his 1984 book, Window of Opportunity (and again in his 1994 book, To Renew America), he suggested that private space flight would open up business opportunities for space tourism—specifically for honeymooning couples. As he put it: "Imagine weightlessness and its effects and you will understand some of the attraction."
6) Current providers of quick zero-g trips often refer to their vehicles as "vomit comets." Just sayin'.
Here's the incredibly awkward IndieGoGo video, which features a grown man making obscene hand gestures as well as some suggestive footage of space vehicles docking. Watch at your own risk: