From the November 1959 edition of Adam magazine comes this article titled Sex in Space, written by Ronald Sturgeon.
Firstly, the artwork is excellent. The image has great attention to detail and one look at it could instantly date the picture to the time period; right at the start of the space race. I love the aerial coming into the front of the rocket as well as the handles, pedals, levers, and switches for both the female astronaut pilot’s spaceship seating location and her male colleague’s too, who’s possibly performing the role of communications officer onboard the snug vessel.
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The shielding in front of the rocket engines is a good touch, showing a lot of thought and love has gone into the diagram. Sadly, there are a couple of disturbing elements to the illustration too. There’s the jug of alcohol, clearly of the illegal variety, and then there’s the action and look on the male astronaut’s face (which may have come from indulging of the alcohol); we can see that he’s got a can opener and the implication is that he’s going to open up the ship from the outside and then open up his colleague sexually, whether she likes it or not.
Back in the late 50s or early 60s (possibly even later too) this type of dominating man seeking what was deemed rightfully his was considered par for the course and the picture was funny. Of course, the imagery was in a magazine for men so it’s not that surprising either. Still, the idea that what’s illustrated more-or-less amounts to a diagram just before space rape doesn’t sit quite so well these days. And there’s the stupidity angle that’s hard to get over too: why not just walk through the ship and not damage the craft? Alcohol again?
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Some quotes from the article itself:
This business of women and sex in space has long been something of a problem for conscientious science fiction writers. While accustomed to taking the problems of time-travel and interstellar flight in their stride the iminence [sic] of actual space flight has given them pause where putting a broad into orbit is concerned. Usually, they solve the problem by making her a stowaway – or by preceding the U.S. Government by omitting the girls altogether until the intrepid spacemen get to Venus or Mars or Mercury or wherever they are going.
Note the use of the word “broad” there.
So how are the boys (and girls) going to get their sex in space in the coming age or [sic] planetary travel? Somebody is going to have to come up with a power system or a space station that will make larger, more comfortable ship possible by counteracting the force of Earth’s gravity. Somebody probably will, or we’re never going to get started on jaunts around the Solar System. It’s a sure bet the boys won’t take it forever without their broads, women or wives!
Those broads again! There’s a little bit of science in the article, although it’s pretty light on any real detail and certainly doesn’t deliver on the promised titillation of actual sex in actual space. That’s pretty typical for textual content in magazines of this type and of this era.
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