Seeing Stars: Sex in Interstellar Space
September 24, 2013 10:21 AM Subscribe
Anthropologist Dr. Cameron M. Smith examines how sexuality will evolve over the course of long interstellar voyages. If we ever undertake the grand project of space colonization, we’ll have more than just engineering problems to contend with. We’ll have to figure out how sex looks—and feels—when you’re living in a closed ship in the middle of the cosmos.
How will sexuality play out in space? Take your pick, so long as it doesn’t interfere with maintaining a healthy population, or exceeding the limits of the space ark. Wherever we go, humanity will be characterized by change; for millions of years, our behavior has been decoupled from our biology by powerful cognitive processes and tool use. This adaptive ace up the sleeve gives us tremendous behavioral variation, allowing us to proactively adapt to new conditions by mind rather than reactively, by body. For humans settling a new planet, cultural variables related to sex and sexuality will all shift, differing from that of their ancestors long left back on Earth and from that of the generations that crossed the gulfs of interstellar space. Sex will continue—it will have to—and the solution to questions of sexuality will be to to have many solutions, as it does on Earth.
How will sexuality play out in space? Take your pick, so long as it doesn’t interfere with maintaining a healthy population, or exceeding the limits of the space ark. Wherever we go, humanity will be characterized by change; for millions of years, our behavior has been decoupled from our biology by powerful cognitive processes and tool use. This adaptive ace up the sleeve gives us tremendous behavioral variation, allowing us to proactively adapt to new conditions by mind rather than reactively, by body. For humans settling a new planet, cultural variables related to sex and sexuality will all shift, differing from that of their ancestors long left back on Earth and from that of the generations that crossed the gulfs of interstellar space. Sex will continue—it will have to—and the solution to questions of sexuality will be to to have many solutions, as it does on Earth.
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posted by JHarris at 10:24 AM on September 24, 2013