1. Samuel R. Delany (1942- )
His 1975 novel Dhalgren is a hugely complex, at times incomprehensible tome reminiscent of the works of Thomas Pynchon. It also showcases every imaginable form of human sexuality, including a long-term polyamorous relationship between the protagonist, his lover Lanya Colson, and a gang member called Denny.

2. Philip José Farmer (1918-2009)
It would be a stretch to say Farmer invented sexual science fiction (especially considering some of the people on this very list predate him), but he did shatter the mainstream notion that sex had no place in science fiction. His 1953 short story "The Lovers" was an overnight sensation for its sophisticated, intelligent depiction of love between a human and an alien, which he followed up with five more stories in a similar vein in his 1960 anthology Strange Relations. He explored unconventional relationships both allegorically within science fiction and literally in his 1962 novel Fire and the Night, which looked at an interracial relationship before they had gained widespread social acceptance.

3. Robert Heinlein (1907-1988)
Nothing if not an iconoclast, Heinlein was a militarist who also passionately believed in free love, at least if his writings are to be believed. It's actually not that hard to reconcile when seen in terms of his ironclad libertarianism, which led him to foresee a future where homosexuality was fully accepted, public nudity was commonplace, and couples were far from the only acceptable number of people for romantic relationships. A noted advocate for polyamory, his works consistently shattered taboos, ranging from relatively mundane topics for the 1970s such as open homosexuality to a full-fledged incestuous romance between immortal time traveler Lazarus Long and his own mother - and all of that was in just one book, 1973's Time Enough for Love. But perhaps his crowning achievement for mixing sex and science fiction was his wonderfully twisted 1959 short story "All You Zombies", in which time travel and a sex change operation allows the story's protagonist to become both his own mother and father, not to mention just about everyone else who appears in the story.

4. Ursula K. Le Guin (1929- )
Le Guin has extensively studied alternative conceptions of gender, both as a critical theorist (in such essays as 1976's "Is Gender Necessary?") and in books like The Left Hand of Darkness. Her novel, published in 1969, considered the Gethenians, a humanoid alien race with no inherent gender. Instead, Gethenians experience the activation of either male or female sexual organs in roughly monthly cycles. To humans, this means they constantly switch genders, although this is a rather quaint notion to the Gethenians themselves.

5. William Moulton Marston (1893-1947)
Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman, may not have the literary credentials of the other people on this list – although he did invent the lie detector test, for what that's worth – but his creation of the first female superhero might have the most pop culture impact. His personal idiosyncrasies, which included living with his wife and girlfriend in a polyamorous relationship, influenced the character's subtext, often leading to Wonder Woman being tied up by other Amazons in situations that evoked bondage imagery (there are entire sites devoted to tracking this very phenomenon). In an era when even recognized comic book geniuses like Will Eisner were content to rip off Superman, it took an uncompromisingly unique individual like Marston to create the first and still the best superheroine, and the medium is infinitely better for it.

6. Joanna Russ (1937- )
One of the first and most important lesbian science fiction writers, Russ confronted sexism head-on in the 1970s with a number of works, both fiction and non-fiction. Her most notable science fiction was probably 1975's The Female Man, which considered four women living on four different parallel universes who then travel between each other's worlds. The different universes include a universe where the Great Depression is still going strong, one that is essentially the same as the real world, another that is a utopian society without any men at all, and a universe where the two genders are literally at war. Russ uses this multiversal backdrop to compare how the various characters' situations influence their conceptions of gender politics and sexuality.

7. Alice Bradley Sheldon (1915-1987)
Better known by her male pseudonym, James Tiptree Jr., Sheldon spent her science fiction career methodically deconstructing supposed boundary lines of sex and gender (she herself was bisexual). She looked at the nature of sex, at times characterizing it as a playful expression of human free will, but otherwise seeing it more as an animalistic force in such stories as "Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death" and "The Screwfly Solution." Her 1975 novella "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" dealt with three male astronauts thrown through an anomaly in space to an Earth inhabited solely by women, which Sheldon characterizes as a peaceful but stagnant society. "The Women Men Don't See", on the other hand, depicted two women who used an alien abduction as an opportunity to escape the limitations of their lives on Earth. She depicted sex with a frankness and clarity that was exceptional for science fiction authors of the day, male or female.

8. Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950)
His 1935 novel Odd John is one of the earliest to explore sexual themes in science fiction. Following John Wainwright, a British mutant with extraordinary mental abilities, the novel in part addresses the sorts of relations a superhuman such as John could have with regular people. Although Stapledon never quite comes out and says it explicitly, Odd John almost certainly suggests that Wainwright has sex with both his own mother and a young boy. Ultimately, he concludes that all relations with normal humans are morally wrong on the grounds that his advanced intellect makes any such act essentially bestiality.

9. Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985)
The same year as Philip José Farmer's "The Lovers" broke new ground with love between species, Theodore Sturgeon shattered the taboo against depictions of homosexuality in science fiction with his short story "The World Well Lost." The story follows a pair of seemingly male and female alien lovers who visit Earth and become celebrities until their home planet demands their extradition. When the aliens reveal to one of the astronauts tasked with bring them home that they are both male and that their crime is love, he sets them free, in part because he nurses a secret love for his copilot. The story was so controversial that it barely got published; the first editor Sturgeon showed it to actively called other editors, demanding they not publish it. Thankfully, Universe magazine saw it differently, and science fiction is infinitely better for it.

10. John Varley (1947- )
His "Eight Worlds" stories depict how technology manages to make homophobia obsolete (well, more obsolete). In a future culture where people can change their gender instantly, there is little room for views that see homosexual relationships as different from heterosexual ones, as a person could wake up one day in one relationship and go to sleep in the other.

Top image from Clyde Caldwell's cover illustration for Farmer's Strange Relations.

Yes, the evil aliens in Decoys (and Decoys 2) mate by sticking their tentacles down a human male's throat and then impregnating him with their eggs. And for some reason they have to use their shapeshifting and telepathy to turn themselves into the guy's ultimate fantasy first - so he'll be really, really excited. And the mating must take place at sub-zero temperatures. Got it? Good.

The most awkward scenes of alien mating run the gamut from cheesy space-opera mating to full-on I-can't-believe-they-went-there porn. And yes, some of the clips below are not work-safe, so exercise discretion.

Star Trek: The Next Generation:

Trek, in all its various incarnations, has always been full of unfortunate alien mating moments. But for my money, this is the worst - it's actually the scene that inspired me to track down all the rest of these clips. Riker, blessed with the power of Q, decides to give Worf a Klingon girlfriend... who crawls around the Enterprise bridge in a Klingon aerobics instructor outfit. "Is this your idea of sex?" Geordi asks, awestruck. "This... is... sex!" Worf howls. Ummm. yeah.

Breeders:

Oh dear. An alien has been capturing women and attemting to mate with them. Here they are, in the alien's mental thrall, coating their naked bodies with its extraterrestrial sperm. And yes, it's NSFW:

Futurama:

Poor Dr. Zoidberg. His "erotic display" just doesn't turn out that well.

Weird Science:

In one episode of the short-lived TV series, their friend Chet starts dating an alien woman. Unfortunately, she wants to devour him after sex. Luckily, his ex-girlfriend intervenes just in time.

Babylon 5:

A similar mating practice crops up in this scene from B5's pilot. Commander Sinclair, he's a life-saver.

Space Thing:

An alien in human form, Col. Granilla, comes aboard a human spaceship commanded by women. It's up to this nice Kansas girl to teach him the ways of human mating. Clip is NSFW:

Something Is Out There:

Hand sex! Maryam D'Abo comes from an alien race who keep their erogenous zones in their hands. Here she is, getting it on with her boyfriend before their ship suffers a prison break. Clip is very work-safe, unless hand-sex offends you.

Quark:

This Star Trek spoof featured an episode where Ficus, the unemotional plant man (who's the counterpart of Mr. Spock) has to seduce Princess Libido, who's fallen in love with him. His objective is to use his sexual wiles to convince Libido to help him and his crewmates escape from her evil father. There's just one problem: Ficus doesn't have sex like normal people. He reproduces by pollinating. He's only too happy to show Libido how.

Species 2:

Eve, a clone of Sil, gets so excited she squishes a baseball. It's all because an astronaut, Patrick, has brought something alien back to Earth with him, and it manifests itself while he has sex with a debutante, and then her sister. The debutante suddenly gets very, very pregnant, while the sister notices that Patrick is growing rather a lot of tentacles during sex. Later, Patrick and Eve get together, and Eve's nipples grow tentacles, which I've never seen before. Clips are very, very NSFW:

Society:

Walking in on your parents having sex is bad enough — but what if you've learned your parents are aliens, who have sex by melting their flesh and blending together into weird and monstrous forms? And your sister is also an alien, and her head comes out of your mother's crotch? And asks you if you have any Oedipal fantasies? You might be put off sex for quite some time. This clip may actually be work safe, hard to say.

Inseminoid:

A human gets tied up and subjected to mating with an alien whose penis is a giant bong. This NSFW clip already featured as a "found footage," but I had to include it for completeness. Warning: very NSFW!

The Outer Limits:

Commenter Roklimber suggested this bizarre NSFW scene from a 1995 episode. Alyssa Milano is a nice college girl, until she gets hit with a spore from outer space. And then she suddenly wants to have sex with lots of guys... by absorbing them into herself.

Evil Aliens:

Nerdy Gavin finally gets to have sex with an alien woman, but finds out it's not all it's cracked up to be. And meanwhile, a woman named Foxy gets implanted with an alien fetus. And yes, it's NSFW.

Additional reporting by Alasdair Wilkins.

Terminator Salvation
Who They Are: Christian Bale and Sam Worthington are mere inches away from each others face when Sam is all tied up for his interrogation. If someone doesn't spoof this with an almost kiss scene it will be a waste of an easy joke.
Why It's Hot: Bale doing anything is hot, S&M or otherwise. You could watch him make peanut butter sandwiches, and it would turn all of us on. But watching Bale tie up the equally sexy Sam is, well, phew...is it hot in here?

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Who They Are: First, you've got a underwater pain bondage moment. And the other image is Liev Schreiber and Hugh Jackman all tied up and screaming, before meeting the bullet end of the fire brigade, after which they joke about it tickling.
Why It's Hot: Swoon, for Liev doing anything that's remotely dirty. I have a funny feeling this whole movie is going to be a lot of hot rough-and-tumble Liev-on-Hugh action, and I couldn't ask for more. These boys are so big and tough, I want to see them rip each others shirts off! For character development reasons.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
Who They Are: Shia LaBeouf And A Decpticon
Why It's Hot: Forward sexual thinking is always sexy. Robots and humans are bound to get together eventually, good for Sam, for blazing this trail first.

Star Trek
Who They Are: Looks like Zachary Quinto holding Chris Pine down.
Why It's Hot: Do I really have to explain how Kirk Spock Fanfic works? But it's even hotter because these are fresh faces that we're not accustomed to, so it should shake things up a little bit.

Spock (Star Trek)
Let's start with the really obvious here. Spock's father is a Vulcan ambassador named Sarek and his mother a human named Amanda Grayson. Much of his character, therefore, is based in the contrast between his two halves, with Leonard Nimoy having said that Spock is ""struggling to maintain a Vulcan attitude, a Vulcan philosophical posture and a Vulcan logic, opposing what was fighting him internally, which was human emotion."

Jack of Hearts (Marvel Comics)
The Jack of Hearts was born Jack Hart, the son of Philip Hart, a human scientist, and Marie, a humanoid extraterrestrial of the Contraxian race. His powers, which include such things as flight and the ability to project heat and concussive force, don't come from his parents, but rather his exposure to "zero fluid," a discovery of his father's.

B'Elanna Torres (Star Trek: Voyager)
B'Elanna, chief engineer aboard the USS Voyager, had a human father and Klingon mother, but her father left for Earth when she was a child, leaving B'Elanna to be raised by her mother. Either due to her childhood or her parentage, B'Elanna was short-tempered and often aggressive, but Roxann Dawson (the actress who portrayed B'Elanna) has said that over the course of the series, the character grows from an "unruly teenager" into a woman.

Moonshadow (Moonshadow)
The titular character in this twelve-issue comic book series written by J. M. DeMatteis is an adolescent boy of human-alien parentage. His mother is a human woman from Brooklyn named Sheila Fay Bernbaum, who takes on the name "Sunflower" during her flower-child days. When she's transported to the alien "zoo," she marries one of her abductors, a member of a nigh omnipotent race called the G'l-Doses. They're essentially glowing orbs of indeterminate largeness who use their power to wreak havoc on the universe, causing war and peace, death and life, with no real modus operandi beyond the delight they derive from the randomness of their actions.

Rystáll Sant (Star Wars)
A dancer for the Max Rebo Band, Rystáll has a Theelin father and human mother from New Bornalex. (It's argued, actually, that due to their greatly varied physical characteristics, that most Theelin are hybrids of one kind or another.)

Deanna Troi (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Troi is the counselor aboard the USS Enterprise, with a Betazoid mother and human father.

Jason (Superman Returns)
When Lois's son shows up, we're supposed to assume the father is Richard White, her fiancé (and Perry White's nephew). But then Jason starts showing signs of super-strength and Kyptonite sensitivity, thereby implying that (sorry, Richard) Jason is actually Superman's kid. (The current convention that Superman cannot conceive a child with Lois clearly does not apply here.) So, yes. Superman: deadbeat alien father.

Reverend Golightly and the kitten children of Thomas Kincade Brannigan and Valerie (Doctor Who, new series)
In "The Unicorn and the Wasp" (Episode 7, Series 4), the Reverend Golightly is revealed not only to be Lady Eddison's son, but also the product of an affair she had with a Vespiform, a giant wasplike alien. Awkward.

"Gridlock" (Episode 3, Series 3) sees the introduction of a delightful little nuclear family, made up of Thomas Kincade Brannigan, a cat man, his human wife, Valerie, and their children: a litter of kittens. (It's debatable whether Brannigan counts as an actual alien, as he probably counts more as just a highly evolved feline lifeform. It's also debatable whether Brannigan is named after Thomas Kinkade, the "painter of light." Let's hope not.)

Additionally, in the 1996 TV movie, the Doctor himself claims to be "half-human, on my mother's side." But generally speaking, nobody listens to anything the Doctor Who TV movie said.

Hera Agathon (Battlestar Galactica)
Hera is the first known half-Cylon, half-human child. Her father is Karl "Helo" Agathon and her mother Sharon "Athena" Agathon.

University of Arizona biologist Anna Himler orginally began studying the ants, called Mycocepurus smithii, because they had incredible success as farmers. Many breeds of ant keep domesticated "farms" where they breed various kinds of fungus for nourishment. But Mycocepurus smithii was able to breed fungus far more successfully, and in greater varieties, than other ants Himler had encountered.

As she and her team studied the insects, they realized there were no male ants anywhere to be found. Himler told the BBC that it's possible the ants evolved so as "not to operate under the usual constraints of sexual reproduction." Interestingly, the fungi that the ants cultivate also reproduce asexually. But why would these ants choose to emulate the reproductive cycle favored by their crops? Himler explains:

It avoids the energetic cost of producing males, and doubles the number of reproductive females produced each generation from 50% to 100% of the offspring.

All the members of the colony are clones of the queen. While that means the queen can control every aspect of the population, it also makes the colony vulnerable to pandemics. A virus that can kill one ant can kill all of them, since they all have the exact same immune systems. On the other hand, it seems that a lack of men gave these women more time and energy to cultivate some of the most elaborate forms of ant agriculture ever studied.

According to Himler, ants often evolve highly unusual reproductive strategies. But all-female ant societies are highly rare.

via BBC News

It sounds as though This Ain't Star Trek XXX will follow the storyline of "Space Seed," the classic episode which introduced Ricardo Montalban's Khan. At least somewhat. (Since there have already been porno recreations of "Charley X," "The Man Trap" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before," this isn't quite so surprising. Link is NSFW.)

The Enterprise finds a ship that's been floating in space for 200 years, and on board is Khan, in suspended animation. But with him are two sexy alien women — for obvious reasons. And judging from the photo up top, Lieutenant Marla McGivers plays a big role in the story as well, as the woman whom Khan tries to seduce. Khan, coming from an earlier time, is more barbaric, more macho and more "bare-chested" than the civilized Kirk, and he decides to try and take over the Enterprise.

And this is where the story diverges from "Space Seed" considerably.

According to Krypton, "Khan's method of trying to take over the ship leads to the crewmembers having to engage in sexual situations against their will." He wouldn't go into details about this, but check out this work-safe clip of something weird happening to Kirk's eyes:

Perhaps as a result of Khan's machinations, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy is forced to have sex with Nurse Christine Chapel, or they'll both die. "They have a reason where they pretty much have to have sex, it's a life or death situation," explains Krypton. (Sadly, Spock doesn't hook up with Chapel, despite all of the longing glances she gave him throughout the series.) And the film climaxes (so to speak) with a threesome on the Bridge of the Enterprise, between Kirk, Spock and Uhura. Take that, "Plato's Stepchildren!"

Krypton, obviously a huge Trek nerd, insists that even though Hustler's porn spoof is over the top and silly, it respects the original show, and tries to convey how these characters would really act in this situation. After all, the original show was quite campy at times, so it's not that much of a leap. But the movie goes to some lengths to be true to the characters and their history, says Krypton.

There are no green women in the movie, because "putting someone in full body paint is a nightmare in a adult porn video," says Krypton. It's almost impossible to avoid having the body paint rub off on the other actor during a sex scene, and there are certain body parts that people might not want to paint green. Hustler did have a green woman in its Munsters porno spoof, and they solved the problem of paint rubbing off on the costar by color-correcting the image afterwards. (The color-correction gave the scene a cartoony look, which worked better for the Munsters than for Star Trek.)

But as we mentioned, there will be two alien babes. One, played by Jenna Hayes, is human-looking apart from her slinky Barbarella-esque outfit. The other is a Vulcan, played by Steven Soderbergh actress Sasha Grey. Grey's character is struck with a "rare form" of Pon Farr, the Vulcan mating drive, and has to have sex with Captain Kirk in the Transporter Room — she just has to. And for Kirk, this is an opportunity to work out his issues with Vulcans after years of being frustrated with Mr. Spock. He can finally have sex with a Vulcan, but he finds that his frustrations with Vulcan logic persist even during their hookup.

Oh, and Mr. Spock doesn't have green sperm in this film, unlike in some of the other porn films.

But the answer to the question you're most anxiously asking — does Kirk look up and scream "Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!" during this film — is yes. He does. And Khan also yells "Kiiiiiiiiirk!" back. By the way, Evan Stone, who plays Kirk, doesn't consciously do a William Shatner impression. But Stone, according to Krypton, already sounds like Shatner most of the time. He has a "cadence and a dramatic flair" that are quite Shatner-esque. He may ramp it up a bit for this film, but he doesn't need much to seem Shatnerian.

Krypton is very proud of the high production values in this Trek spoof, which he says stand "head and shoulders" above what's been done before. (You can see for yourself, with the pics and clip above.) Hustler spent a lot of money on the sets and costumes, trying to make it look as cool as possible, as well as "colorful and fun." The movie comes out in May, to coincide with the release of J.J. Abrams less-orgiastic Star Trek. Find out more at Hustler World.

The Orgasmatron Booth
Maybe I should be more surprised that Woody Allen would come up with one of the most well known pieces of SF sextech in Sleeper, his one and only SF movie to date, but all I can think is that anything that demonstrates how easily people can be replaced by machinery is right up his 1970s comedy neuroses alley. Sure, science may have tried to create the real thing, but the fact remains: Is there a closet that I can walk into and experience multiple climaxes without the presence of another human being and risking repetitive strain injury? No. And that's the true tragedy here.

The Excessive Machine
Unlike the Orgasmatron, Barbarella's Excessive Machine is made for evil purposes, apparently (Unless you think that "Executioner" is some kind of porny euphemism), but you can't deny that with a little reworking, this organ-based organ-replacement could bring happiness to a great many people everywhere, while being more aesthetically-pleasing to look at than any of the inventions seen so far on popular internet destination Fucking Machines (Dear everyone: That link is very NSFW. Do not blame me when you click on it in your place of employment and get in trouble. The clue as to why may be in the name of the site).

Sex Rays Of Various Types
Whether it's Flesh Gordon's Sex Ray or Orgazmo's Orgazmorator, there's no denying that there's something primal about the idea of making that penis/gun substitution a little more literal than usual. The best variation of this idea belongs to 2000AD's satirical Big Dave strip from the 1990s, wherein Saddam Hussein unveiled his plan to defeat the West once and for all by using his Love Gun - built by aliens, of course - to turn opposing armies gay, and therefore - proving the reasoning behind the US military's ban on homosexuals - useless as soldiers.

Freaky Virtual Reality Sex
http://io9.com/5054503/the-dos-and-donts-of-cybersex
Lawnmower Man's face-melty sex scene may look somewhat cheesy now - and make you go "Hey, it's Frank off Lost! But young!" - but let's face it; Second Life really doesn't compare to the virtual reality insect fetish sex that this movie promised us. Science fiction loves to suggest that VR will open up all new worlds of sexual exploration (Even Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had Quark's holodeck suites, which you knew were dens of perversity and characters fantasizing about Dax and Kira getting it on with them), but the reality has proven to be somewhat lacking.

Sexbots In General
I know, I know. Sexbots; they're the android dream for all of us, whether they're Cherry 2000, Battlestar Galactica's Six or any of a large number of other possibilities, there's something amazingly alluring to many people about the idea of a lifelike play partner that only does what you tell it to do (or maybe not). But when I don't care how realistic they think robots are getting, that whole dead-eyed look just doesn't do it for me just yet. Give me a call when they've reached Tricia Helfer level - or maybe Sky-Doll.

Most of these devices are used in research labs, but a few are for the amusement and edification of consumers.

John Perry, inventor of this "insertable device" for measuring female sexual arousal, explains:

The combination blood-flow sensor ("photoplethysmograph") and muscle activity sensor ("electromyograph") was first developed to investigate the mechanisms of sexual arousal. Along the lower edge of the sensor barrel a single longitudinal silver EMG electrode is visible. (Two other long silver electrodes are located at 90 and 180 degrees behind the sensor body.) Above the electrode, the dark circle of a photocell aimed at the vaginal wall is visible. To the left of the photocell, the white base of a miniature incandescent lamp is visible. A five-pin DIN plug was molded into the base. An insertion stop, right, prevents the sensor from going too far into the vagina, and a retaining bulb, left, helps to prevent it from falling out during contractions.

Things have gotten a bit more high tech since Perry was playing around with his combination photoplethysmograph and electromyograph. A newer model is preferred by researchers at the University of British Columbia's Sexual Psychophysiology and Psychoneuroendocrinology Laboratory. On their lab website, they explain their next-generation photoplethysmograph:

A small, tampon-shaped device which is self-inserted into the vagina and measures Vaginal Blood Volume, Vaginal Pulse Amplitude, and heart rate in response to an erotic stimulus. The vaginal photoplethysmograph is completely safe and is sterilized in Cydex-activated glutaraldehyde. This sterilizing procedure is commonly used with hospital instruments and is known to prevent both viral and bacterial transmission of infection. Participants insert the device in the privacy of a locked room.

I like that they mention how it's sterilized between each use. I should hope so!

But a lot of women might want something a little more intimate to measure their arousal. None of these "tampon-shaped devices" that contain electrodes and lights that measure blood flow. For those women, Laura Lanzo has recently invented lingerie covered in heat-sensitive beads (like mood rings) that change color as the temperature of various erogenous zones increases. Lanzo's lingerie is working on the same principle as the photoplethysmograph, which measures increased blood flow - and therefore increased heat - to the genitals. Plus, one hopes that the final result will look more enticing than this patent diagram. Here's how Lanzo describes her creation:

Temperature-sensitive mood stones or beads are incorporated into lingerie at positions that indicate sexual arousal to indicate by observation the state of arousal of the individual wearing the lingerie. In one embodiment, the mood beads are located adjacent the groin area for women's panties and at various erogenous zones of a brassiere, including cups and straps.

So we've got the measurement of women's arousal (sort of) converted into raw data. Now what if you're a lad and would like to know more about your erections?

Here's the "penile cuff." This device measures blood flow to the penis, which is to say the temerity of your tumescence. It was invented by a group of researchers in France, who report on how it works in the Nature's International Journal of Impotence Research:

Fitted on to the penis shaft, it is connected by a pressure tube to a three-way tap, one outlet of which is connected to a 5 l perfusion bag held 30 cm above the penis so as to maintain constant pressure in the cuff whatever the penis volume. The third tap outlet is connected to a pressure gauge, which monitors the stability of the pressure, and to a latex membrane the pulse volume linked movements of which are recorded on a photoplethysmograph. (2) Penile cuff number 2 is a tourniquet enabling cavernous artery flow to be varied by means of a water-filled syringe. (3) Flow variations caused by the tourniquet were recorded simultaneously by continuous Doppler velocimetry and PVP. (4) Both signals were digitized for subsequent computer comparison.

You probably can't get one of these, but if you want to do similar kinds of monitoring on your own, a Windows-compatible USB device is available from SMT Medical that does photoplethysmography and pulse wave velocity measurements using a nice little cuff.

Penile plethysmography is often used in the treatment of sex offenders. Clinicians show the offenders "inappropriate" pictures and measure to see if the guys are popping wood or not. There have been a number of attempts to introduce measurements from these devices in court, essentially to prove somebody is a sex offender (or potential sex offender). But most courts have deemed them inadmissible.

Another way that researchers measure male arousal is by monitoring muscle contractions during orgasm. The best way to do that is to insert an anal probe that measures muscle contractions while a man masturbates to orgasm. A group of researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School conducted extensive research into male orgasms using the anal probe, and published the results in The Archives of Sexual Behavior. It's worth quoting at length from their study. Here's what they said:

Pelvic muscle contractions during sexual response can be monitored conveniently by the anal probe method described. Eleven young adult male subjects were each recorded for three sessions of masturbation to orgasm. Electrical signals from an anal pressure probe were automatically digitized by computer. Orgasmic contractions were easily distinguished from voluntary contractions by the steadily increasing intervals and complete muscle relaxation between orgasmic contractions. At orgasm each subject produced a characteristic series of contractions starting abruptly at an intercontraction interval of about 0.6 seconds, and continued for 10 to 15 contractions at an increasing increment of about 0.1 second per contraction. Pressure amplitude, representing the force of contractions, increased from the beginning of the regular series to a maximum at the seventh or eighth contraction. Area under the pressure curve, reflecting muscular exertion during contraction, generally increased throughout the regular series. Each man's pattern of contractions was very similar from one session to the next and distinguished his records from others'. Individuals' patterns could be grouped into three types, based chiefly on the location of the regular contraction series within the subjective span of orgasm. The most common type was a simple series of regular contractions. It had the shortest duration and fewest contractions. The next most common pattern began with the regular series, followed by a number of irregular contractions. This type was longest in duration. One man with a third type, of intermediate duration, had a number of preliminary contractions before the series of regular contractions began in midorgasm.

I'll bet you didn't know the male orgasm was so precise, or so varied! You can get your own anal pressure measurement device here (pictured at left, above). Or you can get the EMG anal probe here (pictured at right).


There are other wonderful devices for measuring penile activity as well. Take a gander at this device for inducing and measuring premature ejaculation. Essentially it's a vibrator attached to a stopwatch. The person who owns the patent on this device (yes, it's a patented device) points out that premature ejaculators can use the device to measure their progress towards having, um, mature ejaculations. Honestly, isn't this just an excuse to have a fancy male vibrator?

Then of course there are the no-excuses vibrators. The "smart sex toy" (below), invented by Californian Gregg S. Homer, uses sexual arousal monitoring devices to determine how excited users are - then passes that information into a laptop (see diagram) and passes stimulation on to another partner who is also hooked up to the laptop. So you've got sexual arousal monitoring for the input, and sexual arousal inducing devices as your output. What could go wrong? Homer explains his device to the patent office as:

A system of masturbation comprising: (a) means for collecting biological data from the user; (b) means for receiving and processing the biological data; and (c) means for delivering sensual stimulation to the user in response to the biological data.

Ah yes, the old "system of masturbation." Notice that he doesn't explain much about what those monitors and sensual stimulators might be. Use your imagination! That's what the patent officers who approved this device did.

Love Potion No. 9
The authority on pop culture love potion movies. Staring Tate Donovan and Sandra Bullock, two biochemists who happen upon a love potion. The best part is they both use it the best way possible. The man runs rampant in a sorority house, while the social-climbing lady dates a prince.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Even though we loved watching Joyce try and seduce Xander, the varsity jacket of love takes the cake for hilarious love deeds done while under its power. Especially when Willow tries to turn the desired youth into a girl while Buffy attempts to blow up Principal Wood, all in the name of love.

The Craft
The scariest of all love spells. When one little high school witch tries to get the boy to notice her, it comes back times three and he practically rapes her in the woods.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Romilda Vayne puts a temporary love potion into Chocolate Cauldrons meant for Harry but Ron accidentally eats them. Poor Ron, he's in love and doesn't know why.

Loved to Death Tales From The Crypt
This Crypt tale is all about too much of a good thing. When you slip the woman you desire a love potion and all she wants to do is have sex nonstop all the time, you may get over-loved, and end up hating yourself in the morning.

I love the way he captures the 1950s pin-up art sensibility, complete with the cheesecakey smiles and pouts, but adds a certain amount of bad-assery as well. Plus curvy women rule. He seems genuinely committed to celebrating our women at war, given that besides the scads of military pin-up art, he also sells his own custom-made army knives, which look deadly and portable.

Check out more of his art over at his site.

In a series of paintings called "Join or Die," Lai depicts herself having sex with every U.S. president, in chronological order. Though she probably hasn't been reading Connie Willis' novel Lincoln's Dreams, or any of Harry Turtledove's work, but she is on a mission to transform our understanding of the past. In her artist's statement, she writes:

In Join Or Die, I paint myself having sex with the Presidents of the United States in chronological order. I am interested in humanizing and demythologizing the Presidents by addressing their public legacies and private lives. The presidency itself is a seemingly immortal and impenetrable institution; by inserting myself in its timeline, I attempt to locate something intimate and mortal. I use this intimacy to subvert authority, but it demands that I make myself vulnerable along with the Presidents. A power lies in rendering these patriarchal figures the possible object of shame, ridicule and desire, but it is a power that is constantly negotiated.

I approach the spectacle of sex and politics with a certain playfulness. It would be easy to let the images slide into territory that's strictly pornographic-the lurid and hardcore, the predictably "controversial." One could also imagine a series preoccupied with wearing its "Fuck the Man" symbolism on its sleeve. But I wish to move beyond these things and make something playful and tender and maybe a little ambiguous, but exuberantly so. This, I feel, is the most humanizing act I can do.

This is a delightful and unexpected form of alternate history. I especially like the way she says this isn't a simple "fuck the man" message, but is instead about helping us to remember that great U.S. leaders were mortals like everyone, fragile and vulnerable.

So far, Lai's only up to Ulysses S. Grant in her historical odyssey, but as you can see below he was a pretty frisky fellow. We've got a few highlights from her series below.

You can see more at Justine Lai's online gallery.

"The Portable Star" is one of only two stories that Asimov refused to anthologize ("A Woman's Heart" being the other), and it is by far the more interesting of the two. For one thing, it's actually pretty good, albeit in a minor sort of way. The story follows the married couples Holden and Grace Brooks and Philip and Celestine Van Horne. Their interstellar vacation is interrupted when their hyperspace drive breaks down, forcing them to land on an uninhabitable, Venus-like planet to make repairs.

They soon find themselves trapped by telepathic energy beings that can control their emotions and prevent them from leaving. Most of the story is a quintessentially Asimov scientific mystery, as Philip has to figure out what would be so beyond the comprehension of these aliens that they would be scared away, giving him and his friends a chance to escape.

That's what's the story is about. But here's how it starts:

If space voyages are "romantic," Holden Brooks was certainly carrying on the tradition when he stepped into the cabin of his best friend's wife, with one straightforward objective in mind.

He did not signal. He merely opened the door and walked in. She was waiting for him as, somehow, he had known she would be, wearing a loose night garment. She held out her arms to him and they trembled slightly. Her dark hair fell below her shoulder, accenting the pale roundness of her face.

Her name was Celeste Van Horne and her husband sat in one corner of the room, idly pinching his ear-lobe.

Holden paid no attention to the husband's presence. He stepped directly to Celestine and placed his hands on her shoulders. She swayed toward him and they kissed violently, longingly, over and over again.

It goes on like that for a while, and then Holden tries to kill Philip in animalistic rage for trying to get in the way, just to complete the whole cuckolding-in-space theme. So like I said, it's your standard, perfectly decent 1950's Asimov short story, except with a sexy sex scene that reads like something out of a third-rate romance novel bolted onto the front of it. And I say that with the deepest respect and love for the Good Doctor – the man is easily my favorite science fiction author of all time. So how did this happen?

For that we turn to Asimov's two-volume autobiography, In Memory Yet Green and In Joy Still Felt. He describes the story's rather simple genesis:

Having sold "It's Such a Beautiful Day" to Fred [Pohl, then editor at Ballantine Books], I thought I ought to sell him other stories, too. I wrote a 5,000-word short story called "The Portable Star" and mailed it to him on April 5. I got it back on April 14 with a rather long letter telling me, with what I thought unnecessary vehemence, that it was bad.

I tried both [Astounding Science Fiction editor John] Campbell and [Galaxy Science Fiction editor Horace] Gold after that, and both rejected it quite decidedly.

He describes how he ultimately sold the story to Thrilling Wonder Stories. Even his description of the story's sale has a decidedly sensual flair:

The editor was Sam Mines, a tall, husky fellow with a strong jawbone.

I gave him "The Portable Star" and he read it and bought it on the spot.

Let's talk about Thrilling Wonder Stories for a second. Once a rather juvenile magazine, the book began to establish a more serious reputation when Sam Merwin took over as editor in 1945. Merwin actively recruited authors who had written for John Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction, generally considered the gold standard of pulp science fiction. Under the stewardship of Merwin and his successor, the apparently rather hunky Sam Mines, Thrilling Wonder Stories briefly came to rival Astounding itself.

Both Thrilling and its sister magazine Startling Stories were much more open to stories with sexual themes than other science-fiction pulps of the day. Some of them were great and thought-provoking, including Philip José Farmer's famous "The Lovers", which explored sex between alien species, and Sherwood Springer's "No Land of Nod", which considered the relationship between a father and a daughter when they are their civilization's only survivors. And others were somewhat regrettable — the cover of the Winter 1955 issue, in which "The Portable Star" appears, singles out this as the main attraction of that particular installment: "Name Your Pleasure: A Novel of Hedonism by James E. Gunn." (The story's tagline promises, "'Let joy be unconfined!' they cried, and made happiness their first duty… ecstasy a requirement of the law!" If that isn't a novel of hedonism, I don't know what is.)

Just check out five covers of Thrilling Wonder Stories, compared with five Astounding covers. Notice a difference?

Anyone who thinks sex has a place in science fiction owes Thrilling Wonder Stories a debt of gratitude, even if their stories sometimes veered from the mature and complex to the mindlessly titillating. But which sort of story was Asimov trying to write with "The Portable Star"?

It would seem that Asimov had subconsciously meant to write the former, but in his own estimations ended up writing the latter:

The Winter 1955 issue of Thrilling Wonder reached me on December 20, 1954, and it contained "The Portable Star."

I reread it, and now that my initial enthusiasm had died down, I was forced, with chagrin, to agree with Fred Pohl's unfavorable assessment of the story. I thought it was awful.

I am frequently asked which is my favorite story, but no one ever asks me which is my least favorite story. If you stop to think of it, you might suppose it was "Black Friar of the Flame" or some other one of my very early stories. Well, that's not so, I may have turned out some stinkers to begin with, but that doesn't bother me-they were the best I could do.

It is "The Portable Star" that I like the least and that I am even ashamed of. I wasn't aware of what I was doing when I wrote it, but on reading it after it was published it seemed to me that I was deliberately trying to put sex into it to try and keep up with a new trend.

In the August 1952 Startling, you see, Phil Farmer had published "The Lovers," which overnight catapulted him into science-fiction stardom. It had treated sex more openly than was customary in science fiction, and everyone started getting into the act. In "The Portable Star," I did, too, and I did it sleazily.

As a rule, Asimov was fairly unflinching when it came to dissecting his early shortcomings; for instance, he often explained that there were so few women in his early stories because his twenty-year-old self had such little experience with the opposite gender. Admittedly, by the time "The Portable Star" was published in 1955, Asimov was already 35, married, and awaiting the birth of his second child, but there seems to be a similar process at work here. That opening passage of "The Portable Star" suggests an author way outside his usual comfort zone of robot psychology and psychohistory, and the results are predictably clumsy and cliched. The fact that the rest of the story almost completely disregards the opening and returns to standard Asimov fare almost entirely devoid of sexual content is just another indication that he was trying to incorporate material for which he had not yet developed the proper skills.

Asimov pretty much left sex alone for the rest of the first phase of his science fiction career, not really returning to it until his classic 1972 novel, The Gods Themselves, which deals with a triple-gendered alien race and the sexual "melting" that the two fathers and a mother experience in order to reproduce. (There's also some sex between an old scientist and a sexy lunar tour guide, but that's rather less groundbreaking.) Thereafter, Asimov integrated sex into pretty much all of his remaining works, including The Robots of Dawn, Foundation's Edge, and Nemesis. With the exception of The Gods Themselves, Asimov never really did anything particularly interesting with sex, merely using it to prove that his characters actually did have such desires and actually did act upon them, just like real people.

So where does that leave "The Portable Star"? To this day it remains uncollected, and those interested in reading it have to hunt down increasingly rare copies of the original magazine (though it's certainly possible to find one - I bought a fair quality copy on a college student's budget). It's a shame really, as "The Portable Star" is important as a first failed attempt by Asimov to put sex in his science fiction, not to mention a perfectly decent little story once you get past that first section and into the heart of the story.

Here's hoping the Asimov estate decides to forgive "The Portable Star" for its failings and celebrate it for what it is by putting it out there for science fiction fans to enjoy. After all, if the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to a person regarding sex is a somewhat badly written short story, I'd say that person did just fine for himself. That's a sentiment with which perhaps even Asimov himself could have agreed.

Legal blog FindLaw finds itself pondering how Second Life creator Linden Lab is going to try to do to take back its virtual world from the virtual fucking, with three widespread moves:

First, it will allow for the geographic separation of adult content and activities to a specific part of the "mainland" for accommodation. Second, it will filter search results. As such, people who do not want to view adult results can choose not to view them. And third, people who do want to access adult virtual content will have their accounts verified to make sure that they are of real world adult age.

For their part, Linden says that the changes aren't censorship, but just trying to improve Second Life for everyone. Interestingly enough, they're seeking Second Lifers' input into what constitutes "adult content":

During the next six weeks, we will seek input from many segments of the Second Life community. We will introduce guidelines and define what "Adult" means, we will explain how to designate and "flag" this content, we will introduce the "Adult Continent," and we will implement technical changes to make this process as efficient as we can.

(Some of the discussions have been archived; you can find them by following the links here.)
However, some - including the Hollywood Reporter's Eriq Gardner - are concerned by the changes... but not for the reason you may think:

The move is being seen in some quarters as a serious step to address some of the problems with the virtual sex trade while also allowing those who are into that sort of thing to still find it in Second Life. And while some might cheer the development, and others might complain that Linden Labs has violated some virtual First Amendment by censoring its users and requiring them to verify their age, we can't help but be a little more cynical. Is it possible that illicit sex in Second Life is being tacitly blessed in the interests of growing the business?

With Second Life's non-sex business possibilities seemingly falling apart, will these changes stop the one-time virtual utopia from becoming just another cyber circle jerk, or are Linden just covering their ass in preparation of things becoming a little hotter over there?

A new demographic study conducted by Chinese researchers reveals that China has 32.7 million more males than females under the age of 20. Of course, some regions have higher male to female ratios than others, partly due to differences in how China's "one child" policy is enforced. In many regions, couples who give birth to a girl are allowed to have a second child, and tend to abort fetuses until they have a male. In urban areas like Shanghai with more education and greater social parity between the sexes, people are allowed only one child no matter what the sex. While there are still more boys born, the ratio is less extreme. You can see a breakdown of China's demographics by region below.

The study included over 4 million participants from across China, and was based on data gathered during the 2005 year. The Chinese government has expressed concern over the looming population imbalance among young adults, which is going to become more extreme over the next ten years or so. Most experts agree that the imbalance has largely been caused by access to ultrasound tests that can determine the sex of a baby before birth. (It's worth noting that China's current population control policies were implemented before the availability of these tests.) Though sex-based abortion is illegal in China, it is widely practiced.

So the male generation coming of age now in China is mainly the result of population control policies that didn't take into account changes in technology.

All kinds of solutions have been proposed, though of course it's too late to stop the ball rolling on demographic changes that have already happened to people who are teens and toddlers right now. When the male generation comes of age, there will not be enough fertile women to replace the current population and it will decline.

Some commentators have suggested that China gradually relax its population control policies, allowing people to create families of any size they like within the next ten years. Others believe that there needs to be a tweak in the policies of regions that allow a second child only if the first is female - these are the regions that have the highest male-to-female sex ratios. And there have already been efforts made to educate citizens about the value of girls via the fairly successful "Care for Girls" campaign that has halted the runaway ratios in targeted regions.

The pressing question now, however, is what will happen to this male generation? Ian McDonald asks this same question about India in his short story "An Eligible Boy," published in his new anthology Cyberabad Days. He imagines a world where the lack of women has broken down the caste system: Women are so valuable that men compete for women of every caste. They spend all their cash on dressing up, paying exorbitant amounts to matchmaking services, and trying vainly to interest the few women who remain single. The disappointed bachelors turn to videogames, soaps, and marriage-like relationships with other men.

Margaret Atwood asks this same question in her novel The Handmaid's Tale, which imagines a post-apocalyptic future where only a few women are fertile. Those who are fertile are rounded up and turned into breeding slaves for wealthy men. Essentially, every powerful male gets to have a harem that includes his (infertile) wife and a "handmaid," his breeding woman.

While both of these scenarios are extreme, the question of what will happen to both sexes in the male generation is pressing. Will men have to take on the traditionally female role of hoping to be noticed by the opposite sex, wishing for that lucky moment when women choose them? Or will men treat women like valuable but powerless objects, best when they are kept locked up and constantly pregnant? Or perhaps there will be a social transformation where women get to have male harems so that those extra 32.7 million men all get to have wives. No matter what happens, the next two decades in China are likely to foment a strange new kind of sexual revolution.

Read the full report on China's sex demographics here (it's a PDF). Or read a summary in the New York Times.

Oh, and this post is probably work-safe, unless your coworkers are looking over your shoulders at the words on your screen. Or unless you start reading aloud. Some of the videos are a bit saucy, but they're from YouTube.

Tuvok (from Star Trek: Voyager):

Vulcans are automatically sex on legs, because of that whole repressed emotion thing, and the fact that it explodes - erupts! - every seven years with Pon Farr. But Tuvok is especially primed for slash fiction, because of all the smouldering glances he shared with Tom Paris and Chakotay, among others. Plus he's kind of an exhibitionist:


There's a whole web page devoted just to Tuvok slash fiction, with titles like, "Tuvok and Chakotay make a deal. But is it worth it?" Tuvok goes into Pon Farr a lot. There are even multiple stories of Tuvok hooking up with the mirror-universe Bashir, from Deep Space Nine. And Tuvok and Gul Dukat hooking up. Yay!

Jayne (from Firefly):

Jayne, you ignorant slut. For some reason, all of the men aboard the tiny ship Serenity are drawn to the manly brusqueness of the mercenary who would kill them for a nice hat. This Firefly Slash archive is full of Jayne/Mal, Jayne/Simon, Jayne/Mal/Simon. And there's more here. But no Jayne/Wash? Anyway, the Simon/Jayne pairings are surprisingly sweet and tender, with River giving Simon dating advice and Jayne admitting he really wants to turn the doctor out, instead of turning the doctor in. Here's a great passage from one story':

Simon arched his back, pushing up to meet Jayne's caress. His nails dug into Jayne's arm as he moaned low in his throat and shifted sinuously on the bed, spreading his legs wider. Jayne grinned down at him before taking his mouth again, his hand moving with delightful slowness, tongue stroking deep inside him, over and over, possessing without force. Simon gasped against Jayne's mouth, unable to summon any other response to this sure and gentle claiming.

His head felt like it was swathed in cotton and he stared dreamily as Jayne broke their kiss. Jayne watched him with a small, strange smile and nuzzled his cheek, making a satisfied noise under his breath. His hand tightened deliciously.

"Oh god," Simon gasped. "Yes, just like that!"

(Jayne pic from evinou)

Prowl (from Transformers Animated):

There have been a lot of Transformers named Prowl, but the latest version is a robot who turns into a police motorcycle. And for some reason, that's just unutterably sexy to a whole generation of slash-fic writers. Here's Prowl seducing Optimus Prime:

But Optimus a fast learner, and once he calmed, Prowl was quick to reward him. He turned his head inwards, placing careful, soft nips along the thin white plates of Optimus's jawline. So delicate-no wonder he wore the mask during battle. Removing a hand from Optimus's hip joint, Prowl ran it up the other mech's side, palm resting against the smooth curves of headlights as his fingers teased at the underseam of red chest plates. Optimus shuddered, whispering his approval in an unconscious reversion to a heavily accented, uniqe Cybertronian dialect that was so different from the formal, bland Cybertronian used by the Elite Guard.

And here's a debate about the Prowl/Jazz pairing, with links to some great stories. And here's a great essay on Transformers porn someone wants to see.

Miles Vorkosigan (from Lois McMaster Bujold's novels):

Miles Vorkosigan may have been pretty busy, rising above his tragic family life and his disability, to become one of the greatest heroes of ImpSec. But it turns out he's had lots of spare time to hook up with his handsome but dim-witted cousin Ivan Vorpatril, and his stepbrother, emperor Gregor Vorbarra. A treasure trove of Vorkosigan slash stories is here. And there are even more here. And there's the epic slash novel A Deeper Season, which you can read here.

Neroon (from Babylon 5):

Neroon is part of the warrior caste of the Minbari Star Riders clan, and a fearsome adversary. But he's also a legendary lover, especially when it comes to Marcus Cole, the human he fights in a deadly one-on-one battle. The two warriors come to respect each other and (in the minds of slash-fic writers, anyway) to embrace passionately. (Maybe that's why Marcus was a virgin for so long? He was waiting for the right guy to come along?) There are tons of Marcus/Neroon stories here, including this passage:

The feel of Neroon's warm lips caressing his caused Marcus to whimper, feeling the love that Neroon held for him.

"This is our first time together, Marcus. I would have it a memorable and pleasurable experience for you, my beloved."

Marcus bowed his head and then smiled shyly up at his husband. "I love you, Neroon and I will admit that I am nervous about tonight but I know that with you here beside me I can face anything. I want this, Neroon. I've waited all of my life for this moment. I love you, Neroon and I am ready for our first night together. One of which will be repeated for many years to come," Marcus said with a teasing smile as he leaned up and kissed his beloved.

Neroon growled low at the feel of his lover's lips against his as he took Marcus into his arms. Slowly he began to kiss his way down Marcus' neck causing Marcus to moan in pleasure at the feel of Neroon's lips across his skin. Slowly Neroon's hands removed the silk robe from Marcus' shoulders.

More here. And here.

Molly Millions (from Neuromancer):

Okay, so there are only a couple of stories about the heroine from William Gibson's Neuromancer, including a steamy hookup with 3Jane. But we want more! Someone write some, and send us the link.

Obi-Wan Kenobi (from Star Wars):

He may be kind of a dick, but at least the Jedi master is generous in bed. Around the time Phantom Menace came out, there was a craze for Obi-Wan/Darth Maul slash, showcasing how the Jedi and the Sith Lord could have worked out their antagonism. Here they are, dancing around together and trading longing glances:



But he's also hooked up with his teacher, Qui-Gon, his grown-up student, Anakin, and pretty much anyone else who comes by the Jedi temple.

Ford Prefect (from the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy):

Ford Prefect shows Arthur Dent the wonders of the universe, but what else does he show him? And why exactly was Ford so eager to take Arthur with him when he fled the doomed Earth? Story synopses include "The Earth blows up, the boys get it on." Or: "Aliens force Ford and Arthur to have sex." Find out more here. And here. Ooh, and here. Oh, and if you're dying for pregnant Arthur Dent, try here.

Susan Calvin (from Asimov's Robot series):

There are only a few slash fic stories featuring Asimov's misanthropic heroine that I could find, but they come highly recommended.

Rodney McKay (from Stargate Atlantis):

Our favorite silly nerd character from Stargate has been keeping busy in the slash fiction world. Apparently there's a whole shipper community called McShep, for McKay and Sheppard. One story has the intriguing synopsis, "John and Rodney must refrain from having sex for twelve hours." In another story, "John gets caught with his hand in the Rodney jar." Oh my! More here. And here. And here. Ooh, and here's a video:

Aeryn Sun (from Farscape):

She may have had a tumultuous relationship with John Crichton on the TV series, but in the world of slash fic, she's gotten together with Zhaan, Chiana and a host of others. A typical passage:

Aeryn pressed her fingers over the nipples and began to manipulate them lightly, using the friction of the cloth to give Zhaan added pleasure. Letting go of the sensitive peaks, she slid her hands up over them. Zhaan's nipples traced circular patterns over Aeryn's palms. I'm going to make you mumble too, she thought, I won't be alone in that.

Zhaan arched her back, pushing her breasts into Aeryn's hands. Aeryn let go and pressed her own breasts into Zhaan's, pulling the priestess over for another deep kiss. As they slid together into the motions of the kiss, their tongues languidly caressing, their bodies moved closer, breast against breast, belly to belly, sex to sex.

The priestess nudged Aeryn back against the wall, still continuing to kiss her. Aeryn was melting—she was sure of it—the cold wall against her back, the warm woman in front, and every part in between aching for Zhaan's touch. Her hands stroked Zhaan's back, then moved lower, cupping her ass.

Nothing says hot sex like a man who smells like Captain Kirk's middle name - which I assume may actually smell like day old dirty sheets.

I especially enjoy the Red Shirt ad, which asks you to "Put Yourself In The Line Of Fire." While I don't really want to smell like impending messy death, I'm certainly going to pour it all over my loud as hell neighbors, and hope for the best. The cologne is made for, "the young modern man of the galaxy who doesn't hesitate and revels in being alive TODAY."

The smells are manufactured by Genki, Pon Farr seems to be the only perfume for ladies, and it supposedly smells like blackcurrant, lotus blossom and water lily, lovely. Enjoy the clever ads and the new sneak peek at Pon Farr.

New Scientist reports that researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China may have identified stem cells that can allow them to control fertility, after tests on mice allowed sterilized mice to become pregnant and give birth to healthy babies. Ji Wu's discovery of these female germline stem cells requires independent verification before tests will be carried out to see if similar cells are present in human females. If they are, then scientists may be able to help infertile women procreate. More interestingly, this could also mean that menopause could be put off or reversed, allowing women to remain fertile as long as they want. Is this the start of the next sexual revolution?

Egg stem cells could revolutionise fertility treatment [New Scientist]

We've introduced you to the young robot boy Inochi before. He was spawned from the mind of artist Takashi Murakami.

Murakami is known for his work that ranges to t-shirt prints all the way up to super graphic Anime sculptures that challenge our comfort limits. Yes, that is a giant statue of a man lassoing his own, ummm... spunk (that pic is NSFW).

This is the first time we've ever seen the video of his creation Inochi come to life, and it's disturbing yet endearing. Poor robot kids have to deal with all the same issues little boys do as well, much to their humiliating dismay. Be it old or young, robot or organic life form, we all have to deal with spring fever.

Can you handle the truth about love and sex among all the creatures of the universe? I'm not sure if you can. Take a gander at this gallery if you dare. We'll be bringing you more (and less shocking) news about sex, science, and fiction all week.

I promise never to make you look at giant spider sex again. OK, well at least never again this week. Get ready for mating season!