SEX IN THE AIR!

SEX IN THE AIR!

We’ve all heard Nicole Sherzinger making her When Harry Met Sally noises while lathering her extensions for landing. However, when she emerges from the tiny First Class toilet her hair is coiffed and her clothes are dry. For us everyday folk who might be heard moaning and crowing ‘oooh! ahh!’  while we toss our heads over a dinky sink we more often than not emerge dizzy and splattered in damp patches.

Sex in the air doesn’t have to be solo and it’s not modern. When the travelling elite eased into the glamour of air travel in the 30’s and 40’s some aircraft, even back then, had sleeping berths on the long haul routes like London to New York and New York to Los Angeles and Marlene Dietrich even wrote of being ‘caught under a thundering storm’ in her diary when she made lofty lurve with a married American Screen God. In short, it’s not wholly illegal to have sex in the air.

It might put other passengers off their plastic bread rolls and butter pats but you won’t necessarily be arrested. In the sexy jet age of the late 50’s and 60’s when Boeing 707’s criss-crossed over the seas, oceans and continents, well-heeled women and suited gents found their own nooks and crannies amongst the seats in which to play fill-the-flight bag. Usually these trysts would occur after dinner trollies were wheeled away and cabins dimmed. If anyone complained about a couple copulating, a stewardess might just have flung a blanket over the pair and kept walking.

In the 70’s a European airline called Modern Air went as far as to have semi clad semi crew. German showgirls were hired to parade topless while handing out cocktails alongside regularly dressed full time female staff.  They only had that bouncy service for just one flight. 

Now brining us bang up to the present day and airline staff have many more problems to deal with than sexual displays in business class; what with Gerard Depardieu relieving himself in the aisle and business men stealing from the drinks cart and locking themselves in the toilets to polish off bottle after bottle of wine.  With underwear bombers and your run-of-the-mill phalangist to cope with a little foreplay is of little concern really. Sure…you might be sternly spoken to if the passenger in the next seat takes offence to your self-gratification but really? If the Captain chooses not to make an onboard arrest, there isn’t much to be done about it. But be aware that in recent times, although public figures like May J. Blige confessed to being a fully paid up member of the mile high club, it still is a delicate subject. One Australian couple were arrested for having had sex in an airplane toilet.           

Singapore Airlines has equipped its A380 jets with private double bed suites but the company takes a dim view of any one or two (or more) persons using these beds for anything other than sleeping. A Singapore Airlines official warns, "If couples used our double beds to engage in inappropriate activity, we would politely ask them to desist." However, the doors close on the suites so how on earth are Singapore Airlines flight attendants going to know who is engaging and who isn't, unless of course it’s a noisy Nicole Sherzinger with a bottle of shampoo?  

When I flew for a European carrier I was sexually molested outside a rear toilet by a tipsy but famous female children’s TV presenter and one co-pilot assured me once, while staring right at my crotch, that “flying these big jets gives him a boner”.  

Just remember, if you do have late night long haul sex with the stranger next to you, they’re still going to be there in the morning.  Awkward….   

Peter Jarrette is a write and author.