Inscribing Bodies, Inscribing the Future: Gender, Sex, and Reproduction in Outer Space

Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which gnder, sex, and repouction in the US. space program are represented as social, culturalt and scientific problems. In 1992, a married couple served on the crew of a U.S. space shuttle, prompting a flurry of public curiosity and controersy over the possibility of "celestial intimacy" between these astronauts. Ironically, countless missions prior to this historic flight had not raised similar issues of human desire and fecundity, attesting to the 'legitimacy" of the heterosexual paradigm. Drawing on a range of data sources and theoreical perspectives, we analyze discourses and practices through which female bodies in particular are constructed as problematic, a gndered process which, in turn, renders sexuality and reproduction in space as controversiaL We argue that contemporary institutionalt cultural, and scientific accounts of gender, sex, and reproduction in space inscribe both contemporary and future scenarios, with potentially negative implications.

‘For men arousal is orientation’: Bodily truthing, technosexual scripts, and the materialization of sexualities through the phallometric test

“…While STS as a field has not engaged much with sexuality studies, or vice versa, a range of scholars have pioneered approaches that have built bridges between the two fields (examples include Casper and Moore, 1995;Epstein, 2003Epstein, , 2006Fausto-Sterling, 2000;Fishman, 2004;Jordan-Young, 2011;Loe, 2004;Mamo, 2007;Martucci, 2010;Moore, 1997;Terry, 1999;Waidzunas, 2011). We seek to strengthen these connections by developing three concepts, which we refer to below as bodily truthing, materialization, and technosexual scripts.…”

SETI and Democracy

“…Politically, exploration of outer space has been charged since the dawn of spaceflight e.g. who is chosen to be an astronaut [29,30,31]. Here we discuss various democratic processes that have been relevant for SETI and METI to date.…”

Imperial contradictions: is the Valley a watershed, region, or cyborg?

“…Drawing on Collingwood (1945), Glacken (1967), Worster (1977), Thomas (1983), or Smith (1984, it is obvious to O'Connor that nature-whether landscape/ecology or technoscientific law is socially and culturally mediated. Feminist studies of the (increasingly biomedically mediated) body suggest similar relations in that nature and culture are comprised in processes of personal embodiment (Martin, 1990;Casper and Moore, 1995;Clarke et al, 1995;Tuana, 1996;Hayles, 1999;Dickens, 2001). The same is true of the cultural and infrastructural moments in communal conditions.…”