On 8 October 2011, the shop Sextoys.com sent the first sex toy into space. A vibrating egg. Switched on. In the stratosphere. And it then posted the video of this improbable journey on its blog.
The egg, attached to a helium balloon accompanied by a camera, rose to an altitude of 36.6 km. Then, the balloon burst (as planned), the parachute failed (not as planned), and the sex toy began its descent, at a speed approaching 100 km/h, instead of the 10 km/h or so initially expected.
After the landing, the egg probably looks a mess (the video doesn’t show it), but it still vibrates.
Why send a sex toy into space?
Tossing a sex toy into space, what a funny idea… What’s it for? (other than to amuse the people who launch it)
A priori, nothing. Knowing that a sex toy flies well is not essential; we rarely buy sex toys to have them fly over the planet. At most, its survival proves its motor is solid, but that tells us nothing about its effectiveness.
But then, advertising doesn’t need to be very clever. And it’s trendy to send things into space.
Toshiba started the trend by sending a chair into the stratosphere, then others did the same. A Japanese restaurant chain called Sticky Rice sent a sushi (there, by contrast, the advert works on me: even though I know the flying sushi isn’t edible – it’s stuffed with glue and fixed to its plate with a screw – it still makes me hungry), and Red Bull even sent… a guy, an Austrian called Felix Baumgartner (don’t worry, he landed in one piece – and even did it again).
Delighted by the success of this egg launch, the director of Sextoys.com is already considering rather… strange new space projects. For example, sending an inflatable doll into space, with the message “We cum in peace”.
(Yeah, I know, I’m late to the buzz. But anyway, I stumbled across it by chance, and I thought it a shame not to share it.)
