The Mile High club - Having Sex on a Flight

The term Mile High Club is a popular term applied collectively to individuals who have sexual intercourse while on board an aircraft. Here is a little more about the ‘club’, if you are thinking of becoming a member or simply curious to know what it is all about.

If you want to sign up

For those of you planning to get frisky on a flight, it may come in handy to make some advance preparations. So when you go to buy your airline tickets, request a rear seat. It will be less obvious when you get up and go to the toilet. And if you really want to fool the present passengers, ensure that you and your partner’s seats are some way apart so that when you both get up it looks less suspicious. Again the timing of the flight is important - It would be best to have sex in an airplane during a late night flight, when most passengers are asleep, and aren’t waiting in line for the toilet. If you do not fly at night, do it while the staff serves drinks or food. For things to proceed smoothly, you and your partner should make a plan, for instance make a discrete sign that it’s time to go.  A pointed cough or a text message would do the trick. Also don’t leave home for your tryst in the clouds without wearing the right clothes – this would be anything that offers “easy access” to your intimate areas - dresses and skirts for women and anything easily unzipped or unbuttoned for men. Finally keep in mind that time is of essence. Anything over 15 minutes will be very suspicious, and if you are inside the toilet for longer than that, you can be reasonably sure that the flight crew will come knocking. Even then all is not lost - tell the staff that one of you got plane-sick, and that the other one is there to help. If possible, look very upset or at least preoccupied. After all you can’t possibly be kicked out of the plane so busting you is probably the worst they can do and many would agree that that is small price to pay for the mile-high experience.

Not so easy any more

the origin of the Mile high club can be traced back to the sexually open times of 1960s and 1970s, when flight crews were not only willing to look the other way, but may even have share a chuckle at passenger audacity - just as long as things didn’t get too out of hand. However the 9/11 attacks of 2001 changed all that. Overnight airline security became top priority and with it all ideas about passenger privacy was thrown aboard. So while airlines don't directly address this issue during flight attendant training, but, these days, few flight attendants tolerate sex onboard. They forbid able-bodied adults from entering the lavatory together. If passengers waiting in line suggest that something untoward may be happening in a bathroom, the crew member knocks and asks if everything is OK. If they get no response, flight attendants have the means to unlock and open lavatory doors.

Be sure you don’t set off a security alert

With the fear of terrorists using plane toilets to assemble bombs ruling flight concerns, crews are much less likely to be understanding of mile-high club aspirants these days. One example of how tightly wound things are relates to a Frontier Airlines plane in which a couple set off a security alert on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks¹. When passengers noticed that the couple had been in the bathroom for a suspiciously long time, crew members alerted the captain, and authorities dispatched a pair of fighter jets to accompany the flight into Detroit. While this may have been an over the top response owing to the significance of the date, if you are planning a sexcapade in the plane loo, make sure you don’t set off a security alert.

Famous Mile-high Club members

Part of the thrill associated with the mile-high club is that certain celebrities like Janet Jackson and Richard Branson are self-confessed members. The flamboyant British billionaire entrepreneur and owner of Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin America Airways, has in fact claimed that he joined the mile high club at age 19 in the plane's lavatory; no wonder then that he has gone further ahead and pledged that his employees are not the type to "bang on lavatory doors when a couple slips in there."² The airline even installed double beds with privacy screens in some aircraft, for a "more intimate flight”. One of the most famous celebrity cases of mile-high experience in recent times has been that of British actor Ralph Fiennes. Lisa Robertson, a Qantas flight attendant, was dismissed after having sex with actor Ralph Fiennes in a business class lavatory during a flight from Darwin to Mumbai on 24 January 2007. Robertson at first denied the allegation, but subsequently admitted the encounter in an interview with the Daily Mail.³

What does the law say?

While flight attendants may no longer so understand of passengers’ privacy, prosecution is rare so long as you cease and desist when ordered to do so. However there are instance of some passengers being caught in the act midflight and referred to police. One of them was, Carl Persing and Dawn Sewell who in September 2006 were traveling on a cross-country Southwest Airlines flight. Apparently the couple ignored several requests to refrain from oral sex in the main cabin and therefore were saddled with federal charges for allegedly having “overt sexual activity in the cabin of the plane.”⁴. In 1999, a British couple were charged after getting drunk in business class on an American Airlines flight and ignoring pleas to keep their hands to themselves.

Whether or not having sex on a plane constitutes an offence would depend on many factors, such as the act taking place in sight of others. Under British law for example⁵, getting frisky in the plane toilet which the public has access could be a criminal offence, under section 71 of the Sexual Offences Act 2004.  The punishment is a 6 month prison stint or a fine of one thousand sterling pounds. Outraging public decency under common law could also be used to prohibit plane toilet sex, if it was proven that at least one person may have seen the act. However for international flights, the law could vary depending on departure and destination cities and the nation of the carrier airline.

Be careful of your health

While plane sex may not be widely punished by law, if you are thinking of going for the experience, you would do well to worry about hygiene. Health magazine counts airplane bathrooms among the 12 most germ-infested places one can encounter on an average day⁶.   That public toilets contain a huge number of germs may be a given, but experts agree the cramped and overused ones on airplanes are the worst. There are often traces of E. coli or fecal bacteria on the faucets and door handles because it’s hard to wash hands in the tiny sinks. And the volcanic flush of the commode tends to spew particles into the air, coating the floor and walls with whatever had been swirling around in it.

The Mile-high Club is a tempting concept in contemporary popular culture; and explanations of its attraction have ranged from weird ones like the vibration of the plane speeding up arousal to mundane ones like sexual encounters on planes being the result of long boring flights. again some say they have fantasies about pilots or flight attendants, or a fetish about planes themselves. However at the end of it all, the appeal of joining the Mile High Club may have to do with something as basic as the temptation of a taboo act and the delicious risk of being discovered.

References:

1. Slate - "The Captain Requests That All Zippers Be Returned to the Upright Position"
    
2. Traveloscopy.com - Virgin Atlantic to offer Mile High Club
    
3. Mail Online - Exclusive: 'How I led Ralph Fiennes astray at 35,000ft'
    
4. FindLaw - Couple Indicted On Federal Charges ForAllegedly Having Sex On A Southwest Airlines Flight
    
5. BBC News - Is sex on a plane legal?
    
6. Today Health - Soap up! The 12 germiest places in your life