Sex in ‘Star Wars’: Here’s why it’s about time

Brian Truitt | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Meet the young Han Solo in new 'Star Wars' movie Young Han Solo meets his future co-pilot Chewbacca and encounters the notorious gambler Lando Calrissian.

The Last American Virgin isn’t a person. It’s a massively popular film franchise.

The 10 Star Wars films since 1977 have given us an abundance of lightsabers, cosmic derring-do, the Force, bounty hunters, good guys, bad guys and porgs, but no onscreen lovemaking. For characters who spend a lot of time in space with each other, there's been a distinct lack of intimacy.

To be frank, Star Wars, you’re 41 years old and you need to have sex.

The newest film, Solo: A Star Wars Story, has the most apparent “We should probably just get it on right now” scene of the saga to date: When Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) is admiring the cape closet in the Millennium Falcon’s master bedroom (who even knew that was there?), her old love interest Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) stops by, talks about how they should catch up and motions to the bed. There’s some emotional tension — he’s totally down for hooking up, although she’s working for an intergalactic gangster now — but they do end up making out hot and heavy before getting interrupted. So close, Han!

For Star Wars, it felt like a hyperspace jump in human relations. The franchise has a weird history when it comes to sexual attraction and relationships in general. The height of this was the chemistry between Harrison Ford’s Han and Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia in the original trilogy, where there was a fine line between bickering and flirtation. The two actors had a tryst offscreen yet never on, though the characters’ passion for one another was palpable even in old age during The Force Awakens — before Han was offed by his kid, Kylo Ren.

Aside from Han and Leia, it’s a bit rough. The only time a bikini has made it into a Star Wars movie (in Return of the Jedi), it involved Fisher getting licked by the slug tongue of Jabba the Hutt and was much more about slavery than sex. Then there’s Luke (Mark Hamill) and Leia smooching in The Empire Strikes Back, partly to make Han jealous, creepy in hindsight once we know they’re siblings.

Which leads us to their parents, Anakin and Padmé, whose tragic love story is essential to the prequels. Romance is forbidden for a young Jedi — which explains some of the rampant chastity — so they have a secret love that leads to a secret wedding and a secret pregnancy. (So secret that they got busy between movies, apparently.) He ultimately becomes Darth Vader, but more unfortunate is a complete lack of sensuality between Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, whose performances verge on the animatronic.

More recently, in The Last Jedi, Kylo (Adam Driver) and new lightsaber slinger Rey (Daisy Ridley) play much better off each other as he tries to convince her to join him and rule the galaxy — so much so that the Internet tried to make “Reylo” a thing. (This is a fandom that’s desperate for characters to get together — see also #FinnPoe.)

Still, it’s hard to take this evil Romeo and heroic Juliet seriously when she sees the rather buff Kylo shirtless and her reaction is to look away and ask, “Do you have a towel or something you can put on?” And just when Kylo and Rey are getting close (albeit via astral projection), Uncle Luke busts in and ruins the mood. (More believable as boyfriend and girlfriend are John Boyega's Finn and Kelly Marie Tran's Rose, who really seem to care about each other, so it's only a matter of time before someone interrupts them, too.)

Solo at least has some cheeky fun with sex, courtesy of Donald Glover’s libidinous Lando. Qi’ra tells Han about the gambler’s charisma and is about to go on about a “prodigious” quality before Han cuts her off — chances are, she's about to say he's strong in the Force (if you know what I mean). And while Lando hits on pretty much everyone, he does share close feelings with his droid second mate (and perhaps actual mate) L3-37 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge). L3 tells Qi’ra that they’re likely “incompatible,” but Qi’ra wonders how that would even work. L3 pauses before stating, “It works.” If a dude and a robot can get saucy, a couple of humans should be able to.

Look, we’re not asking for much. Let's be classy about it: No need for Fifty Shades of Weequay, about one henchman’s debauched, R-rated night aboard Jabba’s sail barge. Obviously Star Wars will always appeal to kids and families, but they’re also PG-13 projects where villains get sliced in half and appendages are chopped or ripped off. Would some vague movements under the covers be all that out of bounds? Something you’d see on Castle would be appropriate.

Sex is bound to happen if Star Wars continues to branch out with new and different creators and characters. (Come on, you know the Game of Thrones guys are considering it.) Especially when you have moments like at the end of Last Jedi, where Rey and Oscar Isaac’s hotshot flyboy Poe get googly-eyed when meeting each other onboard the Millennium Falcon.

Chances are, the bedroom’s free.

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