Air sex is a performance activity invented in Japan; clothed men and women simulate

sexual activity Human sexual activity, human sexual practice or human sexual behaviour is the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts, ranging from activities done alone (e.g., masturbation) ...

with an invisible partner, often in an exaggerated manner, set to music, and in a competition before an audience. This is somewhat akin to playing

air guitar Air guitar is a form of dance and movement in which the performer pretends to play an imaginary rock or heavy metal-style electric guitar, including riffs and solos. Playing an air guitar usually consists of exaggerated strumming and picking m ...

, explaining the name. The creator, ''J-Taro Sugisaku'', says that it was invented in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

in 2006 by a group of bored men without girlfriends. A report about the phenomenon in the Japanese magazine ''Weekly Playboy'' in 2006 was picked up by the English language web site ''

Mainichi Daily News The is one of the major newspapers in Japan, published by In addition to the ''Mainichi Shimbun'', which is printed twice a day in several local editions, Mainichi also operates an English language news website called ''The Mainichi'' (previ ...

''. A video of the air sex "world championship" was uploaded to

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

in January 2007. This was followed by a segment of the

BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, covering all genres including animation, comedy, cur ...

documentary show ''

Japanorama ''Japanorama'' is a series of documentaries presented by Jonathan Ross, exploring various facets of popular culture and trends of modern-day Japan. Each episode has a theme, around which Ross presents cultural phenomenon, films, music, and art th ...

'' in March 2007, subsequently uploaded to YouTube and flagged as "inappropriate for some users". These videos led to coverage in the

blogosphere The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) or as a social networking service in which everyday authors can pu ...

. The ''Japanorama'' video was shown in May 2007 at the JACON 2007 convention in Orlando, Florida, and a spontaneous air sex competition ensued, footage of which also found its way to YouTube. In late January and early February 2007, a group of American black male teenagers calling themselves "Peer Pressure" produced two videos showing air sex set to music, published on YouTube under the user name "amp6".

Fleshbot Fleshbot is a sex-oriented weblog, founded by Gawker Media. It was launched in November 2003 as the third online title from Gawker. The range of subject matter includes everything from amateur sex blogs and thumbnail gallery posts to news about s ...

called these "The Best Air Sex Video of All Time". Since August 2007, The

Alamo Drafthouse The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is an American cinema chain founded in 1997 in Austin, Texas, which is famous for serving dinner and drinks during the movie, as well as its strict policy of requiring its audiences to maintain proper cinema-going etiq ...

has been holding bimonthly Air Sex competitions in the US. In June 2009 The Alamo Drafthouse toured the country on the Air Sex World Championships tour crowning Air Sex Champions in 14 cities. Later that October the first ever world champion was crowned when Shanghai Slammer from Los Angeles out-performed every other city champion. The tour was hosted by comedian Chris Trew. In October 2010 the group was scheduled to tour once more. Photos are posted on the Alamo Drafthouse Flickr page.Air Sex in Germany
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References

{{Reflist Comedy Human sexuality Sexuality in Japan Japanese comedy