I have been to multiple drag shows and they were quite explicit. I would say they were slightly less explicit than a burlesque show, The costumes and performances were somewhat akin to a strip show, but without the nudity. One thing that stands out to me was a trans woman in very small underwear who obviously hadn't had bottom surgery doing the sitting splits, there was definitely a wardrobe malfunction.

None of this really offended me, but I do wonder if the pushback from the right has to do with people seeing this type of drag show and not having anything else to compare it to.

In his scenario weight was a factor. They were trying to get the sub to be as light as possible so it could be operated from nearly any vessel. The goal was to have the sub and a launch sled that could be launched and recovered aboard a rented ship. This was all to save money; they didn't want to have to purchase and outfit a special purpose support vessel.

I read Recursion a while back, it was a really strange book. I had to re-read the last parts to get a decent grasp of what was going on at the end.