Kirk/Spock
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In the science fiction TV series Star Trek (1966-1969), the characters of Captain James T. Kirk and his Vulcan science officer Mr. Spock share an unusually close friendship, although both characters have relationships and sexual liaisons with women. Almost from the beginning, fans noticed the loving nature of the relationship. A few fan writers started speculating about the possibility of a sexual relationship between Kirk and Spock. The Kirk/Spock phenomenon eventually took on a life of its own, and became one of the driving forces in Star Trek fanzines during their heyday.
Kirk/Spock, also commonly referred to as "K/S," was the first prominent slash pairing to appear in English-language fan fiction. In fact, the term slash (as in slash fiction) comes from the expression "Kirk slash Spock"--as distinguished from "Kirk and Spock" (K&S), stories about the friendship between Kirk and Spock with no sexual component. The term was shortly thereafter applied to depictions of homosexuality in media fandom at large.
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[edit] Origins
Many believe that the origins of Kirk/Spock lie in deliberate homosexual subtext in the Star Trek episode Amok Time (1967), written by noted science-fiction author Ted Sturgeon. There is good reason to believe Sturgeon's part in this is deliberate; Sturgeon was known for introducing homosexual themes to science fiction during the homophobic 1950s. He also wrote a scene in an earlier Star Trek episode, "Shore Leave" (1966), in which Captain Kirk apparently believes that Mr. Spock is giving him a backrub.[1]
More fuel was added to the fire by certain emotionally-charged scenes in Star Trek: The Motion Picture(1979), and because of an ambiguously-worded footnote in Gene Roddenberry's novelization of that movie. (Slash fans took the footnote as validation; those opposed to slash also took it as validation.) From the novelization also comes the Vulcan word t'hy'la, which is defined as meaning friend, brother, lover. Spock uses the word twice to refer to Kirk. It is important to note, however, that in the novel Spock is depicted as asexual.
The full text of the footnote runs thus: I was never aware of this 'lovers' rumor, although I have been told that Spock encountered it several times. Apparently, he had always dismissed it with his characteristic lifting of his right eyebrow, which usually connoted some combination of surprise, disbelief, and/or annoyance. As for myself... I have always found my best gratification in that creature called woman. Also, I would not like to be thought of as being so foolish that I would select a love partner who came into sexual heat only once every seven years.[2]
[edit] Creators' responses
Kirk/Spock is a non-canon interpretation of Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry, Leonard Nimoy, and William Shatner have been asked many times over the years for their opinions on K/S. They have made it clear that while it was not their intention to imply a sexual relationship between Kirk and Spock, they don't object to the Kirk/Spock subculture.[citation needed]
At times, however, Roddenberry seemed concerned—as were many fans—that exposing K/S to the mainstream could hurt the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry is reported to have remarked that there would be trouble if "the mothers of America" were to discover the existence of sexually explicit K/S zines, evidently not realizing that slash zines were primarily women's fiction, written, published and enjoyed by that very demographic. Oddly, this was during the period when Phyllis Schlafly's and Anita Bryant's anti-homosexual campaigns were at their height.
Gene Roddenberry on K/S:
- "Yes, there's certainly some of that—certainly with love overtones. Deep love. The only difference being, the Greek ideal—we never suggested in the series—physical love between the two. But it's the—we certainly had the feeling that the affection was sufficient for that, if that were the particular style of the 23rd century." [3]
[edit] Timeline of Kirk/Spock fan fiction
- 1974: "A Fragment Out Of Time" is the first known Star Trek slash to be published in fanzine. The author was Diane Marchant. The vignette was published in Grup #3. The language was highly coded and did not refer to Spock and Kirk by name but rather referred to them as he and him.
- 1974: Mary Manchester outlined her "Continuity Theory" of Kirk/Spock.
- 1975: Star Trek Lives!, edited and written by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak and Joan Winston, was published. This book contained a chapter at the end of the book which examines Star Trek fan fiction and the Kirk/Spock relationship in fan fiction. This book is important because that last chapter helped form a lot of the modern thought on slash fan fiction communities. Scholars still cite this source today.
- 1975: While the first Kirk/Spock story may have been published the previous year, more material was out there and not getting published. The general community did not seem overly receptive to romance and in particular, that pairing. Diane Marchant would address this pairing in an essay in Grup #4. There was a follow discussion to this essay in the Star Trek letterzine, Halkan Council. This did not lead to a glut of these stories being privately circulated being published in fanzines. Rather, many would continue their trips underground, in some cases not being published for another ten to fifteen years.
- 1976: In June, "Alternative: Epilog to Orion" is written by G. Downes and published in a fanzine. It was the second piece of Kirk/Spock slash to appear and the first Kirk/Spock dedicated fanzine.
- 1976: Leslie Fish's Shelter is one of the first fully-developed K/S short stories that is published. It was published in Warped Space 20.
- 1978: Between January and March, Thrust, is the first Star Trek anthology fanzine published to contain only Kirk/Spock slash in the early part of this year.
- 1978: There began to be a drop off in the number of Star Trek fanzines being published as some were leaving the fan fiction community because of the prevelance of Kirk/Spock material.
- 1984: The convention of using both K&S and K/S to designate a story featuring the Kirk/Spock relation was still in use; the use of just the slash had not yet been standardized.
- 1987: An examination of Datazine 48 looking at Star Trek fanzines published this year shows that there were 47 non-Kirk/Spock zines compared to 30 Kirk/Spock zines. Universal Translator, looking at the same year, lists 144 non-Kirk/Spock zines to 58 Kirk/Spock fanzines.
- 1995: In January, the unattributed K/S story "A Job For The Young" is posted to the Usenet group alt.sex.fetish.startrek, after reportedly having been discovered in an ftp archive. In December, Laura Goodwin posts K/S limericks to alt.startrek.creative [1].
- 1996: In January, Killashandra finishes posting "Turning Point", the first attributed K/S story to be published on the internet, to the Usenet group alt.startrek.creative.
- 2000: K/S fiction, which has blossomed online after Sci Fi Channel's decision to rerun the series in the late 1990's, peaks at nearly 900 story posts. (Some stories were posted in multiple parts, so the total number of individual stories is somewhat lower.)
[edit] Notes
- ^ Shore Leave. Retrieved on March 23, 2007.
- ^ Roddenberry, Gene (1979). Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Pocket Books.
- ^ Shatner, William, et al. Where No Man... The Authorized Biography of William Shatner (ISBN 0-441-88975-1), Ace Books, 1979, pp. 147-8)
[edit] References
- Alexander , A., & Harris, C. (Eds.). (1998). Theorizing Fandom: Fans, Subculture and Identity. Hampton: Hampton Press.
- Bacon-Smith, C. (1992). Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth. Pittsburg: University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Byrd, Patricia. "Star Trek Lives: Trekker Slang." American Speech, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Spring, 1978) , pp. 52-58.
- Cherny, L., & Weise, E. R. (Eds.). (1996). Wired women : gender and new realities in cyberspace. Seattle: Seal press.
- Curtin, Mary Ellen. A Bibliography of Early K/S. Foresmutters Project. Copyright 2000. Bp http://www.eclipse.net/~mecurtin//au/earlyKS.htm
- Jenkins, Henry. Textual Poachers Television Fans & Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge, 1992.
- Russ, J. (n.d.). Another Addict Raves About K/S. Nome, 8.
