Talk:Kirk/Spock

Epilog to Orion

Alternative: Epilog to Orion appeared in two parts. The 1976 part isn't really fully-realized K/S. It's a tiny thing, less than 100 pages long. Although there are some sketchy line drawings in the last part of the zine depicting homosexual acts, the zine itself is about half gen, and the "slash" part is actually a fuzzy fantasy, mostly told in verse, that occurs during a mind meld. At the end of the zine, Kirk and Spock reject a sexual relationship between them.

The second part of Alternative: Epilog to Orion did not appear until 1979! By then there was a K/S fandom--which contributed some very nice K/S art for the zine. This was fully-realized K/S, although the author, apparently a "Kirkie", still had some problems with K/S. Kirk is emotionally abusive to Spock. There is S/Ch and K/m during the middle of the story. There are physical fights, and some general lack of coping with either the homosexual or bonding parts of the relationship.

There was another K/S zine which came out in 1979, the novel Nightvisions, which was much, much better in terms of handling the issue of homosexuality with sensitivity and acceptance.

I do not understand why a few homoerotic poems published in 1976 attract so much attention when much better K/S was being published concurrently.

Call for deletion!

Christ....'o ta hell mae this article?

An' where is theChecov/Sulu slash page???

I agree. This is not noteworthy. If you must, include it in Kirk/Spock individual pages, but I fail to see why this needs an article of its own.

Naw, this crap is not even worth that.

Oh man, awesome, we can post our fanfictions on Wikipedia now? I thought we couldn't, but this page is here so it must mean we are allowed to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.191.65.80 (talk) 00:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead!

I agree as well. This should be purged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.187.80.252 (talk) 21:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

as much as i love slash... i have to agree Killemall22 (talk) 19:42, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

What about merging what's usefull to slash fiction and deleting the rest? – Lionel ^(talk) 03:03, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, I don't see how anything of this could be useful. It's a trivial interpretation by some obscure social scientist at best. But since you're one of the few on this discussion page who is not just an anonymous IP and who therefore might know the procedure of how to nominate this article for deletion, it would be nice if you could to so.

What this idea implies

Why is it that you cannot have two men be very close friends without implying that they are homosexuals? This very mindest keeps many men from feeling free to have deep relationships with each other: namely, that it is a homosexual thing to do or that they will be labeled as gay.

Closer...

exelent fan made video, contains swearing in the lyrics but quite relevant to this page:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PwpcUawjK0

i love that vid!Killemall22 (talk) 19:43, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

This Article is... worthy for deletion

Seriously ti is, what a load of tosh, Deus3xmachina —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deus3xMachina (talk • contribs) 14:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I've removed a bunch of the unsubstantiated and self-important "this is such an important sub-sub-sub-genre!" claims. I'm dubious about the cited sources -- at least one of them (Enterprise Women) I think is largely accessible on Google Books; I'll check the veracity of the claims there. One of these sources -- the first one about the coded language in one story -- is to a master's thesis, which generally doesn't meet our WP:RS requirements, except the thesis is citing another study not cited here (and I'd hesitate to duplicate the thesis' citation without seeing the original). I'm not sure how to assess this topic's notability -- there is a cited (and accessible) claim about the genre's importance in the study of slash fiction...but, really I have no idea how to gauge the reliability of most of these sources. --EEMIV (talk) 19:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I've re-added the commentary from Woledge about the scene from The Motion Picture - it helps with the WP:NFCC, and it's a discussed example (published in a peer-reviewed journal) of why Kirk/Spock. --Malkinann (talk) 07:20, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. There is already a notable mention in slash fiction, which is where I believe this information belongs. If anyone chooses to elaborate more in that article then I don't see why not, however this article itself is unnecessary. Perhaps the information on this page can be placed in the individual character articles?

--Iheartfreja (talk) 00:54, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I would regard putting information on K/S into Kirk and Spock's articles to be unsatisfactory, as it would in effect reiterate the K/S interpretation of the characters on both Kirk and Spock's pages. As it is a fandom interpretation of the characters, it would attract less weight, and so may be edited to extinction if it were to be merged to their articles. As it is, I believe this article meets the general notability guideline. --Malkinann (talk) 12:39, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I came across this article by accident and was flummoxed to find it. I didn't except Wikipedia to have articles about specific slash pairings. Wydok (talk) 05:22, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Much less specific articles have been deleted for being too limited in audience

I don't understand how this article is not up for deletion when the audience for such an article would be statistically negligible at best. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.170.197.72 (talk) 23:20, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

You might think that, but there are between 300 and 700 readers of this article a day. Miyagawa (talk) 18:29, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

How do you know that? Anyway, this article is poorly written, not encyclopedic, relies mostly on a single source and should be nominated for deletion. Basically it's just politically motivated nonsense i.e. deconstruction by feminists, LGBT activist and/or cultural Marxists from the far left which could just as well originate from the infamous Chomskybot.

Spirk as name for Kirk/Spock

I have listed the name "Spirk" as a fan name for Kirk and Spock's relationship, because I have seen it in use in certain areas of the Star Trek fandom, and in some fan fictions. Rob J. Elkton (talk) 12:11, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

This is original research unless you can come up with relevant and reliable sources as per WP:Sources.

Neutral pov in the article

Analysis of the slash phenomenon in fandoms and media is an interesting subject of discussion, however, this article reads like something more fitting for Fanlore than wikipedia. The article doesn't seem to maintain a neutral point of pov as there is no real counter argument or mention whatsoever of the controversies surrounding the Kirk/Spock phenomenon, such as the fact that some of the writers were against it (e.g., David Gerrold). Roddenberry's admission that he had to overcome his own homophobia (refer to LGBT in Star Trek ) is also omitted here, although him possibly having that kind of mindset might pose the doubt he'd purposely insert homoerotic subtext in the original series. The infamous 'footnote' he added in the novelization of Star_Trek: The Motion Picture, where Kirk replies to a 'lovers rumors' about him and Spock and seems to reiterate that he prefers women, is also not mentioned here. Further, while the article indeed mentions one of Roddenberry's comments (here seemingly used to suggest that a slash interpretation of K/S was intentional from his part), there is no attempt to put it in context of an interview where he also talked about Kirk's heterosexuality and the platonic nature of the friendship between the male characters.
Phrases like "It has also been noted that although Kirk has had many female companions throughout the series, he always leaves them behind" are misleading because the section avoids to mention how the cultural mindset of the time possibly made it likely that sexism, and not the writers being pro slash interpretations, affected the narrative, especially when it comes to the lack of a stable romantic relationship for the lead male character of a television series such as Star Trek. In particular, one could mention what Grace Lee Whitney said about her character and one of the reasons why she was written out of the show (e.g., "They wanted William Shatner to have romances in each episode with a different person, because for him to be stuck with one woman was not good for him and it wasn't good for the audience. That's what they told me, so I was written out.")
Lastly, the inclusion of Jenkins's opinion about the reboot (a different franchise and continuity than that where the K/S phenomenon originated, anyway) and his assertions concerning the character of Uhura is irresponsible without offering any neutral counterargument reiterating that, however, he doesn't seem to take into account important aspects such as the racial climate of the 60s making a romantic relationship with Uhura unlikely. His statement of fact that there was a Kirk/Uhura romance in the original series never really developed only to 'allow a slash interpretation' is up to debate as well for the above mentioned reason: let's remember the reasons why their kiss is known in pop culture as the 'first interracial kiss of television' and why it was considered controversial at the time. However, it's unclear to me if Jenkins seems to suggest that queer baiting, and the erasure of women from the narrative to allow a slash interpretation (is him saying that the star trek male leads should remain single in every iteration of trek just because people like slash?), can somehow be considered representation for the LGBT community, without even attempting to take into account the possible problematic aspects of the queer baiting phenomenon. Anyway, the article seems to repeatedly mention him without really explaining why his opinion is more relevant than others in the discussion about the slash phenomenon, thus creating the illusion that it is. In my opinion, the article can be improved to make it more accessible to a wider audience than that of the fans of the series, or those who already know about the slash phenomenon. PolycarpTamrat (talk) 12:51, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

This reply is not so much for the original poster (who probably won't read this after so many years) as it's for eventual future editors that would feel like adding any of this to the article. Of course neutrality is desirable. But the points raised here are weak, and betray a desire for anti-shipping POV, rather than a neutral one.

Gerrold's opinion appears in the article, as it should. However, it's worth noting that, many years after such statement, he released a comic: "Bandi", with pretty blatant K/S elements, in which Kirk outright confesses his love for Spock under the influence of some "empathetic pheromones". So it appears that Gerrold's opinion on the matter changed over time. I refrained from adding this to the article, however, for the sake of brevity.

Roddenberry's homophobia has little to do with the subject. For starters, he didn't specify WHEN exactly he overcame it (it could have disappeared by the time he worked in TOS). And the way he talked about it, it was a rather mild homophobia in the form of thoughtless jokes, not something actively hateful. Speculating that this homophobia would have prevented him to insert homoerotic subtext, despite his direct claims on the contrary (and actual gay people like George Takei and Theodore Sturgeon working for the show), is just speculation, and has no place in the article.

The t'hy'la footnote was also added to the article. However, far from being the evidence against the "lovers" deal you seem to think, it's just a meandering way of tackling the subject without really answering it. Not to mention, that it was only brought up because Roddenberry added (unnecessarily) the "lovers" part to begin with, in a mainstream book, where most of its readers wouldn't even know about slash.

Roddenberry's quote from the book is just what he said, plain and simple. There's no need to "put it into context", because at no time did he imply that the homoerotic undertones somehow diminished the friendship or the heterosexual encounters. Both things are perfectly compatible and separate subjects.

Regardless of the reasons behind it, the fact remains that the writers didn't want Kirk to be in a stable relationship with any woman, and that a great deal of his encounters with women only happen when he's under some external influence, or for strategic reasons. Very few are from genuine interest. And it's somewhat hypocritical to pretend that "Kirk having heterosexual encounters" is a valid argument against K/S, and at the same time, denying the validity of "Kirk not having a stable/genuine girlfriend" for the opposite view. 84.124.213.187 (talk) 18:12, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

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Some edits

I added a quote from an interview by Roddenberry. Also, I moved his quotes to the main "Creator's responses" section, instead of "Other responses" since he's... well, the creator. Regarding the Motion Picture novel, I added info about the t'hy'la term introduced there, and changed the "co-written" part. The novel was written just by Roddenberry; it's the film that was co-written.

I didn't touch the part about the novel Killing Time since the info came from a book. Nonetheless, I'd like to point out that there's a LOT of controversy and conflicting versions about that story. The author has stated multiple times that there were no overt slash elements, and that it was Paramount or the publishing house who recalled the first edition after finding out it was the un-edited version, sent to print by accident. The story that it was Roddenberry himself who recalled it, or that it was because of Kirk/Spock elements, is dubious at best.

I also put into context the Susan Sackett's letter. To wit, I've been totally unable to locate such letter. The only reference is a fan claiming to have read such letter, in the context of a discussion between pro and anti slashers in a fanzine. The letter itself is not published in the fanzine. Now, one has to wonder if this is a good enough source to include in Wikipedia, unless we start using fan claims from any forum or fanzine as proof. Given the subject matter of this article, and that it's something that definitely triggers many people, I suspect someone was catching at straws to find anything as anti-K/S proof. Nonetheless, Sackett showed a certain personal hostility to the idea of K/S in other letters, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt. 84.124.213.187 (talk) 13:10, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations I

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 September 2022 and 10 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): CMO-Bashir (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by CMO-Bashir (talk) 15:04, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Edits + reorganization

I have reorganized the article to create a section titled "Slash subculture" with the subsections "Academic interest," "Common plot devices" (previously its own section), and "Backlash." Feel free to make minor edits to the titles of these sections; I am still unsure if they are the best phrased. I believe that adding this section on the academic interest in K/S slash fiction and vidding is relevant to this page however, since it focuses on K/S specifically, rather than slash fiction as a whole or the wider academic field. I hope this also improves the notability of this page.

The academic interest section is entirely new with sources I have compiled that are now added to the references. Backlash is a new section as well. Common plot devices retains most of what was previously written with some additions from The Final Frontier is Queer on common tropes as well as reorganization of the paragraphs for better flow and cohesion. I also expanded on the pon farr trope based on the contents of the pon farr page.

The references have some overlapping sources when a given source is cited in different parts of the article under this "Slash subculture" section, which I'm not currently sure how to fix but will look into. In the meanwhile, if anybody knows how to fix it, suggestions/guidance would be appreciated. CMO-Bashir (talk) 06:17, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Not worthy of deletion + update maintenance templates? + suggested future edits

I would argue that given what is now a decently substantive contribution to the academic study of K/S as a specific case in fandom subculture with sources to support it, this article is not worthy of deletion as older comments have suggested. The subject has enough notability to have a chunk of verifiable, third-party sources writing about it, which suggests that it is worthy of its own page. Previous calls for deletion included reasoning (for the ones that had reasoning…) such as "too reliant on a single source," "poorly written," and "already mentioned in slash fiction" which I believe are not substantive enough to delete this page entirely. The amount of academic interest in K/S specifically, I believe, is enough to justify a page separate from that of slash fiction alone. I have added at least 10 new sources, and there are others besides to an extent where I don't agree that the whole article is reliant on one source. As for being poorly written, I have edited the "Common plot devices" section regarding that matter, but further edits to readability/conciseness/tone would be appreciated as I'm sure there is work to be done. But I do not believe it is so poorly written the whole thing should be gone.

Regarding the current maintenance templates on the "fan's pov" and "original research": I'm not sure of the justification for either of these since those who have added them didn't leave a comment on the Talk page on why they added these templates. However, I believe with the current set of references, it is possible to get rid of the "original research" template. There are multiple different sources from different academic journals and published books by third-parties that I do not believe constitutes as "original research." It may be that the citations are still lacking, but that would be a different issue, not one of "original research." As for the "fan's pov," I think the addition of academic interest in K/S on top of the creators' commentary helps steer the article away from any accusations from being written from a fan's perspective, since it is from outsiders of K/S subculture. I am unsure if it is enough to get rid of the template, however, since there are perhaps sources on controversies or opponents of K/S that could be presented on this page to actively counter the "fan's pov" criticism.

That brings me to my final topic: suggested edits for the future. Minor cleaning up of phrasing, word choice, etc., can obviously be done. I think a section on controversy/opposition/similar as stated above could also be helpful in adding more diverse views into the article (although there are already some mentioned from creators/actors), although technically there isn't anything on the page that actively supports K/S either (also a possible addition, if it exists). The removal of the maintenance templates as stated above is another suggestion, as I don't feel confident in removing them immediately (do comment on whether this should be done right now). More images could be added, such as a scene from the 2009 reboot depicting Spock and Uhura, a photo from an old K/S convention or a K/S zine, etc., if anybody can find these that are free to use for Wikipedia. Taking the additions made to this article and referencing some of this content where K/S is mentioned on the slash fiction page could be useful as well.

Please leave any comments or suggestions on either my edits or what I have mentioned above, as I would like to see this page taken better care of. CMO-Bashir (talk) 04:31, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree. Specifically, I would argue that three points made by @CMO-Bashir here are of particular significance:

1. that its subject matter merits the article’s inclusion on Wikipedia;
2. that the “fan’s POV” issue is overstated and can be further remedied; and
3. that the academic perspectives presented in the article are sufficient to demonstrate that points 1 and 2 are substantially correct.

(Please note that I am paraphrasing @CMO-Bashir‘s arguments; any errors introduced are my own.) Foxmilder (talk) 01:58, 3 February 2024 (UTC)