Kirk/Spock (TOS)

This article is about the TOS slash ship. For the AOS counterpart see Kirk/Spock and for other uses of the term, see Kirk/Spock.

Pairing
Pairing:	Kirk/Spock
Alternative name(s):	K/S, K/Ser Space Husbands, Spirk
Gender category:	slash, m/m
Fandom:	Star Trek
Canonical?:	Not explicitly, but possible.
Prevalence:	Massive -- 90% or more of the slash in the TOS universe is K/S
Archives:	The K/S Archive
Other:	Kirk/Spock Wikipedia Article
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

artwork accompanying the story A Fragment Out of Time (1974) by Diane Marchant; the first line of the story is “'Shut up…we’re by no means setting a precedent.'”

Kirk/Spock, widely known as K/S, was the first officially slashed couple of media fandom. While fans had been privately creating fanworks about Holmes and Watson, James and Artemus, Buz and Tod, or Napoleon and Illya, Star Trek was the first show in which amateur stories with a homosexual theme were more widely shared among fans.

No one person or group "invented" K/S. Instead fans wrote it in the form of drawerfic, stories written only for themselves and perhaps a friend. Some of this fic was in the form of circuit stories, fanfic meant to circulated among a small group of friends.

K/S fic rose in visibility after 1974, in part because Star Trek was the first television program to grow a fandom that generated fan-published fanzines. These amateur publications allowed stories, poems, and art to be circulated outside of a circle of friends to a wider audience of fans.

Early on, the speculation that Kirk and Spock were romantically or sexually intimate with each other was referred to as The Premise.

detail from a 1978 flyer for Matter/Animatter #2: "OH,NO! THEY'RE AT IT AGAIN!" -- art by Scott Gilbert

In Boldly Writing, the history of Star Trek fan fiction and publishing, Joan Verba says that the first fan-written fiction in zines mostly played with the original, science fictional Star Trek universe, then gradually, more Mary Sues and Kirk and Spock friendship stories started appearing, then the Kirk/Spock stories.

Mild jokes about Kirk and Spock getting it on appeared as early as Spocknalia 3 in December 1968. In Joyce Yasner's Lennonesque "The Mysterious Yellow String", when Spock confirms he's investigating the string, Kirk says "Frabjous! I'm coming!" and Spock whispers "Not now, later," to which Kirk replies "How can I? I'll miss out!" In Eridani Triad 2, Doris Beetem's "Star Dregs" has all the characters confessing to one another, "I have always wanted... loved you!"

Some very early examples of specifically Kirk/Spock fic are The Ring of Shoshern (1968), Green Plague (late 1960s), A Fragment Out of Time (1974), and Alternative: The Epilog to Orion (1976).

Origins of the /

In the early days of Star Trek fandom, the symbol, "/", (a virgule) between two character's names did not necessarily indicate a sexual relationship, but rather denoted a story that focused on an intensely described portrayal of a close friendship. In the late '70s-early '80s, many fans meant friendship when they spoke of "K/S". At this time, the symbol was seen on stories with and without descriptions of sexual intimacy. For more information about the history of the term "slash" and the / symbol see Slash Terminology.

History of K/S

Main article: History of K/S Fandom

Also see History of Slash Fandom.

front cover of Thrust (1978), the first all-K/S anthology zine. At the time, it was considered to have a shockingly explicit cover. The artist is Gayle F.

The foundations for K/S were actually laid by Isaac Asimov along with some of the Star Trek creators, including Robert Justman and Gene Roddenberry Himself. According to Justman in Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, Captain Kirk had been intended from the beginning as the central, focal character in the series, and William Shatner was paid accordingly; but fan response to Mr. Spock was much greater. In order to turn audience attention back toward the Captain, Roddenberry asked for ideas. In a November 1966 letter reprinted in 'Inside Star Trek , Isaac Asimov suggested that the scripts and actors should show the two men becoming close friends, including incidents where they save each other's lives. That way, when viewers thought of Spock, they would also think of Kirk, and they would think highly of him because Spock did. Asimov also suggested that Kirk be given lots of intriguing, interesting things to do, e.g. solving mysteries, going incognito, etc. Roddenberry and Gene Coon worked this out, and wrote to Asimov: "Shatner will come off ahead by showing he is fond of the teenage idol; Spock will do well by displaying great loyalty to his Captain. In a way it will give us one lead, the team." Solow and Justman do not speak of fan fiction at all, let alone K/S; but it is possible that this is what fans picked up on as they began to speculate about just how close they were.

Gene Roddenberry explained it this way. When he created the bridge crew, he created the Kirk-Spock-McCoy triumvirate from fragments of his own mind. He could identify with each character, they were components of his own creative view of the world. So when Trekkers studied the TV series, they saw Kirk and Spock as a unit. As one entity, as needing to “get together,” as two poles of a magnet, because GR created them to be two halves of a whole.... Human nature being what it is, sexuality is the expression of that “get together” and “irresistible attraction.” The soul mate hypothesis runs deep in romance literature. Many of the women drawn to Star Trek fandom, who wrote fanfic, were not science-fiction readers or fans nearly as much as they were romance readers and fans. The other factions of Star Trek's female fandom were scientists, often working in science labs. Many others were librarians and teachers whose education and professions include sociology as a science. Given that Kirk and Spock belong together -- well, then..." maybe... uh, no, but..." -- one fan wrote a story where that hypothesis was brought to the fore, played with, and suggested. That story circulated on carbon copies, then got printed -- today we’d say it "went viral" -- and all of a sudden people everywhere were arguing the hypothesis by writing stories. Simultaneously, the gay community was in the process of coming out of the closet, so while many Trek stories were fem-lib based, others were gay-lib based. My thesis is that popular fiction follows and reflects social trends but does not cause them. Popular fiction can and does help people who are not part of a particular social trend to understand the people who are part of that social trend. - Jacqueline Lichtenberg, quoted in Edward Gross & Mark Altman's The Fifty-Year Mission Volume 1 (St. Martin's Press 2017).

Another factor in the development of K/S was the idea of a mental bond between the two that preceded, and for some, became a part of the sexual relationship between Kirk and Spock:

The first volume of New Voyages was published in 1976, but the stories [that show Kirk and Spock sharing a mental bond of some undefined nature] were floating around as far back as 1970 (ah! the smell of a fresh mimeograph!) At the time of the first-ever con, the idea of a mental bond was fairly widespread -- thousands of Trekkers simultaneously inventing it on their own and not realizing that others had the same perception until we had a chance to get together and talk about it. (Being a Trek fan was pretty much a lonely experience before the cons started.) I don't really recall a split between gen and slash (or more specifically K/S, the granddaddy of 'em all) until the mid-seventies when the erotic aspect first became more explicit and began to make some of those, who had previously described themselves as K/Sers, squicky (a word that didn't exist then) about the specifically homoerotic aspect. (You've got to remember that when ST first aired, Stonewall had only happened a year before.) So, as I remember it, a mental bond between Kirk and Spock was always a part of gen, but it was slash that took it and ran.

Roddenberry's views

Star Trek Lives!, edited and written by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak and Joan Winston, was published by Bantam, 1975. While there is a chapter on fan fiction, slash is not discussed. Some stories covered are "Joy in the Morning", The Price of a Handful of Snowflakes, The Daneswoman, Spock Enslaved, Judith Brownlee's T'Pelle stories, and the Federation and Empire series, which all involve Spock and Kirk with women. However, the authors do illustrate that Kirk and Spock love each other in a nonphysical sense. There are also many pages devoted to the idea that women's liberation can also mean the liberation of men to express feelings more openly -- an end to the idea that "men don't cry". They discuss this in interviews with both William Shatner and George Takei.

Joan Winston also describes Shatner camping it up during the filming of "Turnabout Intruder", where he had to play a female, and at one point turned a serious line into a confession of eternal love for Spock. The stage crew called this episode "Captain Kirk, Space Queen."

Gene Roddenberry revealed in Star Trek Lives that because he did not enjoy the typical amusements of his father's hyper-macho Southern culture, particularly seeing animals pinned to a line and killed for food, he was perceived as having something wrong with him: "Probably, say, I was... [different]". It is likely from the context that "different" was substituting for "homosexual", ensuring that the book could be sold to and read by children and teenagers, Star Trek's presumed audience. Elsewhere, Roddenberry spoke about being a police officer and having to kill an injured dog to stop its suffering: "I hated animals to be hurt. I did not like violence for violence’s sake. I had many female traits, which is certainly a part of any whole man or woman. I wasn’t part of the crowd that sat around on the sidelines and made fun of people. I always had great respect for people -- even those with different ideas." In the culture and time in which he was raised, men with female traits were considered gay, whether or not they were.

When asked about his views on Kirk and Spock, Gene answered:

…I definitely designed it as a love relationship. And I hope that for men…who have been afraid of such relationships…that they [Spock and Kirk] would encourage them to be able to feel love and affection, true affection…love, friendship and deep respect. That was the relationship I tried to draw. I think I also tried to draw a feeling of belief that very few of us are complete unto ourselves. It’s quite a lovely thing…where two halves make a whole.

Shatner: Where No Man by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath includes interviews with Roddenberry. Asked if he still saw the Kirk-Spock friendship as "two halves which come together to make a whole" (in reference to the previous interview), Gene replied:

Oh, yes. As I've said, I definitely designed it as a love relationship. I think that's what we're all about -- love, the effort to reach out to each other. I think that's a lovely thing. Also, dramatically, I designed Kirk and Spock to complete each other, and in fact the Kirk, Spock, McCoy triad to be the dramatic embodiment of the parts of one person: logic, emotion, and the balance between them. You cannot have an internal monologue on screen, so that is a way of personifying it, getting it out where it can be seen -- that internal debate which we all have within And I designed Kirk and Spock, as I told you, as dream images of myself, the two halves. But in terms of the characters, yes. That closeness. Absolutely.

He says he was inspired by Shatner's portrayal of Alexander the Great when choosing him as the actor to play Kirk. The interviewers draw a parallel between Alexander and Hephaestion's friendship and loyalty, and that between Kirk and Spock.

Marshak and Culbreath: "There's a great deal of writing in the Star Trek movement now which compares the relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion to the relationship between Kirk and Spock -- focusing on the closeness of the friendship, the feeling that they would die for one another --"

Roddenberry: "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." (He looks thoughtful.) "That's very interesting. I never thought of that before."

Even though Roddenberry brought up the subject of "physical love", the interviewers were speaking of friendship, and barely brush on the sexual aspect: "There are poems, stories, articles, some of them of professional quality, along that theme. Never mind so much the idea you mentioned of physical love, some do see a possibility of that, too."

Asked about why people found Kirk and Spock's friendship so interesting, he compared it with heterosexual relationships, stating that the physical aspect of sex is not the most important:

Oh, I think for the same reason that most heterosexual relationships are not so much for the purpose of sex as many of us — many of the people even who are involved in them assume they are. Most of us go through life trying to find someone — trying to make contact with some of these strange aliens on this planet. . .on this precipice — seeking some assurance that we are not alone. That we are not just "bags of skin." That our consciousness will not just be snuffed out and forgotten — all too soon. Sex is — a great part of sex has nothing to do with the physical — the physical act is not so important — unless it affects the other person — but the real reason for touching a person is just to make this contact. To hold each other.

The interviewers don't mention slash, but it's apparent that Gene knew of it, since he says he saw some fan magazines, and also the straight magazines.

The novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Gene Roddenberry, 1980, contained the much-discussed t'hy'la reference, possibly inspired by his conversations with Marshak and Culbreath. Until this incident, many fans had not realized that they were not alone in imagining a gay love affair for Kirk and Spock. See The Roddenberry Footnote.

Early stories

There is no record of the first K/S story to be written and passed around to friends. The most likely candidate is The Ring of Soshern, written by English author Jennifer Guttridge. Editor Jenna Sinclair at Beyond Dreams Press, based on personal correspondence with Guttridge, placed it as having been written in 1968 or possibly 1967. Since the story describes pon farr it could not have been written earlier than September 1967.

Another early story may be "Green Plague" by Audrey Baker, later printed in the zine Son of Grope. An ad for this zine states that the story was "written in the '60s but still wearing well. This was probably the first K/S story to be printed in a British zine; certainly one of the first written."

The theme was hinted at in some of the very earliest issues of STAG newsletters in late 1973, something that caused quite a bit of discussion. The first K/S story to appear in a zine was "A Fragment Out of Time" by Diane Marchant, published in Grup 3 (the first 'adult' Star Trek zine) in 1974. It was written so obliquely that it wasn't clear to many readers that the two people having sex were both men, much less Kirk and Spock. (though in an essay called "Pandora's Box... Again," in the next issue, the author 'outed' the story and defended the idea of K/S) The piece usually given credit as the first K/S story was published a year later, Alternative: The Epilog to Orion, published by Gerry Downes.

A list from Not Tonight Spock! #7 -- A chronology of early K/S published zine fic:

• 1974 -- A Fragment Out of Time in Grup #3 (the fan who compiled this list referred to this story as "To Invite the Night")
• 1976 -- the first entirely K/S zine ever published was Alternative: The Epilogue to Orion, in June 1976 -- several "proto-K/S" stories were in More Grope, October 1976. -- Leslie Fish's Shelter was published in Warped Space #20.
• February 1977 -- The Green Plague in Son of Grope, March 1977 -- Poses and several poems and stories in Obsc'zine #1, May 1977 --"The Hectic in My Blood" by Audrey Baker in Deep Grope, August 1977 -- various poems and vignettes in Obsc'zine #2, September 1977 -- Desert Heat and several other stories in The Sensuous Vulcan
• 1978 -- the first all-K/S anthology was Thrust, May 1978 -- "The Lost Decade" by Audrey Baker in The Gropes of Roth and "Between Friends" by Gayle F, as well as other stories and poems in Obsc'zine #3, September 1978 -- several K/S pieces in King Grope

During the "golden age" of K/S fandom in the 1980s, dozens of zines would be published every year. K/S fans also made songvids, attended K/S conventions, and argued with non-K/Sers over their ardent support of the idea. Meanwhile, many fans wrote K&S non-sexual, platonic friendship stories.

Even long after most Star Trek amateur writing moved to the internet, some K/S fans are still publishing and circulating print zines in 2014.

Possibly the first K/S story to be posted to the internet was A Job for the Young, first circulated widely in January of 1995. The author remains unknown.

"The Premise"

Main article: The Premise

As the stories about Kirk and Spock as lovers started to appear, conversations both for and against K/S appeared in Trek letterzines and lettercols.

The entire controversy was unofficially titled "the Kirk/Spock premise" or simply "the premise", as in "I don't believe in 'the premise', but I don't mind those who do" or "I can't stand how all the good writers have started writing about 'the premise'."

The phrase was used by both sides throughout the late '70s.

Fandom

Waves and Patterns in K/S Fiction

All fandoms seem to have ebbs and flows of certain "types" of fiction, and K/S is no different. Ironically, some of these arguments echoed the reasons some anti-slash fans condemned the genre in the first place. One can also deduce that these kinds of public statements illustrated a more mature fandom in that it was now large enough and old enough to encompass not only cycles but more divergent points of view about what was considered acceptable.

Many fans in the mid-1980s began to complain the rise of what they saw as the rise of offensive and degenerative fiction, specifically that of slave and of BDSM fiction. one fan in 1984 writes:

I'm glad I will never have to fear opening the pages of NOME and finding any of that mindless garbage that is too often passing for K/S today. Too many authors and editors feel that total degradation of a character and the resultant loss of dignity and integrity are synonymous with expressions of love. These people disgust me.

In 1988, another fan comments:

K/S fiction is primarily vulnerable to the threat of stagnation. Most fan writers use it within a very limited context. When writers and readers become surfeited by the basic premise, they do move in other directions, but it is not a progress beyond the narrow boundaries of the concept? They more sideways — toward alternate universe slave stories, S&M stories, threesome stories, K/S death stories, etc. Honestly, guys, we're not getting more creative, just kinkier.

Beginning in 1984, and again in 1997, K/S fan writers, feeling that their slash contributions were not getting enough recognition, began holding their own awards: the K/Star Award and the Philon awards respectively.

Conventions

A very incomplete list of conventions focused on K/S.

• 1984 - 1988 IDICon -- the first true K/S or slash con -- in Houston
• 1987 - 2014 Closet Con 1-10, in the UK, run by Rosemary W
• 1989 - 1990 Koon-ut-Cali-Con (held in California, of course)

• 2004 - 2008 KiScon, run by Kathy Resch

• 2011 - 2012 KiScon, run by Amanda Warrington & rhaegal (2011 held in LA and 2012 held in the UK)

• 2005 - present KisMet, held in the UK

• 2003 - 2005 K/S CONnections, a UK Kirk/Spock slash con

Early Fan Reactions

Main article: Slash Controversies

For some examples of early fan reactions to K/S, see the letters in many issues of The Halkan Council, R & R, Probe, Interstat, and, The K/S Press.

The early debates over whether or not they 'did it' could get very heated. In May 1977, in the midst of political and social turmoil both pro- and anti-gay rights in the everyday world , the second SeKWester*Con was held in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was the first convention to include panels specifically discussing "The Kirk/Spock Relationship" and "Porno and Sex in Star Trek Fiction". Although there were other panels at this gathering, these were the two sessions to cause controversy and highly emotional debate. Due to the intense popularity of stories like Leslie Fish's "Shelter," the number of explicit sexual pieces in the art display, and a PA glitch which resulted in Connie Faddis' reading of an explicit (but non-slash) narrative getting piped throughout the hotel, many anti-slash fans felt outvoted, and some left the convention with the impression that the majority of ST fandom was now in favor of hardcore X-rated material. The now-familiar age statement was instituted as a result of this discussion, and it's likely that the idea for modern labeling practices ("gen", "het", etc.) started here as well.

When Leslie Fish declared at August Party in 1978 during a panel on whether or not they'd do 'it' that "it's natural: animals do it and Kirk and Spock could do it" her arguments were mind blowing to many. These early debates would often draw huge crowds. The panel room at August Party was jammed with 75-100 people, all shouting and red-faced, trying to convince others of their viewpoint. It was an exciting to be a slash (or an anti-slash) fan. And at first, anti-slash fans seemed to be in the majority, with some wearing "buttons with “K/S" with a circle/slash through it (like the “no smoking” signs.)" at Star Trek conventions.

Reasons for opposing K/S varied. Many fen thought it was immoral to depict them having sex. Others thought it was simply out of character, or fell all over themselves laughing at the thought of Kirk or Spock saying 'I love you' to one another. At least one fan felt that K/S fanworks were "a blight to the minds of fans of any age who believe in ST and see its philosophic goals for the future. Outsiders, such as reporters, insult fandom enough, must we insult ourselves with this trash?" Others felt that these scenarios were created by people who'd clearly never had that sort of "deviant sex". There was also a lot of "think of the children" statements.

The vast and vocal majority of the early slash opponents in Star Trek fandom were female. Some of this may be because male fans either didn't object, didn't have anything to say about the topic, , were unaware that the genre existed, or may have simply cancelled their subscriptions and/or left Star Trek fandom entirely. Or they were active, but wrote using female names or otherwise disguised their identities, just as female writers did. Much of this lack of male opinion about K/S is most likely, however, due to demographics; male fans were a very distinct minority in the writing, purchasing, and creating of Star Trek fiction zines in the first place. David Gerrold and conservative Christian fan Winston Howlett were among the more outspoken male objectors to K/S.

Fan Comments: 1976

From a fan in December 1976:

Having made a point of perusing every so-called pornzine that has come out recently - as well as the "unusual" ones plumbing the depths of the K/Sp relationship, I feel fairly secure in having the opinion that the majority of the people writing have had almost no actual experience with the subject matter. This is not to say that we should not write what we don't know per se - obviously we would all have to give up right now. But since sex in all of its various and deviant forms, already exists with fairly well-defined basics, the people without the experience are standing out like sore...well, make up your own analogy. I think what I personally resent the most is the virtual elevation of such stuff (I hesitate to refer to it as literature) as serious writing, and would feel much better if everyone admitted it's all a lark. Yet people will go to great lengths to validate their efforts, including thinking that they can point to various things in the episodes themselves to back up their ludicrous suppositions. Personally I resent the insults made to my intelligence by the insinuations that this sort of thing is anything but a lark as well as a last-ditch step in Trekfic. Perhaps we are truly marking time until The Movie refuels us with ideas. That's a pretty sad statement to be made of a group that us supposed to be exceptionally imaginative and creative. As for me, the sampling has been more than sufficient, to convince me that the material of this nature is even more odious than Sturgeon's law promises. And the next time I want to be titillated, I'll go to a specialty store, pay half the price, and get color photos to boot! In short, will everyone please turn down their gonads and start writing something worth the paper it's on again? Enough is enough, barf bags should not have to become standard survival gear.

Fan Comments: 1977

From the zine Implosion #5 (1977):

I'm rather surprised that other people are surprised at the controversy surrounding ALT; it was, after all, the first zine to deal at length with a top that was bound to make a lot of people uncomfortable at the very least, for the theoretical (the idea of homosexuality) and specific (Kirk and Spock are doing THAT?) reasons. I suppose that with the great emphasis on the Kirk/Spock relationship, in the last year or so, the topic was inevitable, especially given the current climate -- if anyone has noticed, this is also been the Year of the Gay on television.

From the editorial in the zine by Vicki Kirlin Berengaria #9 (June 1977):

I have never used BERENGARIA as a sounding board, unless it was to warn the fans of a commercial rip-off, as was the case a few issues back. But a situation has been going on for some time and I feel I must speak out. BERENGARIA will not print any stories which contain a homosexual relationship between Kirk and Spock, nor incest stories, nor will I print any ads for zines which carry these themes. I must admit I purchased one or two issues, because of authors, with whom I had come to enjoy reading. But I was dismayed by the stories and no longer purchase these fanzines or others of their kind. I urge others of you who feel Star Trek is being degraded by this type of literature to boycott any fanzine which feels it must devote Itself to this type of material in order to sell it. I do not intend to debate this stand in future issues of BERENGARIA.

In August 1977, Winston Howlett, the conservative Christian editor of Probe, wrote an editorial for issue #11 of that zine where he objected to "adult Trekfic" in general. He called K/S "Kirk and Spock go gay crap", and said fans were "rushing about to jump on the Homosexuality-in-Trekfic bandwagon", but that they were quick to condemn a story in which McCoy has an affair with a younger woman who turns out to be his daughter.

Fan Comments: 1979

The big K/S question never really was "are they or aren't they", and certainly not "could they or couldn't they"; it is "under what circumstances would they". A lot of people have answered, "Love." This is valid. Would you venture to say, "Under no circumstances at all"?

...I would like to further unpopularize myself by throwing my two cents worth of opinion on the Kirk/Spock stories. In my opinions on this I differ from my mother, who will state hers to anybody who asks. I believe first of all that the stories should be written. The relationship we saw on television grew so much from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" to "Turnabout Intruder" that there is no reason to believe that it would not develop further, eventually leading to sexual love.

The emotion of revulsion, pain, and eventual joy these feelings would lead to was so fantastically evoked by Leslie Fish's "Shelter" and "Poses" that it would obviously be stupid to let cultural biases cut off such an obviously rich vein of beautiful fiction.

Also, as THE OBSC'ZINE has shown us, the relationship can be mined for humor ranging from the delicious to the criminal. Obviously all the K/S stories cannot maintain a level of continuous perfection; fandom has seen its share of perfectly hideous heterosexual fiction as well. To close, I want to say that K/S relationship stories are here to stay, so let's do our best by them.

Fan Comments: 1980

From a fan in January 1980:

Commentary: There are two or three fanzines out today that deal with the Kirk/Spock relationship, but in a most unconstructive way. The zines emphasize the darker aspects of human behavior, and in general reduce the two men to the status of oversexed homesexual [sic] lovers. This, very simply, is not necessary. To concentrate stories and entire fanzines on such a non-existent relationship is bad enough, but to do that to the exclusion of all that is positive and good about Star Trek is a crime. Star Trek presents a world of optimism, of hope, of love and understanding, and of constant challenge and growth. Let us not get mired down in unnecessary excursions into human sexual abnormalities. Such fanzine writing is myopic, in that the writer seems unable to handle anything other than a dark Kirk/Spock relationship. Such writers need to examine their own motivations.

From a fan in May 1980:

No one person could have invented fandom. It just grew like Topsy from the variant perceptions of individuals. Some of us looked at Trek and saw K/S. Some of us can't see it. Others can't see Kraith or NTM and consider these utterly alien to their concept of what Trek is really about. The glory of ST is that when you ask what it's about you get so many answers. GR's footnote on K/S in the movie novelization is sad because it's an attempt to get the genie back in the bottle after it had already escaped to perform its magic. The magic is dangerous in Paramount's eyes. If they wanted only safe magic they should never have allowed Trek on the air. It's too late now. Some of us fans are just incorrigible. We sing dangerous songs, think dangerous thoughts and weave dangerous spells.

Fan Comments: 1984

In 1984, Harlan Ellison wrote a scathing review of The Search for Spock, which was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. In this review, he mentioned "a flourishing underground of soft-core Kirk-shtups-Spock pornzines." In 1985, a fan commented upon this statement: "Ellison hasn't been reading much K/S lately, or he'd know it is likely to be the other way 'round."

Gen Viewpoints

In response to the slash, there were fans who held the "We're Not Gay, We Just Love Each Other" opinion. Such views may be attributed to the "Oblivious Gen Fan."

Not all fans agree that the close relationship they see on the screen between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock translates into a sexual one. As K.S. Langley argues, fans are often reading physical intimacy into what is mainly an emotional intimacy. And because slash is in the eye of the beholder, neither position can point to canon for definitive proof:

...some of the earliest debate about K/S, when the K/S fans would point to instances of physical and/or emotional intimacy as "proof" of the slash, and the non-K/Sers (and anti-K/Sers) would respond that physical and/or emotional intimacy is not necessarily proof of a sexual/romantic relationship. And, K/S fan that I've always been, I agree with that. With Kirk and Spock, Starsky and Hutch, and countless other "buddy pairings," epic friendships, etc. you also would expect to see such intimacy. Now, you can make a case that such levels of intimacy certainly don't argue *against* the possible extrapolation of a slash relationship, but, in and of itself, it cannot be taken as definitive "proof" either."

As evidence of the subjective nature of what is and is not "K/S" she goes on to say: "For example, I recall a very moving letter from Spock to McCoy in another zine, in which Spock wrote that he loved McCoy. He did not mean it romantically. It was not unusual for gen writers (then or now) to include things like that in their stories. They didn't see it as slash, and they didn't include it as slash."

There is still a tendency on the part of some slash fans to regard this attitude as naive at best. Some respond by pointing out numerous instances in the original episodes where they feel that the dialogue, stage blocking, and other theatrical elements were deliberately engineered to subtly convey the message that Kirk and Spock were, or would become, romantically involved. Leonard Nimoy was once asked by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath about the prevalence of slash and other sexual premises in fan fiction. He refused to speculate, merely stating that he and Shatner must have done something they were unaware of which caused fans to respond with such ideas.

D.C. Fontana on "Canon Slash"

D.C. Fontana, a prominent TPTB and fan herself, was asked about K/S in May 2016, and replied as follows:

In answer to your question, NO - there were no homosexual double-entendres in the script - at least none that were deliberate. If some viewers chose to read that into the dialogue, etc. that's their point of view, but certainly not ours. Writer Theodore Sturgeon was trying to reveal Spock's inner human in a struggle with what his culture, his upbringing and his half-human/half-Vulcan heritage had instilled in him about emotion and controlling it in an out-of-control situation. It also was a peek into the Vulcan culture that no one had seen before. That's ALL we were doing. I've heard this nonsense (especially about Kirk/Spock) for years. There is no basis to it. I hope this answer is helpful to you.

Numerous blog entries and discussion board contributions enumerate instances of perceived slash in the professionally published Star Trek novels and theatrical films.

See discussion on Controversies Over Slash and Hurt/Comfort.

Did K/S Save Trek Fandom?

Some fans believe that slash in fandom provides a rich premise for creativity, and in fact, can rejuvenate discussion and creativity. In 1984, one famous zine's author said:

I hoped Thrust would make some kind of mark, both as a forum for writing and as a forum for the analysis of the K/S theme…. But it was the K/S theme itself that electrified fandom. As it added a dimension to the relationship between the two men, it added a new and lively dimension to fandom, providing a complex and invigorating idea to ponder, an emotional reference that took fandom by storm. I believe that the K/S theme has played a large part in keeping active fandom alive.

Fan Love for K/S

From 2000:

I don't know why any of you have dropped out of K/S. I do know it can be a very ticklish and time-consuming obsession and I suspect that sometimes the pressure induced by continuing to participate creates too much friction in your lives and you must make a choice. To those of you whose creations I've loved, I want to say how much I miss you. But I also want to tell you not to suffer any remorse for no longer being able to contribute. Think what you've done. Your words will live beyond you; beyond any of us. Ten years from now, twenty, they will thrive. Think of the stories we pick up today that were written in the 70's... close to 30 years ago. Children have been born and raised, schooled and had children of their own since this phenomenon all began. And from each of you who has contributed there is a flower in the garden of life for K/S for Kirk and Spock and what they mean to each other.

From 2014:

Dearest K/S, I love you. There, I said it. 'Twasn't that difficult now, was it? And my initial hesitation to participate in this particular challenge is not your fault - you are perfect, loveable, shining; but putting all the feelings you bring forth in me into a simple love letter takes a certain courage. These three words encompass the total of my fascination with you and with the things that you do to me and make me do. I love you because (at least in TOS) you are so canon that we can hardly speak of subtext anymore. Roddenberry said so. And many others (including the lovely actors who made you breathe and touch and look and smile...) played along so perfectly that I can't believe it wasn't a deliberate choice. I love you because you easily span a galaxy full of genres, tropes and possibilities; you are a world where dramatic angst comes as natural as refined humour, serious topics are as legitimate as weirdest parodies, action-packed mission fics snuggle up to dirtiest porn, and feel-good fluff is as valid as epic hurt/comfort. I love you because you have set a stage so wide and deep that it mirrors the infinity of human experience. I love you because you have inspired people for decades and made them explore their wildest imagination. I love you because you took the philosophy of Trek literally: boldly going where no one has gone before. I love you because you invented slash and exported it to other fandoms, making people see media with different eyes and question their own perception. You even invented gender swap (and I guess I love you even for that, although I am not a big fan of girl!Spock or girl!Kirk). I have heard people say that you were also responsible for the first mpreg story in fandom in general, but I could not verify this so far. I love you because you spawned many, many concepts of Vulcan sexuality and genitalia, among them the beauty that is frals (and with them you stand a good chance of claiming the title of first tentacle introducer in media fandom) and about as many ideas of mind-links, bondings, melding etc. I love you because you let aliens make them do it. I love you because you incited people to break laws (idiotic and hateful laws, but still laws!), so that they could read, write and spread the slashy goodness. I love you because you carry a multitude of AUs and their devices in your canon. I love you because you have brought together people from all over the globe, from all cultures and social classes, uniting them in fannish passion, making them create something that is larger than the sum of its individual parts. I love you because you have your own entry in the OED. I love you because you make me so damn proud of being part of this longstanding fandom, send the craziest plot bunnies to my muse, and constantly let me find something new and squee-worthy about you - no matter how many springs you have seen, how many generations of fen have come and gone. I love you because you have contributed so much to the sheer power of transformative art, and all the while you have transformed us and our world en passant. In unashamed love, yours truly, [L]

From 2023:

Can you imagine having such a burning desire to write for your OTP that you were willing to lose everything over it? Even if you were never caught, you still had to be willing to wait weeks, months, to receive a letter in the mail that you had to carefully intercept, read in secret, and then add your own chapter t, also in secret, and then send off, perhaps never to be seen again.

These people were goddamn heroes, and they laid the foundation for the world we live in today. A world where we can read, write, comment on, or share - in a matter of seconds! - literature about two background characters from two different franchises enjoying a really specific kink involving vacuums or something. And that's objectively amazing.

Raise a toast to our fanfiction elders, who simped in the darkness so we could simp in the light of day.

 

Visibility of K/S

In some ways, Kirk and Spock were always "out" yet never out.

Because of the early objections to K/S (and because it was the first visible slash media fandom), K/S has always struggled to find a balance between being hidden and being 'out' to other fans. The matter of visibility to the mundane world and/or TPTB was to some fans a separate issue; other fans lumped all forms of 'outing' together as equal threats to fandom. (See TPTB).

Early K/S fans would often operate with general fandom as part of a sublayer - while they fully participated in the media fandom community, they often had a parallel and separate second slash life. Zine publishers struggled to find printers who would publish their zines and art, to find conventions where they could openly sell their zines and to find other fans who were interested in K/S. It was not until the 1980s that the first K/S conventions were held. Some Star Trek fan clubs demanded a 'loyalty oath' (swearing they were not, not had they ever been, a slash fan). However, most Star Trek fans turned a blind eye to slash and allowed K/S fandom to operate on the basis of careful screening, segregation and the fannish equivalent of secret handshakes. This may have led to the mentor or gatekeeper practice mentioned by Camille Bacon-Smith in her book Enterprising Women, and the concept of the feral fan who enters fandom without said mentoring.

Once media fandom fractured into multiple other fandoms, which in turn each had their own slash communities, some of the pressure on K/S fandom was removed. But perhaps because of their early experiences in fandom communities, they remained remarkably closed and distrustful of outsiders, long after other fans had moved online and had openly begun talking about and posting slash. In fact, even as late as 1999, K/S fandom viewed the Internet and Internet fans with hostility and fear.

"There has been some recent discussion in The K/S Press about K/S stories on the Internet. Well, due to a recent job change, I was required to purchase a personal computer. I’m not on the net and of course the first thing I did was to go to the Star Trek sites. I was very amazed and shocked to find out how easy it was to locate “slash” and K/S pages on the web. I did not realize how easy it was for anyone, and I mean anyone, to find out about K/S by simply typing in Star Trek on the search page and going to all the sites. And while I admit that it was a benefit to me, since I downloaded many of the stories to my PC, I was more than a bit dismayed that it was on the web so openly. It left a rather bad taste in my mouth...fact that it is now so openly displayed on the web, for anyone to see, will only add fuel to their fire and perhaps threaten our special fandom....I think that if K/S is to survive, it must remain underground...We don’t need any more nails in the coffin. K/S is not for everyone, so it shouldn’t be available to everyone. But it is and I think that is cause for worry."

"I feel I must respond to something [name redacted] said last month; "Keeping K/S underground is tantamount to saying it is something to be ashamed of." I think I know what you really meant, but that comment is so far off base, it's out of the ballpark entirely. I would always like to have K/S kept "underground"—but NOT inaccessible to those who would search it out. Underground to me means not for public consumption—no articles in magazines and newspapers; no stories on TV about it; no common knowledge of it at all. But still available to people who are into fandom. And actually this is how it's been for many, many years—until now. I believe that "outing" K/S completely will prove to be a big mistake. And here's the most important point I would like to make; I am NOT, and I repeat, NOT inferring or referring or implying or saying or meaning or even thinking about wanting K/S off the Net. I hear and understand those who have absolutely no access to K/S or zines except via the Net. I am very glad (and I know you are too) to have found this divine obsession. And I completely understand and accept the role that the Net has had in bringing in more K/S fans—I applaud it for doing so. What I am saying is that full exposure leads to all kinds of trouble, I believe, because it brings in unwanted elements, prying eyes, and people for whom K/S is dirty, disgusting and must be squashed. For those of you who have never encountered difficulties or prejudice of K/S—that's wonderful, but it's out there in force. Even I, who live in Los Angeles, an extremely progressive city, have experienced fear and loathing of K/S...Pre-Net days, one of the biggest worries was if the zine covers were too explicit to display on your zine table. Even though TPTB were lurking everywhere, K/S was firmly underground.

In September 1999, Judith Gran penned an essay on the fears of K/S fandom titled "Censored" where she attempted to demystify Internet fandom by pointing out that K/S fandom has not really been as underground and hidden as the community liked to believe and that these 'new" fans were not posing a risk to the K/S community.

"K/S fandom has decidedly not been "underground" for by far the greater part of its 25-year existence. When K/S literature and art began appearing in zines in the late 1970s, Star Trek fandom was much larger than it is now, and its boundaries were more permeable. Star Trek conventions were vast affairs at downtown big-city hotels and convention centers, attended by members of the general public as well as by dedicated fans. K/S zines were sold openly at these cons, in full view of mundane citizens and the "suits" from Paramount. Because the Star Trek Welcomittee was actively and publicly disseminating zine listings, fans were able to beat a well-trodden path from pro publications to the Welcomittee to K/S zines and fandom.

I can vouch for the fact that Paramount knew about K/S by at least the early 1980s, if not earlier. In April, 1983, I interviewed the lawyer who was in charge of Star Trek copyright matters for Gulf & Western Corporation (which owned Paramount before Viacom) about fan fiction and fair use. He initiated the topic of K/S, and it was clear that he was well aware of its existence and that Paramount had no intention of doing anything about it....When, twenty years ago, anti-K/S fen attacked the publishing of K/S fan fiction "openly" in zines, I'm sure that some of them believed sincerely that this would be the death-knell of fandom. But others just did not want K/S to be published, period, and used every argument they could think of to stop it from appearing in zines. Similarly, I suspect that some of the in terrorem arguments against K/S online may be coming from fans who are unhappy about net fandom and wish it didn't exist at all.

For those who are unhappy about K/S on the net, I agree that net fandom can be scary. It's different from the printfan community. It's larger, more diverse, and like any community, it has its own norms, values and mores. But wishing won't make it go away."

The editors of the K/S Press letterzine refused to print Judith's letter, deeming it too inflammatory for their community. Some fans noted that Judith's letter disagreed with the letterzine editor's argument that K/S needed to remain underground, and, in some minds, the refusal to print the letter only validated Judith's position. The letter was then posted openly to the Internet.

Like all media fandoms, the back and forth debate proved to be moot as the global reach and immediacy of the Internet permanently transformed fandoms and their communities. K/S, like other fandoms, became as visible (or invisible) as any other online activity.

Outsider Reactions

Outsider reactions to K/S and to slash in general vary. Fans often do not distinguish between academics or the press writing about K/S - both carry the same potential (in fannish minds) for ridicule and mischaracterization.

Fan fiction is often synonymous with slash in the press. Non-fans reading these articles could easily receive the impression that all fan fiction is slash.

Press

• Going Boldly with Kirk and Spock (1994)
• Please Captain, Not in Front of the Klingons (1996)
• Luke Skywalker Is Gay? (2000)
• Hobbits Gone Wrong (2004) concerns fan fiction in terms of the Victoria Bitter Wank described in When a Fan Hits the Shit.
• Five Reasons Pop Culture Is Run By Fan Fiction (2011) "As you might anticipate from fans who suddenly realize they have the capacity to mold and shape the universe of their favorite stories, most fanfiction revolves around characters boning one another."

Academia

• Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (1992)
• Pass the Crisco, Spock (1996)

Earliest Use of "K/S" and "Kirk/Spock" as a Sexual Relationship

See Slash Terminology.

Also see The Premise.

Fannish tradition holds that the word "slash" originated with Star Trek: The Original Series fan fiction, when Kirk/Spock was used as the label for a story where the relationship between Kirk and Spock was laced with sexual tension, whether it was acted on or not. This label allowed fans to differentiate those sexual relationship stories from the ones about Kirk and Spock’s friendship, which were sometimes labelled using "&". As fandoms gathered around new films and television series, the / mark became common as an indicator of a sexual relationship between same-sex characters.

Klangley explained:

The term "slash" was *not* in use in the 1970s or early 1980s. The virgule was. It has always been used in fandom, as a form of shorthand, to denote relationships--heterosexual, same-sex, romantic, sexual, friendship. For example, Juanita Salicrup wrote a Spock/Christine series and Mary Louise Dodge wrote a Kirk/Uhura series. By the mid-seventies there was a growing subgenre of stories about the friendship between Kirk and Spock. These were usually referred to as Kirk/Spock stories or Kirk/Spock relationship stories. When "the other kind" of story began seeing publication, in order to distinguish between the two types of stories, people started referring to those as K/S stories. That designation took a while to become common usage, and for the first few years there was still some confusion, as people referred to Kirk/Spock friendship stories as both that and as K/S stories. Eventually it settled into its current usage.

Not all fans were familiar with the term. This fan in 1992 wrote:

Some general comments of "Slash" — the symbol "/". (Note: The slash in writing is formally called a virgule or diagonal). I must be some sort of square or whtever [sic], never — not even once — having read or heard about this [See "SLASH" by Karen Ann Yost, SNW issue #2]. It is a free country and everyone can, at least theoretically, say or write what he/she pleases (the proper use of virgule or slash). [...] I would think science/ficton [sic] readers/fans (S/F: another use of the symbol) would not like their heroes being used in this facetious fashion.

Terms like gen and het arose to distinguish these types of stories from slash. Although heterosexual narratives can of course be explicit on the level of an R, X or NC17 rating, they were more acceptable than slash at that time. Labeling a story as slash could provide a warning of criminal risk as well. In the early 1970s, any literature depicting homosexuality, even if not explicit, was considered pornography in most states (see Slash Controversies#Illegality of Slash) and illegal to be sent through the U.S. mail.

These are some uses of "K/S" and "Kirk/Spock" as they specifically referred to a sexual relationship, though even that can be hard to untangle:

• "Kirk/Spock" from a review by Connie Faddis of Grup #4 in the letterzine, The Halkan Council #12 (Nov 1975) ("Diane Marchant wrote an article on the Kirk/Spock homosexual love affair premise that's been buzzing around fannish conversations for at least a year.")

• "Kirk/Spock" from an ad for The Sensuous Vulcan, printed in Stardate: Unknown #2 (1976) ("It's going to include a Kirk/Spock pon-farr-in-the-cave-story (first of a series) by Gayle F that will knock your eyes out."

• "Kirk/Spock" from a review for Contact #1, printed in Spectrum #23 (February 1976) "The best aspect is its concept...the exploration of the Kirk/Spock relationship. (If that isn't clear to you, you are probably a Klingon and shouldn't be reading this anyway.) This is a fantastic field, one of much interest to many of us...")

• "Kirk/Spock" from an ad for Thrust in Scuttlebutt #2 (July 1977) ("An exploration of the erotic/sensual side of Star Trek. Focus has narrowed to center on one multi-faceted theme: the Kirk/Spock sexual relationship.")

• "K/S" from the editor in R and R #5 (November 1977) ("In most of the K/S stories we've seen, the authors seem to want to eat their cake and have it too — to turn the relationship into a relationship of sexual intimacy without dealing with the quite fundamental changes this new closeness would impose.")

• "K/S" from a fan in R and R #5 (November 1977) ("Basically, I am against it for other logical reasons. Most important of all, if we accept a Kirk-Spock homosexual love affair (hereafter called K/S), we are saying in effect that the only way two people can have a close, caring relationship is with sex.")

• "Kirk/Spock" from a letter by Susan J. Bridges in Obsc'zine #2 (1977) ("I am not trying to attack a Kirk/Spock sexual relationship in general.")

• "K/S" from a review (author not credited) of Obsc'zine #1 and #2 in Time Warp #1 (1977) ("Also, if the K/S homosexual relationship does not thrill you, be forewarned that many of the stories in the first two issues of OBSC'ZINE were oriented in that direction.")

• "Kirk/Spock" from a submission request by Ellen Kobrin for Companion #1 in Scuttlebutt $5 (Jan/Feb 1978) ("This zine will trace the development of the Kirk/Spock relationship from its beginnings. The editors view the relationship as a warm and loving and acknowledge the validity of physical expression of that love. If you have any hangups about physical intimacy between members of the same sex do not read Companion.")

• "K/S" from a review by Ellen Kobrin in the fanzine Turbolift Review #1, printed in Scuttlebutt #6 (Apr/May 1978) ("It’s heavy on the K/S relationship, and will delight K/S fans. Not X-rated, nothing you wouldn't let your mother read, though mine did.")

• "K/S" from the editorial in the letterzine, Not Tonight Spock! #1 (Jan 1984) ("We hope NTS will become a place for all K/S fans to share thoughts, ideas and opinions concerning our 2 favorite guys as well as a place one can drool over what’s available and what’s proposed in K/S zines.")

Influential K/S Works

For a full listing of K/S fanfiction on Fanlore, see Category:Star Trek TOS K/S Fanfiction. For K/S Art documented on Fanlore see Category:Star Trek TOS K/S Art

Zines and Fanfiction

The Price and The Prize 2nd edition (1986), artist is Gayle F

The Price and The Prize, 1st edition (1981), artist is Gayle F. Most copies of this zine coming into Britain were seized by Customs because of the explicit content. Note: This image has been marked as sexually explicit and has been minimised.

• A Fragment Out of Time by Diane Marchant (1974)
• Alternative: An Epilogue to Orion by Gerry Downes (1976)
• A Brief Moment of Light by Tracey Alexander (1976)
• Shelter, by Leslie Fish, came out in Warped Space 20; the sequel Poses was printed in Obsc'zine #1 in 1977.
• Desert Heat, a (novella) written and illustrated by Gayle F in The Sensuous Vulcan in 1977
• Mahko Root #1 publishes a single K/S story; the second issue in 1978 contains six of them
• Thrust, the first K/S-only fanzine, published in 1978 by Carol Frisbie. At the time, it was considered to have a shockingly explicit cover (by Gayle F).
• Naked Times, a K/S anthology zine that eventually had thirty-two issues, publishes issue #1 in 1978.
• Between Friends by Gayle F, believed the first published threesome, a Kirk/Spock/McCoy story, printed in Obsc'zine 3 in 1978.
• The Rack by J. Emily Vance (1977), a novel-length story that attempted to refute K/S.
• Nightvisions by Susan K. James and Carol Frisbie, one of the first K/S novels, pub'd in 1979. Kirk is blinded, and Spock decides to leave Star Fleet to be with him. Beautifully illustrated.
• The Price and The Prize, published in 1981, 141 pages of the most scorching fiction fandom had read up to that time, published and illustrated by Gayle F. (Most copies of The Price and the Prize coming into Britain were seized by Customs, even the trib (contributors') copies. )
• T'hy'la, the longest-running K/S anthology zine, first published in 1981.
• First Time, a K/S anthology zine that eventually had over sixty issues, published issue #1 in 1984.
• Courts of Honor by Syn Ferguson, a huge, novel-length zine by Syn Ferguson, published in 1985, with a K/S storyline but featuring a number of secondary characters and romances as well as an intricate political plot. Sequel to The Price, the first story in The Price and The Prize.

Here is a list of Kirk/Spock_Zines. Also see Category:Star Trek TOS Slash Zines. Also see: The Foresmutter's Bibliography of Early, Early K/S.

Fanart

• [listening to your first officer's heartbeat is totally logical] by lupeymoony on Tumblr
• [its those little moments] by penncilscratchins on Tumblr
• [Oh, to see without my eyes] by dontdierobb on Tumblr
• K/S Calendar by Liz Liz made at least two calendars, which a fan described in an issue of The K/S Press.

Non-fiction

• NOME 8, K/S anthology zine with occasional articles, published Joanna Russ' "Another Addict Raves About K/S" (which Russ later publishes in one of her own books.)
• Universal Translator, was an adzine with occasional reviews. Fans would circle zines they wanted desperately to buy much like kids used to circle toys in the Sears Christmas Wishbook.
• The Footnote: An Explication de Texte, a 1980 article, was an awe-inspiring step-by-step refutation of the idea that Roddenberry's footnote in the novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture disproves K/S.
• A Logical Look At Amok Time, by K'Sal, circa 2003, an essay that argues that K/S is 'subversively' written into the canon in this episode.

Letterzines/Reviewzines

• Not Tonight Spock! (June 1984-Winter 1987)
• On the Double (November 1986-January 1996)
• The LOC Connection (January 1989-December 1993)
• Come Together (January 1994-August 1996)
• The K/S Press (September 1996-present day)

Vids

screnshot of the viral youtube version of Closer

• Both Sides Now -- the first fannish songtape created by Kandy Fong ~ 1980
• Total Eclipse of the Heart -- vid by Caren Parnes ~ 1991
• Dante's Prayer -- vid by Killa ~ 1996
• Closer -- pon farr vid by Killa and T Jonesy ~ 2005
• Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps -- vid by Killa ~ 2007
• Justify My Love -- vid by T'Gin ~ 2007

Online Fandom

For much of K/S history, K/S fans have participated in fandom through conventions, fanzines, and other offline spaces. However, K/S fans have also found and created spaces to gather online since the very beginning of online fandom.

Usenet

• In 1982 net.startrek was created as one of the first 20 or so newsgroups. As part of the Great Usenet Renaming, it became rec.arts.startrek in 1986.
• In 1990, alt.startrek.creative appeared. Soon after, alt.tv.star-trek.tos started, and almost from the start, the k/s-ers and gen fans pushed back and forth. One prominent k/s fan got tired of the same arguments being used against k/s over and over, and created the K/S Retort sometime after 1990.
• In 1996: Killa (as Killashandra) posted "Turning Point", the first attributed K/S story on the internet, to alt.startrek.creative.
• In 1998, the Rude Person meme began on Alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated, which resulted in a group of K/S parody stories written in various styles and dialects.

Mailing Lists

• KirkLovesSpockFic
• KirkSpockCentral
• The Kirk/Spock Zine Review Mailing List

Archives and Challenges

• The Kirk/Spock Fanfiction Archive accepts both TOS and AOS stories
• All Ages Kirk/Spock Archive
• Kirk/Spock Advent Calendar - 2002 - 2017 (allowed both TOS and AOS fanworks)
• K/S Valentine - 2010 - 2016 (allows both TOS and AOS fanworks)
• K/S Big Bang - 2012 - 2014 (allowed TOS, AOS, and RPF fanworks)
• Kirk/Spock slash on Fanfiction.net, a Star Trek: TOS community archive
• T'hy'la Bang (2013 - present) welcomes TOS, AOS, and mirrorverse

Social Media Groups

• The Kirk/Spock Slash Community on LiveJournal was created in 2006, and is still active in 2019, with posts about fanfic, zines and KisCon. Its tagline is "Boldly slashing since 1966!"
• The Kirk/Spock Slash Community on Dreamwidth dates back to the launch of DW in 2009. The most recent posts are from 2014.
• Now defunct: KirkSpockSlash network on the social media platform grou.ps: founded in October 2011 by Kelli Bastet, closed in September 2017.
• Kirk/Spock Forum on Slack
• Kirk/Spock- Poetic/Slash/Art is a Facebook group that dates back to 2010, and is still active in 2019. It describes itself as "a place where we can share the love of the very first slash pairing."
• Spirk.OTP: a Facebook group that was active between 2011 and 2015
• Spirk: A Kirk/Spock Facebook group active between 2013 and 2015

Awards

• In 2023, the relationship won 1st place in the second MLM Ship Bracket Tournament out of 32 entrants.

Further Reading & Meta

• for a full listing of K/S Meta on Fanlore, see Category:Star Trek TOS K/S Meta
• Kirk Loves Spock by D. Trull (1999)
• Kirk and Spock: The Straight Story by Gamin Davis argues that Kirk and Spock are not in a sexual or romantic relationship (early 2000s)
• Where No One Had Slashed Before by Killa (2004)
• The Simple Feeling and Beyond: Kirk and Spock’s Place in Queer History, ^{Archived version} (2015)
• When a Man Loves a Vulcan: The beautiful history of Spock and Kirk's unrealized lust. (2017)

Please, Captain. Not in front of the Klingons.

References

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