I Know It's Awful, But What Is It?

Meta
Title:	I Know It's Awful, But What Is It?
Creator:	Bonita Kale
Date(s):	1991 or 1992
Medium:	print
Fandom:	Star Trek: TOS, slash
Topic:
External Links:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

I Know It's Awful, But What Is It? is a Star Trek: TOS essay by Bonita Kale.

The essay was reprinted in Charisma #15 with the introduction:

This is an article written and first published in The Ansible, Cleveland, OH , which I thought would interest readers. I reprint it here in the LOC column with the permission of the author, Bonita Kale. The editor of The Ansible said Bonita had succeeded in making 'that stuff sound like 'Mom's Apple Pie'.

The Article

If you've heard about K/S (pronounced kay-ess) and wondered what the devil it is, here's your chance. Simply put, K/S is Star Trek fan-written fiction in which Kirk and Spock are lovers.

Yes, of each other.

A whole lot of people react to that idea with the same word — "Whaaat?"— said with either a horrified grimace or a delighted grin.

The grimacers are really bugged by K/S. "Oh, you read That Stuff?" they say. Or, in a tone of righteous indignation: "But friendship doesn't have to lead to sex!

And of course, they're right. Friendship doesn't have to lead to sex. Galactic exploration doesn't have to lead to Harry Mudd, either. This is fiction. folks. And fiction says, "What if?"

"What if someone stole Spock's brain?" "What if McCoy leaped into the past and changed history?" K/S says, "What if Kirk and Spock become lovers?"

Star Trek derives a good part of its enduring life from the deep friendship between Kirk and Spock. The K/S premise takes off from there. Why not?

And yet, stories have been written in which Kirk quits Starfleet, or falls for a Klingon, without causing as much hand-wringing as does the idea of his falling for his altogether admirable First Officer. It's as if people are saying, "Make him a traitor, make him a fool, but for God's sake, don't make him gay!"

Then there are the grinners, the people who hear about K/S and want to see it, and then want to see more, or write it themselves. Who are they?

In race, religion, age, education, and sexual orientation, K/S fans vary all over the map. What they have in common is that they're almost all women and that K/S speaks to them, for reasons they don't always understand. The writers don't get paid, and the readers spend the price of three or four romance novels for one zine. What do they see in K/S, that ordinary romances don't offer? Endless discussion has led to a few clues. For one thing, suppose you'd like to read about love between (a) true equals and (b) true heroes. Think hard. Some of Barbara Hambly, maybe? Some of Diane Duane and Marion Zimmer Bradley. That's about it. Oh yes, and K/S.

Second, K/S combines Leslie Fiedler's powerful "male" and "female" American myths — the two men in the wilderness (Huck Finn and Jim, the Lone Ranger and Tonto), plus the celebration of home and family (Uncle Tom's Cabin. Little Women). Kirk and Spock, exploring the wilderness together, become family to each other Many men don't understand why the Kirk-Spock friendship and emotional closeness should be 'distorted' into sex. But for a many women, emotional closeness and sex are two halves of a whole; thoughts of one lead naturally to thoughts of the other.

And K/S stories do frequently (not always) include sex. But more than naked bodies,the stories focus on naked spirits, open to each other and intertwined. The body acts out what happens in the mind and the heart. That's why this kind of "porn" can include thirty pages of talk or mind-melding, and hold the interest of its readers. That's what the readers want — not just to see Kirk and Spock without their clothes, but to see them without their emotional armour.

In these stories, they can take off that armour, protected by the love they share. The depth and permanency of the relationship make a safe place where shielding isn't needed, as, ideally, marriage does in real life.

And marriage is in the end what K/S is about. K/S is a fantasy of ideal marriage; romantic, humorous, telepathic; including joint goals and deep friendship; and cemented with an eternal and exclusive bond. K/S celebrates the eroticism of monogamy.

For the people who read it and write it, that's endlessly intriguing.

Fan Comments

This article by Bonita Kale is in the LOC section [of the zine, "Charisma"]. It's a reprint from something I don't know. This is a nice discussion about why women like K/S. She says we like it because it's very romantic, and she, also, gives other reasons. She down plays the sex. (I like the sex best!) I recommend this article.