Sexuality in K/S Fiction: Anal Intercourse

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Title: Sexuality in K/S Fiction: Anal Intercourse
Creator: Linda Frankel
Date(s): July 1986
Medium: print
Fandom: Star Trek: TOS
Topic: anal sex, masculinity, Vulcan Mind Meld, Fanfiction, Kirk/Spock
External Links:
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Sexuality in K/S Fiction: Anal Intercourse was a installment of Linda Frankel's regular column, "Sexuality in K/S Fanfiction," which appeared in Not Tonight, Spock! #13.

first page of essay

This essay has a sequel called Sexuality in K/S Fiction: Anal Intercourse Prolonged er uh Continued which is in issue #14.

The article discussed whether anal intercourse/degree of pain, and its portrayal as the grand finale sex act. Our “... culture subscribes to the belief that fucking is the only sex that counts…. [T]he idea that penetration is the central sexual act is common in K/S. Everything else is seen as foreplay….”

Topics discussed masculinity, power, violence, submission, rape and non-consent, misogyny, Vulcan genitalia, equality, sex roles, and mindmelds as she discussed a number of K/S stories.

The Essay References

The Series

For the seven other essays in this series, see Sexuality in K/S Fiction.

Excerpts

The use of lubrication to ease penetration is fairly common in K/S stories. Rimming or analingus is one method of lubrication when no other is available. This is moistening the anus with saliva from the partner's tongue. The act is highly enjoyable and stimulating in itself, and was quite popular among gay men in an era when AIDS wasn't a concern. Now, like anal intercourse itself, it is unsafe sex. But Kirk and Spock aren't faced with the threat of AIDS, so they are free to engage in a wider range of sexual activities without ontoward consequences. Spock is shown rimming Kirk in ALTERNATIVE 2 by Gerry Downes. According to Gerry, it is unnecessary for Kirk to reciprocate because the anal passage of a Vulcan lubricates automatically. As is pointed out in ALTERNATIVE 2, this implies that nature approves of Vulcan males being fucked even if Vulcans themselves don't. Vivienne Rivers provides Spock with the Vulcan attribute of a convenient automatically lubricating cock in "Those Who Favour Fire" (THE VOICE 2). This certainly would improve matters for anyone fucked by a Vulcan.

Alexis Fagen Black's innovation in "Echoes" (NAKED TIMES 1) is to give Vulcans internal testicles which descent through a hole located where the scrotum would be in humans. Thus Spock has a hermaphroditic quality in this story.in that he can fuck and also be fucked without changing position. Both men and women can be entered through the rear, but among humans only women have frontal genital orifices. So Alexis is giving Spock a psuedo-vagina.

It ought to be pointed out, however, that someone who is feeling tense or has some degree of ambivalence about being penetrated is likely to have a tense sphincter muscle as well. The whole body tenses up in such a state. Kirk is often shown having trepidations about being fucked that first time. If he's nervous, no wonder it hurts. The most sophisticated writers have Spock or Kirk, if he is the penetrating partner, probe the sphincter before entry. Such a probe can tell a partner whether the sphincter of the other is too tense to proceed. There are ways to relax it by massage, or by alternately clenching and releasing the muscle. Progressive relaxation can also be achieved by exercises involving penetration by larger and larger dildoes [sic]. This is especially useful when a particularly large cock needs to be accommodated. Never once have I seen an uptight Kirk or Spock doing sphincter muscle exercises to improve responsiveness in a K/S story. Though in "Fantasies" by Beverly Sutherland (NOME) Kirk reveals that he knows that being fucked is enjoyable from having been fucked by a female prostitute using a dildo. The issue of a large cock possibly being painful is also brought up by Kirk in "Fantasies" when he says, "You might be bigger than a dildo, but you won't hurt me more, or give me less pleasure." This story is about as sexually sophisticated as I have ever seen in K/S.

Some stories have Kirk believing that being fucked is humiliating, and therefore not an OK thing for him. If you think about it, this premise is misogynous because the underlying assumption is that it's perfectly fine for women to be humiliated by being fucked but not for a superior male being like Kirk. A related idea is that being fucked injures masculinity. The most extreme manifestation of this occurs in "Romulan Code, Romulan Regrets" by Jessica Daigneault (DARING ATTEMPT 3). in this story. Kirk isn't even willing to be fucked to save his own life because he is sure that it would make him less than a man. The implications again are that 1) this is the way women usually are treated sexually and 2) women are inferior to men. Therefore 3) a man who gets treated the way women are sexually is himself inferior in his own eyes, and the eyes of other men. it shouldn't escape the reader that Jessica's tale takes place in a prison. This constellation of attitudes is known to be typical of the mentality of male pr Prison hierarchy places those men who are fucked in the same category as women which also places such men at the bottom of the power pyramid due to the belief that women are inferior.

So why does this culture also subscribe to the belief that fucking is the only sex that counts? Is it only because fucking leads to reproduction? Well, that doesn't apply to anal intercourse. Yet the idea that penetration is the central sexual act is common in K/S. Everything else is often seen as foreplay as I pointed out in my first article for this column. The most explicit statement of this idea that I've seen in K/S is in BROKEN IMAGES when Confederation Spock reveals that anal intercourse was the only sex act he had ever performed with Confederation Kirk. He defined fucking as sexual intercourse. As far as he was concerned, there is no other kind. When you link the idea that only fucking counts to the idea that fucking is a violation, you come up with the premise that all sex is violent. This is what people who want to censor pornography believe. This is also what Vulcans believe, according to Spock in ALTERNATIVE 2.

If all anal intercourse is a violation, then it makes sense for a willing act of penetration to be an atonement for rape. We see this attitude in action in BROKEN IMAGES and the Mirror story "Enslaver Enslaved" by A.T. Bush (DARING ATTEMPT 3). In the latter, Spock had had Kirk raped and systematically abused in order to break his spirit. He exculpates his guilt over this by allowing Kirk to fuck him. In BROKEN IMAGES, Spock is atoning through being fucked for one act of rape alone, and it was triggered by jealous rage rather than having been a cold-blooded and premeditated attempt at behavior modification as in A.T. Bush's tale. Nevertheless, I find the idea that consenting sex can pay for rape offensive. They aren't, in fact, the same thing even if cultural attitudes say that they are. Anyone who has been raped knows the truth of the matter.

Can we get beyond the philosophy that sex = violence? I believe that K/S does get beyond this equation. The Vulcan mind link is a very important factor in this. We will explore this and other issues next time.

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