Where No Man Has Gone Before (article)

News Media Commentary
Title:	Where No Man Has Gone Before
Commentator:
Date(s):	May 4, 2009
Venue:	online, Newsweek
Fandom:	Slash, K/S
External Links:	Where No Man Has Gone Before
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Where No Man Has Gone Before is an article for "The Daily Beast," the online Newsweek magazine.

It discusses the history of slash fandom and interviews several fans.

See More

In 2009, Shelley Butler was interviewed for the article "Where No Man Has Gone Before." While only a small portion of her remarks were used in the printed article, the entire transcript was printed in The K/S Press #154. Excerpts can be see at Newsweek Interview with Shelley Butler.

Some Excerpts

The anonymity and immediacy of the Web have allowed slash to thrive online, with Internet communities springing up around "Lord of the Rings" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," to name just two of many. "Harry Potter" characters are also a current favorite, although every fictional character imaginable—from "Dawson's Creek" through Marty McFly and Doc from the "Back to the Future" movies—has appeared in slash fiction. But the remarkable thing is that even though characters and series often fall in and out of slash's favor, mirroring the fickle tastes of popular culture, K/S has been thriving consistently for almost 40 years.

K/S writer "Charlotte" gravitated toward Kirk and Spock specifically because "It's the perfect recipe for a great love story. You have two radically different people from millions of miles apart whose lives fit together perfectly." Charlotte, who identifies as bisexual, also cites Spock's fish-out-of-water, half-logical-Vulcan, half-emotional-human heritage: "In an early episode when a virus makes everyone reveal their innermost feelings, Spock says to Kirk, 'When I feel friendship for you, I am ashamed!'" But despite that tension, she says, Kirk tells Spock, "You are closer to the captain [Kirk] than anyone in the universe" in the final episode of the original series, when he's trapped in a woman's body and trying to convince Spock of his identity. "That's a great friendship story," Charlotte says. "If you add a sexual element to that, it becomes a great love story, and some of us see that sexual element." Shelley, who asked not to use her last name, has been writing K/S and producing K/S artwork for "about 20 years." She attends many sci-fi conventions (including the Southern California-based Escapade, the self-proclaimed "longest-running annual slash convention in the U.S.") and is a beloved member of the K/S community. "I don't think I have ever belonged to a more diverse group," she says, adding that she's befriended women from around the globe and of all ages (slash's diversity doesn't extend to gender: surveys have found that the majority of K/S writers and consumers are heterosexual women).

Mainstream "Star Trek" fandom hasn't always accepted K/S. Shelley recalls being asked years ago by convention organizers to stop selling her artwork at their event, apparently because it depicted two bare-chested men holding each other in an erotic way: "I was surrounded by people selling all kinds of sexy artwork, but because of the content of my drawings, I had to take them down." Mark Anbinder, a coordinator of STARFLEET, the International Star Trek Fan Association, as well as "a founding member of USS Accord," the Ithaca, N.Y., chapter of the same organization, isn't interested in slash himself, but he does understand it. "Even if it would never occur to some viewers that these characters could be lovers," he says, "there was an obvious bond between them that everyone could see." Shelley believes the romantic relationship between Kirk and Spock was "written into the show." Charlotte is less sure, noting that Gene Roddenberry reportedly believed Spock was asexual. Anbinder thinks it was more pragmatic: "Roddenberry was a really open-minded guy, but he also knew a good thing when he saw one."

Reactions and Reviews

Having read the very abbreviated version of Shelley‘s Newsweek interview, I was extremely pleased to be able to see the entire thing, which would have been an amazing tribute to K/S had it been run in its entirety. You represented us well, Shelley, in either adaptation! I love that you explained so well that it isn‘t just the sexual aspect of a relationship between Kirk and Spock that attracts us and keeps us hooked for decades. It‘s the love, the romance and strong emotional ties between them that has kept K/S alive and well for so long. It was great to read your unwavering conviction that K/S was written into the series. I hadn‘t read that quote from Gene Roddenberry where he said they never suggested physical love in the series but the affection was sufficient for that and there were love overtones. Deep love. I won‘t argue with that; I‘ve held that belief for some time. As you also told the reporter, many women came up with K/S totally on their own without having ever heard of its existence. That‘s proof enough for me.

I loved your interview for Newsweek: well thought out, very clearly and concisely presented. You make a terrific spokesperson for K/S. It‘s too bad they didn‘t print the whole thing in the magazine.