Why k/s is not canon to me (and why I don't mind)

Meta
Title:	Why k/s is not canon to me (and why I don't mind)
Creator:	Unicorn
Date(s):	2010
Medium:	online
Fandom:	Star Trek: TOS
Topic:	K/S
External Links:	online here, Archived version
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Why k/s is not canon to me (and why I don't mind) is an essay by Unicorn that was posted on The Kirk/Spock Fanfiction Archive.

An essay written in response is Why We Believe K/S is Canon (A Refutation Essay).

Excerpts

Reading quite a few fanfictions and essays on the subject of a romantic involvement between our favourite leader of men :-) and his first officer, I would like to contribute my own opinion about it. I do not want to dwell too long on the many scenes, looks and sentences that k/s fans interpret as signs or proofs for an underlying affair respectively love story between Kirk and Spock, I guess all of you know them rather well. What I would like to do is emphasize the reasons why they are not a couple, and why I believe some fans have brought up the idea and keep to it for so many years now. Most of you will probably not share my point of view but are more likely to resent me for it; please try not to. I merely want to add my own argumentation to a subject that has already been discussed for such a long time, and by so many people.

Roddenberry himself stated that he had created the Spock character as a being ascetic and asexual, and this matches the fact that he is Kirk’s opposite, seeing that his captain is a bit of a bon vivant. I can’t recall one single occasion where Spock was in his “normal” state of mind and psyche and in love, or engaging in sexual activities of any kind. He falls in love with Leila and Zarabeth, and obviously feels attracted to Droxine and to a Romulan female commander we don’t even get to know the name of, but he never lays the foundation to a real commitment; to Droxine, he says openly that his Vulcan sexuality is repressed and only active every seven years. And in “Mudd’s Women” this was already proven by the fact that Spock is the only male on the whole ship on whom the three women’s spell has absolutely no effect.

The concept of k/s mirrors a whole lot of our dreams: it says what many, if not most of us would like to share with a partner. We wish to be so close, to mean so much to someone, to be loving and being loved with all our faults and weaknesses. Torn between our own wishes and expectations of the most different kind - family, friends, school and university, religion, media - we are stressed and often overwhelmed by, we ardently long for someone we can really trust, who believes in us and helps us develop our real self. “Gay or straight” isn’t the point: a woman may well imagine that if someone, male or female, turns out to be the right one to complete you, be always by your side and love you unconditionally, your outlook on the parameters your sex partner ought to fulfil can shift. (Mind you, this is an experience I made myself a few times in my life.) Even if we assume that, as the Kinsey rate says, we all are bisexual and that our orientation may vary in our lives, to a man, going so far as to understand bisexuality is by far more difficult, which is why most men will shake their heads about the mere idea of slash. Men often feel proud about their manhood even if they are not at happy with it, following the line of thought “Well, at least I’m not like one of those gay sissies.” But a female may simply ask herself why two men whose love lives were notoriously ill-fated should not search comfort and warmth near the one person who is the closest to either of them anyway. Another rather common dream among females is the wish to share everything with the one they love, including a professional life that is not only fulfilling to both, but gives them a mutual aim and sense in life. Men tend to separate private and professional life, emotion and sexuality; to a woman, on the contrary, usually it feels perfectly natural that these things intertwine. Thus, imagining the two main officers of the starship being together as a couple also fits into the picture.

And then again, why not. Star Trek in itself is an alternative timeline; it is placed in a fictitious 23rd century, a time and place when on Earth there are no wars, no one must suffer from hunger, almost all sicknesses can be healed, men and women are equal, and people of all races can come and work together for a mutual aim: there is no guarantee that our future will indeed look like that, although many like to believe it. Just the same, fanfiction is a universe all of its own. And some stories come from very talented writers, who pour their inventiveness, experiences, thoughts and feelings into their stories, often painting amazing pictures. I have read more than one that made me laugh, others that made me cry, others that made me dream; some held a message for me that made me think for quite a number of days. I do not believe in soulmates or karmic relationships (well, I don’t deny them outright, but if they do exist, I do not believe that they are a guarantee for lifelong love and happiness), life made me too sarcastic for that I’m afraid. But I still do love stories patterned upon fairy tales, where everything turns out all right when you can at last be with the someone in whose eyes you find yourself, and vice versa. Fanfiction is another parallel universe and can mean just as much to the viewer, reader respectively writer. And k/s stories are a place where someone like Spock can experience more happiness, while someone like Kirk has the chance to deepen and mature enough for a close, tight bonding based upon commitment.

Reactions and Reviews

I grew up with Star Trek TOS. For over 40 years I never thought about Kirk and Spock as a romantic couple. I only became a believer that it was possible they were "in love" with each other as more than friends, brothers, comrades, devoted to each other without reservation, in the past year, essentially since the new movie came out and I began to explore what was on various websites about it. That search eventually led me to this and other K/S sites, including YouTube fanvids. And I was convinced there was much more between them, as Roddenberry intended but did not dare show too blatantly. Bottomline, whether in my original estimation of them as just two people who cared deeply for each other with no sex or two people who cared deeply for each other with sex, it doesn't really matter to me. In the end, however you want to define "the end" since I'm not sure these two will ever have an "end", they built a long-term, complex but satisfying relationship we'd probably all like to have, with a member or the opposite sex or not, sexual or not. And that intrigues me, probably for the rest of my life. I can just see it now, someday I'll be in a nursing home, still cruising the K/S websites for more stories because it makes me happy.