Vulcans & Premarital (Pre-Ponn Far?) Sex

I was reading about Vulcans and I stumbled upon this blurb from D.C. Fontana, a writer from ToS:

"Vulcans mate normally any time they want to. However, every seven years you do the ritual, the ceremony, the whole thing. The biological urge. You must, but any other time is any other emotion—humanoid emotion—when you're in love. When you want to, you know when the urge is there, you do it. This every-seven-years business was taken too literally by too many people who don't stop and understand. We didn't mean it only every seven years. I mean, every seven years would be a little bad, and it would not explain the Vulcans of many different ages which are not seven years apart."

This got me thinking about whether or not Vulcans have any objections to sex before their first Ponn Far, and more specifically if they are permitted to have sex before the Ponn Far ceremony with people besides their chosen mate (they are connected before the ceremony telepathically after all).

Any thoughts?

 

Spock's fiancé T'Pring had a boyfriend on the side named Stonn, of course. I've come to suspect that Sarek had an extramarital affair with Amanda whilst he was with Sybok's mum. She may have even done a desperate outrage to herself, once she found out. Perhaps she came home early, one afternoon to find Sarek and Amanda in bed, together. The bedroom doors hissed apart, as she peered within and stated without emoting:
"Oh, Sarek. That's not even original."

 

In the litverse there are some Vulcans who are quite liberal, they don't care much for permissions or Vulcan standards. Vulcans I have seen onscreen were mostly by-the-book.

 

Read DC Fontana's novel Vulcan's Glory. Sex is only logical.

 

In New Frontier, Selar says about the negative aspects of having children, some of which would make many consider not having any however it is illogical to let ones species die out, so pon farr is a time when logic is forgotten about and the mating urge is strongest for the propagation of the species.

 

Except for T'Pol.

 

Maybe. I'm not a Enterprise fan. Partly because of T'Pol. She's definitely different than Spock and Tuvok.
(Short stories involving her were fine on the other hand. )

The there is T'Ryssa Chen, who is only half . After a long period of antipathy I came to like her better.

 

If you don't care about cultural taboo, the only logical reason not to have sex is concern over disease and unwanted pregnancy, two problems more than solved in the 23rd and 24th century.

At least, (According to DS9) both partners would have to forget to take their monthly birth control injection.

 

HA. I love this image... so very 'Days of Our Vulcan Lives.' I'm curious... I've recently re-watched Amok Time and I didn't necessarily implied they had already been together, only that they wanted to be. Maybe I'm being naive not to read more into it?

 

It seems clear that T'Pring and Stonn had already been seeing each other for some time even before "Amok Time" took place. It definitely didn't seem like they'd just met...I mean, Spock had been out of the picture for quite a while, plenty of time for T'Pring to meet Stonn and develop a relationship with him.

 

Ohhhh, any other suggestions?

 

The Vanguard novels. There is one certain female Vulcan character I came to like....

 

With that title, and sex being involved, I'm getting worried......

 

Nope, I don't like DC's explanation. Seriously: "I mean, every seven years would be a little bad." Yes, having sex only once every seven years would be bad for most HUMANS. But Vulcanians aren't humans. I say let them be alien. Let them have a strange sexuality.

My view that Vulcanian males only have sex during their Pon Farr. They must return to a specific place on the planet Vulcan to complete this ritual. I think we tend to focus only on the seven years cycle and completely forget that the place is just as important as the time. The entire premise of Amok Time is based on this.

The only thing known to disrupt that seven year cycle is stated in "The Cloud Minders" which is "extreme feminine beauty". So there may be rare occasions when the seven year cycle is disrupted, but for the most part it's the rule.

 

If Vulcans only had sex every seven years it would not explain how many humans fall in love with them. No human is waiting that long.

It also biologically does not track, why would such a reproductive limitation evolve in any species?

 

I really don't think I agree... if only Vulcan males go through Pon Farr, that leaves the females on Vulcan high-and-dry. They just have to wait? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The sexual urge is not an emotion - its along the same line as hunger. It wouldn't really make sense to repress sexual urges as long as the time and place to express them were logical.

 

That's a great observation. First the lines in "the Cloud minders says the seven year cycle "is biologically inherent in all Vulcans." So if "all Vulcans" includes females, then no issue. If it is only referring to males then we can deduce that, prehistoric Vulcanians or even Sargon's People were polyanderous. If Vulcanian gestation is similar to Humans(aka nine months) that means that a female would be able to mother children from nine different Vulcanian men within the seven year cycle.

This means that, Vulcanians developed monogamy, enforced through telepathic bonding, and male ownership of the females; later as a means to control the sexuality of women. However, biologically Vulcanian women (achem T'Pring) would be much more capable of infidelity.

 

Whoa, dude, I'm sorry. I'm a little punchy at the moment, and it was a stupid joke. Upon actual thought given to the matter, it's definitely not appropriate. I'm sorry, just carry on here.

 

I don't know. If the pon farr cycle can be over-ridden by "extreme feminine beauty," doesn't that basically translate to "Vulcans only have sex every seven years--or when they meet someone hot."

So Vulcans can also have sex when, er, they're attracted to someone? That sounds logical, not to mention broad enough to cover most sexual encounters.