Yeah, sure, I was not presenting it as some ideal, merely an example how societal expectations affect these things.
Spoilers 1st openly gay character.
- Thread starter steam235
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In areas where stigma drops due to lack of other options (prison, mining camps, boarding school, etc), men have traditionally engaged in same-sex activity who otherwise engaged in opposite sex relationships. It shows I think in a culture without homophobia someone who was basically into the opposite sex at least wouldn't think much more about hooking up with the same sex than any other kind of "settling." Thus if Tom Paris is trying to get lucky at a bar, and all the women go home, he'll just start working on the men.
I don't think humans are as naturally flexible in terms of their romantic attractions though. Most people report having romantic attractions (crushes) for the first time several years before adolescence and anything resembling a sex drive.
Sorry to disappoint, seems it was just my overactive imagination, was convinced I had read it somewhere....
All the gays on tv now is just a agenda the vast vast majority of people arent Gay or Lesbian, I honestly don't like seeing it and am very comfortable about my sexuality.
Yes, obviously. And "all the gays on tv" being like, the handful of openly gay characters out of the hundreds of thousands of straight ones.
I think in terms of 'Discovery' Stamets will be portrayed just going about his research, carry around that chip on his shoulder, and when he is in the presence of his significant other they might look all cosy and.. wink, wink, nudge nudge, just act like a boring couple. Most of the thrill in the few relationships Star Trek does is from the chase. Tom and B'Ellana finally getting together. Beverly and Picard - will they or won't they? That type of thing. Established couples kind of blend into the background, and I'm not speculating that it is because he is gay that Stamets might get unadventurous stuff in the romance scenes. Or he might surprise us and crack a smile when he's with his man, which wouldn't be a bad thing. These Discovery guys are pretty serious.
Uh, Miles and Keiko, Ben and Kasidy, Nerys and Odo?
Blush, not a DS9 fan ..
But add them on.
Sorry, but none of those were "hot" chases.Blush, not a DS9 fan ..
Got to have a chemistry thing with a naughty sense of seduction. That works for me. If that is not there it isn't so titillating. Like Seven and Chakotay, although two good looking people didn't really fire.
I thought the relationship between Dax and her ex-wife was well done, for the time. There was some allegorical taboo, but it wasn't related to their gender.
I dimly remember some people over-reacting to the fact that "Michael" is usually a masculine name, and reading all sorts of silly theories and agendas into that . ....
Nonsense. Besides the fact that the whole "agenda" thing is ridiculous, since when are all characters on TV supposed to represent only the "vast vast majority"? God forbid that anybody should have to see something on TV that doesn't reflect their own personal experience! Believe it or not, most of us straight people are not offended or bothered by seeing gay characters on TV. Nor do we think that TV exists only to serve as a mirror for ourselves. Hell, one of the great virtues of fiction (including science fiction) is to allow us to temporarily walk in someone else's shoes, be they straight, gay, or some permutation thereof.
Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, remember? Not "only the majority matters."
Plus, honestly, I don't know what world you live in, but modern TV does reflect the modern world. I'm not not going to play statistics games, but, personally, my friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors include both gay and straight people in plentiful quantities.. That's not an agenda: that's reality.
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Agreed. It wasn't a "thing".
Also, it was also hard enough sitting through soap opera subversion stories like "Yesterday's Enterprise" when so much of the story was devoted to Yar and Castille wanting to play temporal tango with each other when there was a whole backdrop of war and alternate timeline intrigue of much greater interest going on, so I'd hope STD doesn't repeat the same snafu. Granted, the idea behind YE was probably to build up viewer interest in what amounts to a tragedy but, again, Picard is pretty much reflecting the audience in how none of their relationship made any coherent sense (never mind they're polluting the timeline, should Yar be captured somehow and gives out information... which is why Sela is actually a compelling and very original character, but by then it was season 5 and she got completely squandered and turned into Looney Tunes comic relief.
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Very true and agreed. Which is the same reason I'd also like to see more ex-gay/ex-lesbian style characters appear as well.
Either gay or straight or bi or people who distanced themselves for varying reasons, etc, etc, or any other personality type, let's see IDIC to its fullest potential and not as empty caricatures with no point to the story. Even Yar's return, pedestrian as it was at times, suited one of TNG's better-acclaimed stories.
Have you watched a lot of English shows? They tend to suck at romance, totally ignoring the need for onscreen chemistry and buildup. They just write characters as being into each other, and we're supposed to believe it.
Or model of the Alamo? I guess that means you're already married, or a bit socially malajusted. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I would spend time with plants.
Nobody will forbid you to be heterosexual. But I might add, in that putative future society, the way humans will deal with procreation and parenthood would have evolved so much that the heterosexual couple model would have been redefined, at the very least.
Also, just to be historically accurate, it was heavily codified (older bearded man with younger, clean-shaven man) and undoubtedly stemmed from men's desire to have intelligent pillow talk in a misogynic society that refused to educate women or see them as potential equals in any respect. I bet hardcore homos were indeed in trouble in Ancient Greece as well.
Congratulations. The next step is to get less uncomfortable once out of your comfort zone. I won't comment on the word "agenda" and how hostile it may sound. This has already been addressed.
Be interesting to see how Discovery examines this, (procreation). Saru has already indicated his people are 'designed' to be well.. designed, (sense death in his case). I would hazard a guess though that basic procreation between humanoids though open to manipulation, would still be fairly traditional biologically.
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