How can Vulcans experience love in a relationship?

[Myasishchev]

^Spock went to Romulus for the chicks.

You know, I wonder, did anyone ever write a novel or something where he ran into the commander from "Enterprise Incident"?

As a part of the Pon Farr ritual. I don't think they would approve of killing or raping random people.

I don't think they would approve of it, either. But I think it is a mistake to say that their attitudes toward it are entirely identical, given that the biological bases of their society are different. Forcible violation of a female in order to escape the vicissitudes of pon farr may be considered justifiable, just as in our legal system forcible violation of a house in order to escape deadly weather is considered justifiable. Alternatively, it may be merely excuseable. Even our own legal system, despite its understandable unfriendliness toward rapists, might recognize an excuse defense of diminsihed capacity if experts testified to the severe mental deterioration occasioning complete loss of will and reason during the plak tow. Further, the implied element of intent contained in the crime of rape should be lacking.

Considering that deterrence could not be effected given the conditions of pon farr, and that criminal punishment is not logical outside of a deterrence framework, I actually find it harder to believe that Surakian Vulcan would punish a male in heat with criminal sanctions. Civil sanctions--court orders requiring support of any resultant offspring, and perhaps tort trespass damages, would be superior mechanisms for restitution.

I think it's important to remember that rape laws, while well-justified today as necessary for the protection of the individual's choice and dignity, were not originally quite so noble in their intentions, and this innovation in morality is comparatively recent--mere decades old.

The original intent of rape laws is most notably demonstrated in the texts of disgracefully drafted laws that defined rape as a possibility only when the perpetrator was not a husband. Rape as a crime historically arises from the needs of the reproductively unlimited sex to protect the access they have won, by hook or by crook, to the reproductively limited sex. That women don't actually tend to like rape was, at best, a secondary concern to the foundational common law of rape.

From this perspective, combined with the more modern moral need to pair an intent with an action in order to impose criminal culpability and hence sanctions, the Vulcan analogue to "rape" as understood under the old patriarchal paradigm might well be the seduction of innocent, mentally-diminshed males undergoing pon farr by unscruopulous females, at the expense of the males' lawful mates.

 

[Rackon]

I doubt the sexual morality of humans would apply to creatures that would literally die without getting it on. Take the mitzvah that Jews can't eat pork, for example--virtually all Jewish sects recognize that if necessity dictates a Jew to eat pork, this is a morally acceptable outcome, because the life of a Jew is more important than anything else. This flexibility in morality recognizes that the nature of life is to live, and no law can effectively prohibit life seeking continued existence. The same applies to the common law and its adoption of principles of self-defense--even if we made an ethically defensible decision that the law should not accept a self-defense justification, biology would make it completely impossible to successfully enforce!

Thus, I doubt Vulcan morality attaches any significant approbium to a pon farr-sufferer who, bereft of his mate, takes whatever action necessity dictates. Perhaps Vulcan morality goes even as far as tolerating rape. It would certainly tolerate necessary masturbation.

How would you know that?! This is all speculation, and with some very strange conclusions. "Perhaps Vulcan morality goes even as far as tolerating rape"?! Yes, perhaps Vulcans tolerate rape, perhaps they tolerate murder. Only, not likely. Vulcans are peaceful people, and all their stoicism and adherence to logic and suppression of emotion is aimed at stopping them from becoming violent. We were told by Spock that they also use meditatation in order to stop their violent tendencies during Pon Farr.

Spock, on his part, has shown himself as very strict in his - and presumably Vulcan - morality: "It is not right for a woman to serve a man who is not hers". He has a problems with accepting soup from Chapel since she is not his bethroted... But you want to convince me that this doesn't extend to sex and he'd have absolutely no problem accepting sex from her?

What would be the point of arranged marriages, anyway, if they are only getting in the way of a person in Pon Farr achieving release?

Now I have speculated, too, and my interpretation is that this is exactly the reason why they have arranged marriages and the mental bonding - for a simple reason, so that Vulcans would not mate with about anyone available when they are in Pon Farr. Bonding is a way to ensure some social order to the reproduction. Otherwise, things might get messy, and Vulcans might have children with who-knows-who, including non-Vulcans.

But I don't know if they exactly counted on people like Spock, Vulcans who prefer to live far away from their home planet and far away from any other Vulcans. One thing is certain: Spock's behavior in "Amok Time" was incredibly stupid. Did he really expect T'Pring to sit and wait for him, while he was away from years with no intention of coming back, and might have even never returned if it hadn't been for Pon Farr? Spock is one screwed-up half-Vulcan.

Dosn't seem like very good planning, does it?

One thing to speculate about might be how long periods aboard starships would affect hormonal cycles.

Even here on earth, crossing datelines can wreak havoc on delicate hormonal balances - I know, I've experienced this personally. Travel can change a woman's cycles, either inducing early menses or oligomenorrhea (skipping periods).

One wonders how the hormonal triggers of pon farr were affected by space travel.

As for Spock, his onset of pon farr was apparently so long delayed that he had hoped - due to being half human - he might avoid it entirely.

And I agree about arranged marriages. The only place we get much speculation about the origins of Vulcan mating rituals is in Spock's World, which is interesting reading, but nor canon.

Something I've not seen discussed - perhaps I have not searched far enough back in the threads - are the erotic ramifications within a sexual relationship between two touch telepaths. I can tell you, the erotic possibilities certainly occurred to me, a long time ago. LOL.

EDIT:
Myasishchev, forgive my inqusitiveness, but are you by any chance a lawyer or an academic when you're not posting on the internet?

 

[USS Triumphant]

What about gay Vulcans?

Bear in mind that I say this as a strong advocate for Human gay rights...

There is no room in the logic of the reproductive process for homosexuality. The hardware is what it is. Therefore, one would presume that betrothals would be arranged between one male and one female. The bonding that would occur in betrothal would insure that Pon Farr occurs between bonded pairs, and would thus always be straight.

None of that is to say that a bonded couple would live together or consider each other as a married couple would - one or both might prefer the sexual companionship of their own sex outside of Pon Farr. However, I doubt that even if they did that it would matter much, since I believe that most Vulcans would find spending much in the way of time and resources on any sex - gay or straight - outside of reproduction to be illogical. (I would offer the evidence that Kirk got laid every other episode, and Spock canonically got busy once, or arguably twice, in the entire TOS/Movie run.)

 

[Myasishchev]

EDIT:
Myasishchev, forgive my inqusitiveness, but are you by any chance a lawyer or an academic when you're not posting on the internet?

Law student. Gotta go right this second, I'll reply substantively later.

Because ten thousand words on Vulcans humping just isn't enough.

 

[Rackon]

EDIT:
Myasishchev, forgive my inqusitiveness, but are you by any chance a lawyer or an academic when you're not posting on the internet?

Law student. Gotta go right this second, I'll reply substantively later.

Because ten thousand words on Vulcans humping just isn't enough.

Too true!!

I eagerly await your response. And I'd love to know how you chose a Soviet aircraft designer for your nic.

Elements! When do you find time to post, write and draw? (Are those not your drawings for Revenge?)

 

[Myasishchev]

^They are. I have plenty of time now because I'm on vacation. That ends, with some regrets but mainly just inertia, in eight days--counting today (it's 11:20 ).

Myasishchev is just a name I've used off and on for various purposes--I chose it specifically because I think it's just a beautiful word, brimming with a lot of those funny Russian phonemes you don't see much of in English, and because A reference to Vladimir Myasishchev is esoteric enough that even in online games I wouldn't need a number.

I like "Rackon," too. Don't know if it's from something, but it's got a nice sound.

 

[Xelo]

My apologies if this has already been referenced:

I think of Spoks's mother and father - where Spok's father married his mother as the "logical" thing to do for his position as Ambassador. It may not have been true love at first, but grew into a mutual love for each other.

And of T'Pol and Tripper - There was a mutual attraction from the start, but not necessarily love, at least on T'Pol's part, but her addiction to the Terrilium could have changed everything, especially her ability to expereince and enjoy the emotion of love.

 

[DevilEyes]

My apologies if this has already been referenced:

I think of Spoks's mother and father - where Spok's father married his mother as the "logical" thing to do for his position as Ambassador. It may not have been true love at first, but grew into a mutual love for each other.

Says who?

Do you really believe that Sarek did not love Amanda (and why would you think that?!), and that he was so cold that only wanted to marry and spend his life with a human - and put himself through the trouble of having an interspecies relationship and a hybrid child, something that the Vulcans do not seem to look upon favourably . as some sort of experiment?! Or that Amanda would want to marry a man who did not love her? Why would she want to do that?! It is ..not logical. Not logical at all.

Even if you decide to ignore STXI, you have no basis for that conclusion apart from a very literal interpretation of Sarek-s line in Journey to Babel. And even if he was 100% truthful... Come on... Vulcans use "It is logical as a catchphrase, in every possible situation. Whatever they did, they would say "It was the logical thing to do" (whether it actually was or not). O course Sarek would use that line, and it gives one the advanrage of not having to explain further.

And really - why would you think that "It was logical" suggests that he did not love her? I think it is logical, if you are going to get married, to marry someone you are in love with. What could be more logical than that?

 

[Myasishchev]

Folks, this is "fascinating".

I've wondered for years why GR and the writers of TOS saddled the Vulcans with pon farr. It's often felt like a mere gimmick to me, but it's completely inescapable now. We are (and the Vulcans are) stuck with it.

D C Fontanna has said Vulcans can mate anytime, but that they must mate during pon farr. For Myasishchev especially, what is the evolutionary purpose of pon farr in such a long lived race?

Well, in my view, the dominant life form on any world is likely to be a K-strategy creature, and Vulcans are the K-strategist par excellence.

Definitions here:

A K-strategy organism is one that has "chosen" ("choice" is of course a misnomer in an impersonal, chaotic system like evolution) to invest in the quality of its offspring, instead of its quantity. K-strategy life tends to be larger, smarter, and better-adapted to an environmental niche than creatures on the opposite end of the quality-quantity spectrum, r-strategists. R-strategists produce vast numbers of offspring, each of whom have an individually low chance of reaching maturity; K-strategists produce few offspring, each of whom have an individually high chance of reaching maturity. R-strategists on Earth include rabbits, flies, sea turtles, and angiosperms; K-strategists include elephants, tortoises, and humans.

Pon farr, at least a pon farr that limits Vulcan virility, strictly enforces a K-strategy, which makes great sense on a harsh, ecologically marginal world. Any sapient creature is almost certainly going to take years to raise to a productive adulthood--large numbers per female cannot be well-cared for. This is why, even though a human female could theoretically reproduce up to maybe thirty or forty times in their life, human females tend not to come within even an order of magnitude of this limit today, and perhaps never came too much closer on the average, given the vast risks of childbirth for a biped of our body plan. Even a weak r-strategist like a cat, by contrast, will have over a dozen children on average--because it takes so much less of a cat's life and energy to raise a child to adulthood.

Essentially, pon farr makes good sense as a throttle on reproduction, even forcing a period of time between successful matings that would permit the uninterrupted care of a single offspring until he or she is old enough to fix at least their own breakfast.

As you say, it's important to remember that Vulcans are so extremely long-lived! If pon farr began at, say, 21, and went on till, say, 161, the limited Vulcans male is already theoretically capable of producing twenty children--a similar number to the theroretical maximum of the limited human female, a maximum few ever approach. Equally important, a feral Vulcan male would undertake reproduction without any of the great risks a feral human female would take to bring a child into her own harsh world; this means that even with a seven year gap, it's totally possible that the average historical virility rate on Vulcan is actually higher than the average historical fertility rate on Earth.

And...lest we take too strictly a determinist view ...let me also ask you this:

What about gay Vulcans? (Please fee free to ignore canon and slash in this discussion.) Cultural taboos aside, one would expect Vulcan sexuality to be at least as complex as human.

Well, unfortunately I again have to disagree with Tri. Although the research on the issue is still ongoing, and my own knowledge is spotty, my uninformed opinion on the subject is that homosexuality, a perennial phenomenon in the natural world, probably does bring with it an evolutionary advantage. My own thoughts on this revolve around the possibility that homosexuality reduces intragroup conflict by removing males from the competition for females, and that the mechanism for this is a universal gene for male homosexuality that is triggered by hormonal differences in a mother who has had multiple male pregnancies. I believe there's some studies that corroborate this effect, but I'm too lazy to look them up at the moment.

Female homosexuality I find harder to theorize about, and although I guess it could serve an analogous function, reducing female versus female competition, I don't see why that would be selected for, since FvF competition isn't clasically as violent and need not be as intense, since human males are effectively unlimited in their ability to inseminate.

As far as rape goes, the highly ethical Vulcans regard any encroachment or forcing of oneself on another person - be it mind or body - as abhorent. We are told that that Vulcan in modern times is a peaceful, non-violent, low crime society. That seems highly "logical" to me.

Indeed, and premeditated rape would no doubt be punished. However, it is illogical to punish when no punishment could possibly deter the act. There is a weak argument that punishment could deter any given Vulcan male from getting himself into a situation where his plak tow would lead him, inexorably, to force himself upon an unwilling female--this is the argument that is made to defend statutory rape laws and other laws that do not have an intent element, implied or express--but personally I don't find that this argument holds much water.

 

[roarimaraptor]

I don't have the knowledge or the vocabulary (don't want to sound like a newb ) to join this conversation but I am finding it fascinating. Please continue.

 

[PSGarak]

Well, unfortunately I again have to disagree with Tri. Although the research on the issue is still ongoing, and my own knowledge is spotty, my uninformed opinion on the subject is that homosexuality, a perennial phenomenon in the natural world, probably does bring with it an evolutionary advantage. My own thoughts on this revolve around the possibility that homosexuality reduces intragroup conflict by removing males from the competition for females, and that the mechanism for this is a universal gene for male homosexuality that is triggered by hormonal differences in a mother who has had multiple male pregnancies. I believe there's some studies that corroborate this effect, but I'm too lazy to look them up at the moment.

Female homosexuality I find harder to theorize about, and although I guess it could serve an analogous function, reducing female versus female competition, I don't see why that would be selected for, since FvF competition isn't clasically as violent and need not be as intense, since human males are effectively unlimited in their ability to inseminate.

Also, bear in mind that research on human sexuality has demonstrated that human sexual preference falls on a continuum, not into a strictly either/or category. People who self-identify as straight will still have physiological responses in varying degrees to stimuli involving same sex pairing, and those who self-identify as gay will also have responses to opposite sex stimuli. Some people fall pretty distinctly into the middle, and they are not just "confused" as some people seem to believe.

Sexual preference and behavior is as much a social phenomenon as it is a biological one. I would think that female homosexuality also has some social advantages as a way of bonding and for child rearing. There is nothing that prevents a gay woman from reproducing just because she's not particularly stimulated by males. The "grandmother effect" greatly increases a child's chance of living to adulthood. Perhaps there is a similar effect when there is a bonded pair of mothers.

As to how this might apply to Vulcans, it's harder to say. True, from a Vulcan standpoint, one might argue that experiencing sexual attraction and attempting to mate with one of the same sex isn't logical, but if the drive is on a fundamental biological level, as in a brain architecture issue, would logic have much say? Once the gay Vulcan was in pon farr, telling him/herself it wouldn't lead to offspring wouldn't matter. He/she would be biologically driven to culminate the act, and if there is a telepathic element to it that is necessary, I would think another Vulcan of the appropriate sex and bonding would suffice.

 

[T'Girl]

At the age of 7, Vulcan children go through their first Pon Farr. They aren't physically mature, so the primary sexual component is absent, but the psychological component is there, and Vulcan parents arrange a betrothal at that point that creates a psychic link between their two children. There may be no contact between the children after that point until their next Pon Farr - although I suspect that in most cases, there is at least some acquaintance.

Always seem to me the betrothal would not take place until after the young boys take their little walk in the desert. The marriage is only after they prove they can survive.

The pon farr, while naturally on a general seven year cycle, for Spock was triggered when T'Pring was ready to ovalate, even with Spock light years away. The same way Spock heard the crew die in "The Immunity Syndrome", he feel T'Pring - go into heat - , the distance was the reason he thought he might be spared, not because it wasn't time (he had to know it was about time) but because they were so far apart.

Arranged marriages are usual inside some kind of group. Money, power, religion, village or family. It a way of keeping the outsider outside.

I wonder if Spock and T'Pring were cousins.

Supressing emotions isn't the same as not having them, if they feel love and just keep it all inside, maintain an external calm, then the love is still there

As others had noted, marrage isn't always about love. It is cultural stability, building wealth, providing for children, becoming a link in the social structure.