the thin-gay line

[Captrek]

The J’naii weren’t gay, they were genderless.

I’ve always thought it would have been cool to encounter a truly “gay race.” Imagine the Enterprise encounters a world where the the people are gay. The reproduce in laboratories. The family unit, which is a bedrock of their society, consists either of one or more boys being raised by two fathers who teach the boys how to be men, or one or more girls being raised by two mothers who teach the girls how to be women.

But here’s the deal: Only 90% of their people are really gay. 10% are straight. The straights are denounced by the dominant religion on the planet, which teaches that heterosexual sex is animalistic, vile, and sinful, while homosexual bonding is spiritual and holy. The straights are pressured by the majority to “change their lifestyles,” give up their sinful ways, and live as gays. Straights are scorned and often targeted for violence. They do not get many of the basic legal rights that gays take for granted. “Reparative therapy” is offered to “cure” them. And so on.

Just to give viewers a brief opportunity to imagine what it would be like being on the other side, you know?

Have you watch the episode? The J'naii were an homosexual society that evolved into a genderless one over time given the lack of need of gender. 10% of the population still identify themselves as a specific gender which is define as vile and sinful and endup in "reprogramming".

I watched the episode. And later had a long conversation with several co-workers who are both Trek fans, and gay. Their take on the episode is that it is a commentary on how gays are treated in most cultures in the world today, a point of view not only shared by the writers of the episode, but one they were deliberately commenting on. Yes, that's right, the writers of the episode stated in interviews that the point was to comment on how gays are treated in today's world. A little heavy-handed, but something Star Trek has been doing since the very beginning.

Well no duh. It’s obvious they were trying to comment on atypical sexuality and prejudices and discrimination related thereto. But they copped out by creating a world where the “conventional” sexuality, the “deviant” sexuality, and even the sexual anatomy and biology of reproduction were alien to us. That kept it much more distant and allowed viewers to watch the episode without having to connect it to the real world. I would rather have seen it as a world where the conventional and deviant sexualities were homosexuality and heterosexuality, but the roles are reversed from the real world.

 

[DevilEyes]

But literally gay characters are pretty scarce. The writers never had the guts to really pull the trigger on Garak (that had to wait for novels). Having female characters in the MU be bisexual doesn't count, considering the utter gutlessness of that approach. Let's have some male characters in the MU be slobbering all over each other. Even better, how about having gay characters who aren't in the "evil" universe. Relegating gay characters only to the MU sends a really nasty message.

The conversation between Mirror Garak and Mirror Worf had hints of that ("At least I was able to please the Intendant at times..." "You're not my type"), but nothing in Mirror universe really counts as far as I'm concerned. I agree that it really wasn't a good idea to make "evil" characters in Mirror Universe bisexual or lesbian, while their "good" counterparts in the prime universe were heterosexual. That's one of the main reasons I disliked the MU episodes in DS9. Apart from conforming to worst kind of Hollywood stereorypes and involving Unfortunate Implicarions, it also just doesn't make sense to have characters from alternate universe have different sexual orientations. And that is just a part of the problem - the characters in DS9 MU were just not convincing as alternate or dark versions of the characters we knew. The Intendant is not a darker side of Kira Nerys, she is a completely different character played by Nana Visitor.Compare this to Mirror Spock - he really seemed like he could be what Spock could turn out like in different circumstances. I have to say TOS did its MU universe episode so much better.

Besides, Garak never even mentioned her after the episode in which she died or acted like her death affected him in any way.

What did you expect? Ziyal’s death wasn’t exactly the first time Garak lost somebody he cared about. Garak had lost everyone and everything he ever had, and he learned to cope without wearing a “woe is me” countenance or lamenting all that was gone. Eventually he even learned to do it without a cranial implant mucking with his endorphins. It seems to me he dealt with Ziyal’s death the same way he dealt with everything else he had lost.

Andrew Robinson didn't seem too convinced:

Robinson's novel is structured as a letter from Garak to Dr. Julian Bashir - his best friend and longtime breakfast companion on Deep Space Nine. Much fan fiction about Garak speculates that his feelings for Bashir went beyond the platonic relationship depicted on television, a belief Robinson does not refute. Indeed, in A Stitch In Time, Garak has crushes on both men and women.

"I loved that sexual ambiguity," Robinson states. "I wanted to get away from our sexual prejudices. I thought, this is an alien! Who knows what alien sexuality is, if indeed there is strict heterosexuality or homosexuality, those delineations? That's something that I kept in the book. Though that was more interesting to me in the playing of Garak than the writing of it; this book is for kids too, so I chose not to get more explicit sexually because of that."

Interestingly, the book scarcely mentions Dukat's daughter Ziyal, Garak's onetime lover, who was murdered by Damar when he believed she had betrayed Cardassia. "The reason for that is that the writers never got that right," sighs Robinson. "They had three different actresses playing Ziyal, and when Garak comes back and finds out that Ziyal has been killed, basically it's, "Well, that's too bad," and he moves on with his life."

Near the end of the series, Garak and Damar worked together without any conflict over Damar's murder of Garak's love. "So I figured, what the hell. I guess he didn't care as much as one would have thought." Was the romance with Ziyal an attempt to heterosexualize Garak because the writers got nervous about the Bashir/Garak dynamic? "Probably," admits Robinson. "It never really developed. There was never really any investment on their part."

http://www.littlereview.com/getcritical/trektalk/robinson.htm

 

[RobertScorpio]

But literally gay characters are pretty scarce. The writers never had the guts to really pull the trigger on Garak (that had to wait for novels). Having female characters in the MU be bisexual doesn't count, considering the utter gutlessness of that approach. Let's have some male characters in the MU be slobbering all over each other. Even better, how about having gay characters who aren't in the "evil" universe. Relegating gay characters only to the MU sends a really nasty message.

The conversation between Mirror Garak and Mirror Worf had hints of that ("At least I was able to please the Intendant at times..." "You're not my type"), but nothing in Mirror universe really counts as far as I'm concerned. I agree that it really wasn't a good idea to make "evil" characters in Mirror Universe bisexual or lesbian, while their "good" counterparts in the prime universe were heterosexual. That's one of the main reasons I disliked the MU episodes in DS9. Apart from conforming to worst kind of Hollywood stereorypes and involving Unfortunate Implicarions, it also just doesn't make sense to have characters from alternate universe have different sexual orientations. And that is just a part of the problem - the characters in DS9 MU were just not convincing as alternate or dark versions of the characters we knew. The Intendant is not a darker side of Kira Nerys, she is a completely different character played by Nana Visitor.Compare this to Mirror Spock - he really seemed like he could be what Spock could turn out like in different circumstances. I have to say TOS did its MU universe episode so much better.

What did you expect? Ziyal’s death wasn’t exactly the first time Garak lost somebody he cared about. Garak had lost everyone and everything he ever had, and he learned to cope without wearing a “woe is me” countenance or lamenting all that was gone. Eventually he even learned to do it without a cranial implant mucking with his endorphins. It seems to me he dealt with Ziyal’s death the same way he dealt with everything else he had lost.

Andrew Robinson didn't seem too convinced:

Robinson's novel is structured as a letter from Garak to Dr. Julian Bashir - his best friend and longtime breakfast companion on Deep Space Nine. Much fan fiction about Garak speculates that his feelings for Bashir went beyond the platonic relationship depicted on television, a belief Robinson does not refute. Indeed, in A Stitch In Time, Garak has crushes on both men and women.

"I loved that sexual ambiguity," Robinson states. "I wanted to get away from our sexual prejudices. I thought, this is an alien! Who knows what alien sexuality is, if indeed there is strict heterosexuality or homosexuality, those delineations? That's something that I kept in the book. Though that was more interesting to me in the playing of Garak than the writing of it; this book is for kids too, so I chose not to get more explicit sexually because of that."

Interestingly, the book scarcely mentions Dukat's daughter Ziyal, Garak's onetime lover, who was murdered by Damar when he believed she had betrayed Cardassia. "The reason for that is that the writers never got that right," sighs Robinson. "They had three different actresses playing Ziyal, and when Garak comes back and finds out that Ziyal has been killed, basically it's, "Well, that's too bad," and he moves on with his life."

Near the end of the series, Garak and Damar worked together without any conflict over Damar's murder of Garak's love. "So I figured, what the hell. I guess he didn't care as much as one would have thought." Was the romance with Ziyal an attempt to heterosexualize Garak because the writers got nervous about the Bashir/Garak dynamic? "Probably," admits Robinson. "It never really developed. There was never really any investment on their part."

http://www.littlereview.com/getcritical/trektalk/robinson.htm

Hooey...I went to that site you linked to and, as usual, some of it is a bit TOO much PC. And I mean, specifially, Downy Jr in Tropical Thunder. Al Sharpton saw the movie, after being invited to see it by Ben Stiller, and he liked it. He liked it because there is a real black character who is bringing up the issue all through the movie.

Sharpton, someone who I sometimes agree with, liked it and thats good enough for me...

Rob

 

[DevilEyes]

Hooey...I went to that site you linked to and, as usual, some of it is a bit TOO much PC. And I mean, specifially, Downy Jr in Tropical Thunder. Al Sharpton saw the movie, after being invited to see it by Ben Stiller, and he liked it. He liked it because there is a real black character who is bringing up the issue all through the movie.

Sharpton, someone who I sometimes agree with, liked it and thats good enough for me...

Rob

TV Tropes is like Wikipedia - everyone can edit it and add their own examples, and other might disagree with it in the next paragraph, people may edit out stuff others have posted and put it back in, etc.. But I don't know another site with a good list of "TV Tropes", if you do, please tell...

see the page on DS9: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine

and Star Trek in general: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StarTrek

 

[Destructor]

Well no duh. It’s obvious they were trying to comment on atypical sexuality and prejudices and discrimination related thereto. But they copped out by creating a world where the “conventional” sexuality, the “deviant” sexuality, and even the sexual anatomy and biology of reproduction were alien to us. That kept it much more distant and allowed viewers to watch the episode without having to connect it to the real world. I would rather have seen it as a world where the conventional and deviant sexualities were homosexuality and heterosexuality, but the roles are reversed from the real world.

Err... I think that'd be a little on-the-nose, like the episode where they went to the planet where gender roles were reversed. I think Trek works best when making open-ended analogies, not specific parallels.

 

[Therin of Andor]

O'Brien?!? No, he's probably borderline homophobic.

In my experience, some homophobic people eventually reveal themselves as being homosexual. The public homophobia is part of their personal coping mechanism.

Bashir, I don't know. He might be bi.

Maybe in the future more and more people will identify as bisexual; that claiming to be on only one side of the fence is eventually seen as too limiting of the human experience? Especially if that universe is filled with humanoid and non humanoid aliens who are also sexual beings?

 

[Chrisisall]

In my experience, some homophobic people eventually reveal themselves as being homosexual. The public homophobia is part of their personal coping mechanism.

I think it's a coping mechanism for their potential bisexuality myself.
I don't believe in natural sexual delineations.
Except where Judzia Dax is involved. Whoah.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

Maybe in the future more and more people will identify as bisexual; that claiming to be on only one side of the fence is eventually seen as too limiting of the human experience?

Well, to be honest, I do believe all people are at least partly bisexual. However, there's a difference between being able to appreciate the attractiveness of a man as a man, or putting a dick in your mouth.

 

[Chrisisall]

or putting a d*** in your mouth.

Ummm...is that PG?
Just askin'.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

I always find it funny when people try to find the gayness in trek where it doesn't exist. I agree that it's a shame society and the studio weren't more open to having realistic gay characters but I think it is a bit ridiculous to read all this gayness into every little look and piece of dialogue in the show.

Just to be clear, I am not at all against there being gay characters, I just wish people would stop inventing them where they never existed.

^ This. Other than Garak being bi, or omni-sexual or just out to do whatever it takes to get what he wants sexually and manipulate people, it just wasn't happening other than in people's minds. I think adding some gay characters might have been interesting, actually.

If Trek was on TV today there probably would be some gay characters. But in the time period these shows were made, it wasn't viewed as acceptable for a 'family' audience. Which is silly, but just a fact. Only Enterprise could have gotten away with it, around the time it was on attitudes about gays were starting to SLIGHTLY relax in the usa... but they didn't choose to do it.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

While Bashir certainly felt more comfortable with his relationship to the Chief, O'Brien always had some problems admitting it to himself or anyone else.



Bashir and O'Brien in "Explorers" (Season 3)

O'Brien: "You're not an in-between kind of guy. People either love you or hate you."
Bashir: "Really?"
O'Brien: "I mean, I hated you when we first met."
Bashir: "I remember."
O'Brien: "And now..."
Bashir: "And now?"
O'Brien: "Well... Now, I don't."
Bashir: "That means a lot to me, chief, it really does."
O'Brien: "And that is from the heart! I really do... not hate you anymore."



Bashir and O'Brien in "Hippocratic Oath" (Season 4)

O'Brien: "Keiko only spends a few days at a time on the station. I'm the one living in those quarters. And if I wanna set up... a little workshop in the bedroom..."
Bashir: "You set up a workshop in the bedroom?"
O'Brien: "Yeah. I don't use it when she's visiting."
Bashir: "No, of course not."
O'Brien: "She says that I'm trying to live like a bachelor again. That I'm expressing a subconcious desire to push her out of our quarters."
Bashir: "Now, that is ridiculous! I mean, if anything, by spending your free time in the bedroom, a place you intimately associate with Keiko, you're actually expressing a desire to be closer to her, during her absence. It's quite touching, really!"
O'Brien: "Exactly! Exactly! See, you understand! Now why can't she see that? Why can't she be more like, uh..."
Bashir: "More like...?"
O'Brien: "Err, um, a man, more like a man."
Bashir: "So. You wish Keiko was a man."

Relationships and friendships are complicated things. "Oh, that means they're gay or bisexual" is, in my opinion, a lazy way of looking at it. Love does not always- indeed, often- mean sexual love. I see nothing here that indicates any sexual feelings between O'Brien and Bashir, and I never saw anything in the show. Bashir and Garak, yes, but they're different species, and each finds the other an object of fascination anyway. That's the key difference, I would say. O'Brien and Bashir are friends. Friendship can go very deep. Garak and Bashir are mirrors into one another, and one another's (cultural) experiences. That lends itself to a sexual subyext more easily.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Well no duh. It’s obvious they were trying to comment on atypical sexuality and prejudices and discrimination related thereto. But they copped out by creating a world where the “conventional” sexuality, the “deviant” sexuality, and even the sexual anatomy and biology of reproduction were alien to us. That kept it much more distant and allowed viewers to watch the episode without having to connect it to the real world. I would rather have seen it as a world where the conventional and deviant sexualities were homosexuality and heterosexuality, but the roles are reversed from the real world.

Err... I think that'd be a little on-the-nose, like the episode where they went to the planet where gender roles were reversed. I think Trek works best when making open-ended analogies, not specific parallels.

Not to mention that the reversed-gender-roles episode showed no actual awareness of the complexities of gender roles and gender attitudes, reduced the issue to shallow, unrealistic idiocy and generally served as a wallbanger. Do we really want to see homosexuality suffer the same treatment?

 

[Red Ranger]

Definitely saw it in Garak. The first time he meets Bashir, he puts his hand on his shoulder and says, "I'm so glad to have made . . . such an interesting friend!" Closet Gay Cardassian code for, "I want to be your special friend!" -- RR

 

[Captrek]

Well, to be honest, I do believe all people are at least partly bisexual.

Well, to be honest, I know of at least one person who isn’t: myself.

I have never felt even the slightest sexual attraction to another man. (I can recognize attractiveness in other men, but it’s “I wish I could look like him,” not “I wish I could be with him.”) I have no desire to be with a man, not even curiosity. I actually find the thought rather repulsive.

This isn’t homophobia. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with homosexuality, and I am a strong advocate for gay rights. It just isn’t for me.

Where did you get the idea that people like me don’t exist?

Now that I have told you that I exist, do you think that I am lying to you, or that I am fooling myself, or can you accept the fact that I am a 100% pure hetero, which you just said doesn’t exist?

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Maybe you should start that topic either in Misc or TNZ. Not really a topic for GTD. Let's discuss Trek, not other posters.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

or putting a d*** in your mouth.

Ummm...is that PG?
Just askin'.

Oops, just realized this isn't in TNZ. Sorry.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

It's allowed under board rules here as well. Just as long as you aren't flaming anyone.

 

[RobertScorpio]

It's allowed under board rules here as well. Just as long as you aren't flaming anyone.

and we must always insure safe sex is practiced on this site.

Rob

 

[Shawnster]

How about an entire gay race, the J'naii: http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/J'naii

The J’naii weren’t gay, they were genderless.

I’ve always thought it would have been cool to encounter a truly “gay race.” Imagine the Enterprise encounters a world where the the people are gay. The reproduce in laboratories. The family unit, which is a bedrock of their society, consists either of one or more boys being raised by two fathers who teach the boys how to be men, or one or more girls being raised by two mothers who teach the girls how to be women.

But here’s the deal: Only 90% of their people are really gay. 10% are straight. The straights are denounced by the dominant religion on the planet, which teaches that heterosexual sex is animalistic, vile, and sinful, while homosexual bonding is spiritual and holy. The straights are pressured by the majority to “change their lifestyles,” give up their sinful ways, and live as gays. Straights are scorned and often targeted for violence. They do not get many of the basic legal rights that gays take for granted. “Reparative therapy” is offered to “cure” them. And so on.

Just to give viewers a brief opportunity to imagine what it would be like being on the other side, you know?

I've seen ideas like this (not necessarily about homosexuality) bandied about before. I always go back to the same thought - How would/does such a society develop that REQUIRES technology to help them reproduce?

Such a concept as you suggest here is not natural since it requires technology and laboratories. What would this culture have been like in their primitive stone age days? What caused their society to decay/advance to the point where they REQUIRE artificial means to reproduce.

For any idea such as the one you propose requires fleshing out, in my opinion. Maybe not in the story itself but at least in the author's mind. Determining HOW such a culture came to this method of reproduction will go a long way in developing the history and culture and personality of said species.

Not to derail the topic (too much) but I came to this conclusion after thinking about the Trill and their symbiotic relationship. At what point did some ancient Trill go "Hmmm, I wonder what would happen if I cut my belly open and stick this worm inside it..."

 

[Captrek]

I’ve always thought it would have been cool to encounter a truly “gay race.” Imagine the Enterprise encounters a world where the the people are gay. The reproduce in laboratories. The family unit, which is a bedrock of their society, consists either of one or more boys being raised by two fathers who teach the boys how to be men, or one or more girls being raised by two mothers who teach the girls how to be women.

But here’s the deal: Only 90% of their people are really gay. 10% are straight. The straights are denounced by the dominant religion on the planet, which teaches that heterosexual sex is animalistic, vile, and sinful, while homosexual bonding is spiritual and holy. The straights are pressured by the majority to “change their lifestyles,” give up their sinful ways, and live as gays. Straights are scorned and often targeted for violence. They do not get many of the basic legal rights that gays take for granted. “Reparative therapy” is offered to “cure” them. And so on.

Just to give viewers a brief opportunity to imagine what it would be like being on the other side, you know?

I've seen ideas like this (not necessarily about homosexuality) bandied about before. I always go back to the same thought - How would/does such a society develop that REQUIRES technology to help them reproduce?

Such a concept as you suggest here is not natural since it requires technology and laboratories. What would this culture have been like in their primitive stone age days? What caused their society to decay/advance to the point where they REQUIRE artificial means to reproduce.

The way I was thinking of it, this race comes from a more typical evolutionary history where they were 90% straight at 10% gay, and the animal species on their world still reproduce in the traditional way. Somewhere along the line the humanoid species transitioned from a mostly-straight race that procreated like animals by following their inherent sexual urges to a mostly-gay race that procreates through more antiseptic methods. Exactly how this transition occurred is not addressed in my treatment above. I have a few ideas. I’m sure you can come up with a few yourself if you think about it.

Not that “artificial means to reproduce” in this case doesn’t necessarily imply advanced technology. It could have begun in ancient times with a simple process of a man ejaculating into a little cup and a woman applying the semen to herself (or having it applied to her); if a girl is born the mother and her wife raise the child; if a boy is born the child is given to the father and his husband to raise. Technology could be incorporated into the process as it develops.

For any idea such as the one you propose requires fleshing out, in my opinion. Maybe not in the story itself but at least in the author's mind. Determining HOW such a culture came to this method of reproduction will go a long way in developing the history and culture and personality of said species.

Agreed. Clarifying the history, whether or not this history is explained on screen, helps the writer and director create a more complete and real-seeming world, and helps the actors understand the characters better.

It would also help prevent future corruption of the idea by others if the race is brought back in future episodes or movies. (Admittedly, not likely a major concern in this particular case.) If Maurice Hurley and Rob Bowman had written down a thoughtful and thorough history of the Borg when they created Q Who, maybe the Borg wouldn’t have been so completely dumbed down by other episodes and FC.