I’ve touched on this before but as it’s come up again I’d like to address it as fully as I can, with the understanding that this is solely my interpretation, today. In my recap for “Death Wish” I said that to date there had never been an explicitly non-heterosexual character in Star Trek. The statement was made pre-Beyond and pre-Discovery (I also miscounted the films, oops). A few people have countered with Deep Space Nine so I’m starting there.
First of all, I meant main characters whose names appear in the credits. That might not be fair, especially with regards to DS9, but I wanted to call out the showrunners for not including non-heterosexual representation in the main cast.
Second, believe me I headcanon nearly everyone on DS9, in Star Trek, in pretty much every fandom I’m a fan of, as basically pansexual. Some people wildly so. (In my opinion) Will Riker and Jadzia Dax are not straight. But, again, I want to call out the showrunners for not explicitly including non-heterosexual representation in the main cast.
Third, some specifics.
Ben Sisko: no same sex relationships or encounters, long term heterosexual romance, two heterosexual marriages
Julian Bashir: no same sex relationships or encounters, multiple heterosexual romances
Miles O’Brien: no same sex relationships or encounters, series-long heterosexual marriage, flirts with heterosexual infidelity
Odo: no same sex relationships or encounters, multiple heterosexual romances
Quark: no same sex relationships or encounters, multiple heterosexual romances
Jake Sisko: no same sex relationships or encounters, heterosexual flirtations
Worf: no same sex relationships or encounters, heterosexual romance and flirtations, heterosexual marriage
Kira Nerys: same sex encounters in an alternate universe, multiple heterosexual romances
Ezri Dax: same sex encounters in an alternate universe, multiple heterosexual flirtations
Jadzia Dax: same sex romance, multiple heterosexual flirtations, long term heterosexual romance, heterosexual marriage
With regards to same sex encounters and relationships in the mirror universe — I strongly dislike the implication that same sex relationships are more prevalent in the morally ambiguous universe. Non-heterosexual romance is not morally ambiguous.
With regards to “Rejoined” — it is a great and important episode. It is great and important that Jadzia Dax, a main character, has an explicitly non-heterosexual romance on screen in the prime universe. It bothers me that it is the only time she is explicitly non-heterosexual and that she is breaking her species taboo to do it. It bothers me that I have to add a bunch of asterix:
Jadzia Dax is explicitly non-heterosexual
*in this one episode
**in these very specific circumstances
***that their entire planet finds inappropriate
****and is never mentioned again
*****and she ends up married to the most manly man in the entire fandom
******and dies because she wants to have his baby
There are many wonderful same sex relationships in the Star Trek canon. Slash fanfiction was invented for Kirk and Spock. Do I believe that Garak and Bashir ended up together, that Harry Kim and Malcolm Reed were gay all along, that Chakotay and Seven only got together because they were both in love with Janeway? I absolutely do. But none of that is represented on screen.
In real life a real human can have exclusively heterosexual relationships and not be heterosexual. In fiction, in the world as it is right now, representation needs to be more explicit.
mysteryofthings replied to your chat:me @ shmoop.com: don't talk to me or my...
Who are your garbage sons?
The doomed characters I’ve played, so Macbeth, Cassius, and Hotspur. (There’s also the Dauphin, but he’s not developed enough as a character for Garbage Son status, so he’s more of a Garbage Nephew.) I accept that my biased interpretations aren’t the standard interpretations, especially if you haven’t had to memorize all their lines, but “standard” doesn’t mean “only,” and I don’t like when they’re characterized as Corrupted By Ambition/Victim Of Fate*, Power-Hungry Manipulator, and Martial Asshole respectively. NUANCE, MOTHEREFFERS.
*and then “fate” often is mischaracterized as an external force and nooooo
mysteryofthings replied to your post: “As of May, I will have been out of college as long as I was in. Being...”:
Being out of school for a few years gives you advantages and disadvantages. I think it's generally for the best. :)
Yeah man...I think it’s going to go well. I’m a much happier, more well adjusted, confident person than I was in undergrad. I have a much stronger understanding of who I am as an artist, so...it’s going to be good. This school is such a perfect fit for me, I feel pretty confident I’ll thrive.
