Sex and how it is portrayed in the show

[tish]

There's a couple of other examples but they are few and far between. Even Harbinger is presented as a light moment and the shower scene in Damage turns into a nightmare.

I will add the thought, as we have mentioned before in other posts.....I believe that shower scene was a dream that pulled from an actual experience during the night Trip and T'Pol shared in Harbinger.....just became a nightmare in the end due to her mental/emotional state. Just like the dream in Fusion was from a real experience of T'Pol's then segued into the nightmare part in the end. mmmmmmm, yummy to think of this



being their continuation of this......



Shipping away here!!!

[Honeybee]

I'm totally in the shower scene is a Harbinger memory camp as well, tish! And I think it's a shame that scene had to be ruined by the zombie thing, because it's probably the hottest sex scene in all of Trek.

The Hoshi/Ravis morning after scene is sweet and lovely, but it's not what I would call hot.

[Honeybee]

On the subject of interracial pairings without the alien makeup to make it "okay" - and I face palmed over this one:

We had Archer/Sato in IAMD, and outside of the shower scene in Damage, that's the most explicit sex scene I can think of in Trek. I suppose MU Sato/Forrest also counts.

AND

There was the interracial marriage between Miles O'Brien and Keiko in TNG and continued in DS9.

of course

Sato/Ravis is one of those interracial pairings that is hidden over makeup since it very much looks to me like Ravis is played by a Caucasian actor.

[Aquarius]

:love1

I'm totally in the shower scene is a Harbinger memory camp as well, tish! And I think it's a shame that scene had to be ruined by the zombie thing, because it's probably the hottest sex scene in all of Trek.

We're gonna need another thread soon if we keep this up, but I just wanted to interject:

I do like that reading of the scene, however my reading is a little more psychoanalytical.

I like to think it was fantasy manifesting as a dream. To me, it has more "danger" appeal if we believe she's so deep into Trip and Trellium and her emotions that she's actually given to fantasizing about him and desiring him to a point where she can't control it.

The zombie thing, in such a reading, would represent her fear of losing control of her emotions, and of what would happen if she actually got what she wanted (Trip). That fear of loss of control is what finally sends her to Phlox, after all.

Just a different spin. Sorry, it has nothing to do with interracial sex, unless we're talking humans and Vulcans here.

[panyasan]

I find at bit amazing that interracial relationships is something that is out of the ordinary. For me it's perfectly normal. Lot of friends of mine are in a relationship were the other person has "different roots", my own relationship included. My husband and I even joked about the fact that our Surinam and Dutch Antilian friends (the Afro-Dutch so to speak) all are married to a Dutch woman with long blond hair. Interracial sex is seen as part of the interracial relationship, so normal.

But it's the response of other people that make you realize for some people it's not normal. Like some people when they see us together or at the last school of my daughter when she was being teased about "being different."

When I met my husband - who has more roots he can count and like he tells me "always the only colored kid in school"- and he introduced me to Star Trek, the first thing he said "It's is the show with the first interracial kiss. It meant so much to me. It means interracial relationships are normal." For him it was a great deal.

But that was the sixties. Today, I do like shows like doctor Who who had Rose and Donna in an interracial relationship without making any fuss about it. The show isn't like "o shocking" we have an interracial relationship - it's normal.
Maybe there is a difference between European shows and American shows in this respect - I don't know.

As for sex on the show: the shower scene was one of the best love scene I have seen (but I am biased).
But as usual sex and relationships aren't shown very realistic, for ST I think DS9 was the great exception.

There are always cultural elements in Star Trek that you have to take in account. I always joke that in American shows they showed the most bloody scenes in crime shows and that's okay (while the European crime shows are more about the psyche of the killer - hardly any blood is shown), but showing "nature" by showing a naked back or worse butt is terrible.

Nudity also seems always to be connected with sex and I think it hasn't has to be.

(I am not saying this to jugde a country, it's more a observation. Dutch people are mostly very private and conservative to speak about their sex life - they don't - except maybe with their spouse. But if some one would walk by half naked - they are okay with that. Each their own.)

Just my two cents on the subject and hope it was somewhat interesting.

EDIT: O boy. Seems like I was OT. Cultures and cultural difference are just my thing, so I get carried away a bit.

[crystalswolf]

I'm in the camp that it was a memory because I vaguely remember something about Vulcans not dreaming (although it could have been fanon for all I remember). I saw it as her mind accepting that she was only replaying a memory in her sleep, but when it shifted to a zombie horror movie, the fact that it officially had become a dream and the fear it caused woke her up.

I'm trying to think of a sexier scene in all of the shows, but I'm drawing a blank.

As for interracial relationships in ST, I believe I once read that acceptance of interracial relationships in the US also depend on the combination and the genders. I vaguely remember White-Asian/Black-Asian and White-Hispanic/Black-Hispanic being more acceptable than White-Black. This site mentions this partially as RL trends.

ST seems to stick with those trends which is why I'm not surprised that there was the Miles and Keiko relationship long before Travis and Gannet (which actually touched on a bigger taboo).

Added: specifying US because, as Panyasan pointed out, each country will have its own trends.

[Aquarius]

The Vulcans not dreaming thing was stated in "Fusion," when she skipped meditating at Tolaris's suggestion. But they clearly do dream, if they don't meditate and are in an emotional state, so that's how I see it working as a manifestation of a fantasy without being anti-canon.

[crystalswolf]

Thanks for pinpointing the info on Vulcan dreams, Aquarius. I had to rewatch the episode because I'd forgotten the little details in it.

It's interesting because Tolaris says to T'Pol something about her dreams will be "more" intense, implying that Vulcans do dream typically. Also, he later says that it was even more intense because her emotions are close to the surface. But the most interesting thing (to me at least) is that without meditation, her dream was a memory altered with her imagination. This puts me even more in the memory camp.

Now does this make it canon? Personally, I don't think it does at all. There was never a frame of reference given as to how a Vulcan would dream normally, if at all. I think it's just one of those question marks that we have to fill in for ourselves.

[Aquarius]

Right.

Personally, a lot of times when a Vulcan says "Vulcans don't...." I think it's under suspicion. "Vulcans don't dream" could be the same as "girls don't fart." I think the statement could more accurately be "Vulcans don't usually dream," because there are conditions under which they can or do. I guess I'm saying I think it's more of a generalization than an absolute.

[Honeybee]

If you look at T'Pol's dream in Fusion, it's a mixture of events that happened such as her visit to the jazz club with events that obviously did not happen, such as her being in bed with Tolaris. It's certainly portrayed as a frightening experience for her to dream at all. I think it is open to interpretation, whether or not something like the shower actually happened. I like to believe it did, but it could go either way.