{"id":14771,"date":"2013-12-07T20:42:50","date_gmt":"2013-12-08T04:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2013\/12\/07\/14771.html"},"modified":"2013-12-07T20:42:50","modified_gmt":"2013-12-08T04:42:50","slug":"shore-leave-and-the-unidentifi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2013\/12\/07\/shore-leave-and-the-unidentifi\/","title":{"rendered":"“Shore Leave” and the back rub"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I've been occasionally rewatching Star Trek: TOS<\/cite> episodes. Tonight, foiled by a stomachache from my original plan of attending various social events, I decided to watch season 1, episode 15 (in broadcast order): “Shore Leave.”<\/p>\n

The opening scene is kind of remarkable. For those of you who haven't seen it, or who, like me, haven't seen it in 20+ years, it goes like this:<\/p>\n

After an establishing shot of the Enterprise<\/i> in orbit, we see Spock crossing the bridge to Kirk's command chair. He stands behind Kirk's right shoulder. Kirk, meanwhile, is messing with one of those ubiquitous high-tech clipboards; next to him on his left is a red-shirted female yeoman.<\/p>\n

Kirk<\/b>: Anything from the landing party?<\/p>\n

Spock<\/b>: They should be sending up a report momentarily, Captain.<\/p>\n

Kirk<\/b>: [grunts] [hands clipboard to yeoman, who steps to her side, so she's standing behind his left shoulder] [he puts his hands on his lower back]<\/p>\n

Spock<\/b>: Something wrong?<\/p>\n

Kirk<\/b>: A kink in my back.<\/p>\n

The yeoman, now standing behind him, reaches down and starts rubbing his lower back.<\/p>\n

Kirk<\/b>: That's it. No, a little— A little higher, please.<\/p>\n

I was kind of shocked. There's plenty of 1960s sexism on the show, but it would not have occurred to me that it's perfectly normal for a yeoman to rub Kirk's back on the bridge, so normal that she doesn't even have to speak, and that nobody remarks on it.<\/p>\n

But then Spock raises an eyebrow, and the scene goes on:<\/p>\n

Kirk<\/b>: Push. Push hard.<\/p>\n

She does.<\/p>\n

Spock starts to step forward past the arm of Kirk's chair and into his field of view.<\/p>\n

Kirk<\/b>: Dig<\/em> it in there, Mr. Sp—<\/p>\n

He sees Spock, who is clearly not the one rubbing his back.<\/p>\n

There is a long beat as Kirk realizes what's going on.<\/p>\n

Kirk<\/b>: Thank you, yeoman. That's sufficient.<\/p>\n

She stops, and Kirk and Spock exchange a glance.<\/p>\n

That made me laugh out loud. Especially because it seems to suggest that Kirk saw nothing at all out of the ordinary about Spock rubbing his back. On the bridge.<\/p>\n

And thus were a thousand slash stories born.<\/p>\n

(I should note that the yeoman later turns out to be neither anonymous nor silent; her name is Barrows, and she figures prominently in the episode. But I didn't know that at the start of the scene.)<\/p>\n

Added after watching the episode: Overall, I felt this was a pretty bad and weak episode in almost every way. (By my own modern standards; I'm having a hard time judging it by the standards of its time.) I was disappointed to see at the end that it had been written by Theodore Sturgeon.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been occasionally rewatching Star Trek: TOS episodes. Tonight, foiled by a stomachache from my original plan of attending various…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,27,31],"tags":[117],"class_list":["post-14771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-queer","category-speculative-fiction","category-television","tag-sturgeon"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}