Ad Luna #7: The Essay, Part 5 – Gender

Alright, chapter two of the actual analysis. This one takes a look at attitudes to gender and homosexuality. A warning: there is, unfortunately, a lot of discussion of sexism, bigotry and harassment in this part. And it’s not all on the Roman end.

5 – Gender

Star Trek, from the beginning, was intended to be progressive regarding gender. Gene Roddenberry presented a future with women at the highest levels of command; not only placing Uhura on the bridge of the original Enterprise but also, in TOS’ original pilot, including a female First Officer. Since then Trek has featured many strong female characters: Voyager’s Captain Janeway, DS9’s Major Kira, TNG’s Dr Crusher, and more, all occupying positions of authority historically filled by men. But while on the surface Trek appears progressive, in many ways it paid only lip-service to gender equality, especially in its early years. At face value, however, Trek is strikingly different to Lucian’s True History regarding gender. Roman society was male-dominated throughout its history, with women “excluded access to positions of authority” and, for the most part, from “exercising influence” at all. Lucian demonstrates this by including almost no female characters in the TH. The only women to appear are tertiary characters at best; Helen on the Isles of the Blessed; or antagonists; the Vine-Women and the Asslegs. Women in the TH either have no individual agency or wield their agency against Jean-Lucian’s crew. In this chapter, I will consider how Lucian’s presentation of women betrays Roman attitudes to gender, and how it contrasts with Trek’s more modern values – or, indeed, how the two attitudes are remarkably similar. Also of note is each text’s attitude towards homosexuality: while one might expect the modern Trek to be far more accepting of homosexuality than Lucian, the truth is in fact the opposite. SF depictions of utopia have developed enormously over the years – and the contrasts between Lucian and Trek’s depictions of an idealised sexual future showcase such changes very well indeed.

The principal Trek episodes to which I will be referring in this chapter are TNG 5.17: The Outcast, an almost powerful commentary on homosexuality hamstrung by production decisions, and TNG 5.21: The Perfect Mate, a story featuring, uncharacteristically for Trek, a heavily objectified woman. I will also be considering several episodes of Enterprise – those featuring the notoriously gratuitous decontamination chamber – and DS9 4.6: Rejoined, another episode dealing with homosexuality.

Women

On the Isles of the Blessed, ‘free love’ is the law. The male heroes are, by implication, free to pursue casual sexual liaisons: “they all have their wives in common”, but Menelaus’ rage at Helen’s elopement implies that the wives themselves are not permitted such freedom. This inequality seems to reflect the inequality of Roman adultery law: a “woman was an adulteress if she had any male sexual partner other than her husband; whereas a man was an adulterer… only if his partner was a married woman.” Here we see a typical male sexual fantasy, but also a distortion of real Roman society through cognitive estrangement.  In Trek, however, both men and women are free to pursue all the casual romances they like, reflecting the increasingly liberal sexual attitudes of the 1960s onwards in the West. This is partially due to the episodic nature of the franchise: most episodes had to end with the status quo restored, and thus few romances lasted longer than an hour. There was still romance for both men and women, however: while TNG’s Commander Riker and Captain Kirk are notorious womanisers, TNG, DS9 and Voyager all featured various romances for their female leads. Among other locations, the ‘pleasure planet’ Risa is depicted as a sexually liberated paradise, following the model of Lucian’s Isles of the Blessed, and one Enterprise episode even features an affair between one crewman and the wife of the ship’s (alien) doctor being actively encouraged – by the doctor himself. Trek mirrors a society where both men and women are (largely) free to do as they please sexually; Roman society, as mirrored by Lucian, was far less comfortable with allowing women to be as free as men.

Besides Helen, the only other women to appear in the TH are the Vine-Women and the Asslegs. Both groups are heavily objectified in their appearances, reflecting unfavourably, by modern standards, on Roman society. The Vine-Women of the TH are objects of desire for Jean-Lucian’s crew; “entirely perfect from the waist up”, making them literally drunk with lust with their intoxicating kisses. Similarly beguiling are the Asslegs; “got up just like courtesans… all beautiful and young”; and the crew are fully willing to be seduced. Only Jean-Lucian sees through the Asslegs’ trap. Both episodes evoke a clear “patriarchal anxiety about female sexuality”. Helen too is little more than an object of desire for Odysseus, Menelaus, and Cinryas. The women of the TH are presented as seductive and ultimately destructive, their only plot purpose to entrap or endanger male characters – or to be conquered by them. This presentation is befitting of Rome’s “patriarchal imagining of women”, and is reinforced by other extant texts. Consider the Odyssey – though Penelope does her best to resist the suitors who see her as an object, she still has to be rescued by men. The Sirens, like the Vine-Women, are seductive and deadly, and Circe’s seduces Odysseus’ crew just like the Asslegs. Lucian is certainly evoking Homer in his presentation of women – but in doing so he suggests that attitudes to women in the Second Sophistic have not evolved since Homer’s day.

In Trek’s enlightened future, one would not expect women to be objectified at all – but each series, on multiple occasions, fails to live up to this aspect of the utopian ideal. In The Perfect Mate, the eponymous Kamala has evolved to perfectly meet the desires of her intended (male) mate: in other words, she is a literal sex object. The fact that Kamala is only able to imprint on men only enforces this male-centric objectification. Dr Crusher’s objections to Kamala’s effective prostitution are welcome, but Kamala herself is unconcerned, and Picard is more concerned with respecting alien cultural norms than intervening. TNG’s objectification does not end there. Counsellor Troi, particularly in early episodes, is heavily objectified: the only crew member without a standard uniform, she instead wears “low-cut costumes that emphasise her body”. In the words of Marina Sirtis, Troi in early episodes is purely “decorative”, with her ‘brains’ only returning once her cleavage was concealed by a standard uniform in season 6. This objectification of even main female characters may be explained by Gene Roddenberry’s messy divorce, after which he felt he had been “badly burned by women”. Even before his divorce, however, Roddenberry himself was seen by many Trek cast and crew as “a sexist, manipulative person who disregarded women”; a notorious womaniser, Roddenberry had numerous (simultaneous) affairs with cast and crew members.

Even after Roddenberry’s death, however, the franchise continued presenting women as “miniskirted, big-boobed sex objects”. DS9’s Ferengi are characterised by avarice and misogyny, and Enterprise’s decontamination chamber served little plot purpose other than to force the crew to strip down to their undergarments and rub one another with ‘decon gel’, in an “obvious attempt to get hot bodies” onscreen. Strangely enough the attractive female Vulcan T’Pol spends more time in decon than anyone else, starring in its first, extended appearance. Even in 2014’s Into Darkness, Carol Marcus strips down to her underwear seemingly for no reason. Though species like the Ferengi are never presented as anything but backward in their misogyny, Kamala’s objectification in The Perfect Mate, and most of the franchise’s objectification, passes without comment. This was not limited to what appeared onscreen, either – behind-the-scenes sexism and harassment was rife throughout most of Trek’s history. Grace Lee Whitney (TOS’ Yeoman Rand) and Terry Farrell (DS9’s Jadzia Dax) left their respective series after being sexually harassed by series higher-ups. Farrell was harassed by Rick Berman, Roddenberry’s successor as head of the franchise. Grace Lee Whitney was harassed – in fact raped – by ‘The Executive’, a figure who, by her description, was almost certainly Gene Roddenberry himself. Trek’s pride in its progressive nature seems misplaced when both its creator and his successor behaved so poorly towards women, and when its objectification of women rivals that of Rome two millennia earlier, as shown in Lucian. 2nd-century Rome was misogynistic by our standards, but even in 20th-century America it seems that casual sexism and boldly progressive stances on gender were not mutually exclusive.

Homosexuality

The Selenites are civilised, friendly, and physically beautiful – but they are all male, and this makes Jean-Lucian uneasy:

“He (Endymion) wanted me to stay with him and join the colony, promising to give me his own son in marriage – there are no women in their country. But I was not to be persuaded.”

While Jean-Lucian himself seems uncomfortable with homosexuality, it was entirely permissible in Roman society (at least between men); “homophobia in the modern sense seems to have been virtually absent from Roman culture.” Though less acceptable in the Republic, by Lucian’s day relationships between men were common even (perhaps especially) at the highest social levels, with “an almost unbroken series of emperors bisexual in their preferences”. Younger men (often slaves) typically took the submissive role, as it was seen as more ‘feminine’, something which is mirrored in the TH: “Up to the age of twenty-five each is a wife, and thereafter a husband.” The absence of women on the Moon has been read by some scholars as the Roman misogynist’s dream; an exaggerated mirror of a world where women did not ‘exist’ socially or intellectually – on the Moon, therefore, this absence is made literal. I offer an alternative interpretation, however. The fact that Lucian so prominently features a society where same-sex relationships are the norm – producing an even more ‘civilised’ society than his earthly one – seems to show a remarkable (to the modern reader) tolerance of homosexuality. The only heterosexual-exclusive right in Roman society was marriage, something which Lucian’s Selenites practice freely. Could Lucian, through cognitive estrangement, be promoting an even more relaxed attitude to homosexuality?

Again, one would expect Trek to be just as, if not more, progressive regarding homosexuality – but again we find the opposite. Until DS9 Trek featured no homosexual relationships whatsoever, despite “a concerted organised movement by gay activists to put a gay character in the show”; the first was in Rejoined, where Commander Dax rekindles a romance with her former wife (from a time when Dax had a male host body), with the episode featuring an early televised kiss between two women. Even this was controversial in the gay community, as the revived romance was originally heterosexual. Not until Discovery would a same-sex relationship be depicted as ‘normal’ in a Trek show. The only mentions of homosexuality in TNG are either negative or ineffectual. In The Host, Dr Crusher refuses to commit to a same-sex relationship with the new, female host of her formerly male Trill partner. Like Crusher, Trek was not comfortable enough with homosexuality to depict it onscreen in the TNG era. In The Outcast, however, there was nearly an extremely progressive depiction of homosexuality – nearly. Commander Riker falls in love with Soren, an alien from an androgynous species, who abhor the display of gendered characteristics. Jonathan Frakes, and (apocryphally) several other members of the production team, wanted Soren to be portrayed by a male actor, which would have made for a very effective comment on homosexuality – showrunner Rick Berman, however, felt that use of “a male actor might have been a little unpalatable to viewers”, and so the episode’s allegory was weakened (though not completely). All Trek up to Discovery fails to depict a progressive, enlightened future in terms of homosexuality – Lucian, remarkably (by our standards), appears to succeed.

Despite the professed social advancement of the Federation, Trek displays “embarrassingly backward” attitudes, towards both women and homosexuality. The society of the Second Sophistic was, by our contemporary standards, sexist and discriminatory, and Lucian, in his depictions of women in the TH, shows that plainly – but in his presentation of homosexuality Lucian shows the opposite, in comparison to a very poor record on Trek’s part. The lack of progression on women between the TH and Trek, and our regression on homosexuality shows that, even when sprinting towards a utopian future, humanity still tends to take a few steps backwards.

Fischler, Susan, ‘The Case of the Imperial Women at Rome’ in Archer, Fischler & Wyke (eds.), Women in Ancient Societies (Macmillan, 1994), p.116

Lucian, 2.19

ibid, 2.26

Clark, Gillian, Women in Late Antiquity (Clarendon, 1993), p.29

The mirror is not perfect; men were still punishable for affairs with married women.

DS9 5.7: Let He Who Is Without Sin… dir. Rene Auberjonois (11/11/1996), 0:09:51 – 0:10:39

ENT 2.14: Stigma, dir. David Livingston (5/2/2003), 0:33:28 – 0:34:26

Lucian, 1.8

Lucian, 2.46

Ní-Mheallaig, p.215

Georgiadou & Larmour, p.79

With the exception of Discovery, which presents any objectification in a wholly negative light.

TNG 5.21: The Perfect Mate, dir. Cliff Bole (27/4/1992), 0:11:11 – 0:12:18

ibid, 0:15:14 – 0:15:50

Joyrich, Lynne, ‘Feminist Enterprise? Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Occupation of Femininity’ in Lynne Cinema Journal, vol. 35 (1996), p.63

Omega Ordained, ‘Marina Sirtis Tells The Costume Story’ (YouTube, 23/1/2018), 0:03:54

ibid, 0:06:36 – 0:06:51

David Gerrold, 50-Year V2, p.108

Andre Richardson, 50-Year V1, p.133

Leonard Nimoy, 50-Year V1, p.37

Manny Coto, 50-Year V2, p.707

ENT: Broken Bow, 0:52:09 – 0:55:22

Star Trek: Into Darkness, dir. J.J. Abrams (Paramount Pictures, 2013), 1:20:14 – 1:20:33

Joyrich, p.68

Terry Farrell, 50-Year V2, p.519, 520, 521

Lee Whitney, Grace, The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy (Quill Driver Books, 1998), p.2-6

Endymion’s homosexual kingdom likely refers to his original myths: Georgiadou & Larmour, p.123

Lucian, 1.21

Dynes, Wayne, & Donaldson, Stephen (eds.), ‘Introduction’ in Homosexuality in the Ancient World (Garland Publishing, 1992), p.xiv

MacMullen, Ramsay, ‘Roman Attitudes to Greek Love’ in Dynes & Donaldson, p.487-9

ibid, p.495

Dynes & Donaldson, p.xiii-xiv

Lucian, 1.22

Deriu, Modena, ‘How to Imagine a World Without Women: Hyperreality in Lucian’s True Histories’ in Medea vol. 3 (2017), p.15

With a few possible exceptions: Balsdon, p.227

Michael Piller, 50-Year V2, p.237

DS9 4.5: Rejoined, dir. Avery Brooks (30/10/1995), 0:06:01 – 0:07:28

Kay, Jonathan, ‘Gay “Trek”’, in Salon (30/7/2001)

Between Dr Culber and Lt. Stamets.

TNG 4.23: The Host, dir. Marvin Rush (11/5/1991), 0:42:48 – 0:44:22

TNG 5.17: The Outcast, dir. Robert Scheerer (16/3/1992), 0:21:44 – 0:22:19

“Soren should have been more evidently male” – Jonathan Frakes in Kay (2001)

Rick Berman in ‘Grapevine’, San Francisco Mercury News (14/3/1992)

Jonathan Larsen, 50-Year V1, p.36