Aug 3, 2008 12:00 PM
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Wed Feb 10
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Everyone always thinks of James Tiberius Kirk as the resident ladykiller of the starship Enterprise, but has another member of Starfleet's most celebrated crew been hiding his pointy-eared light under a bushel? A random assertion by friends at Comic-Con has led me down a particular rabbit hole that I may never fully recover from, but you can all join me... under the jump.
It all started last Sunday, talking to friends at Comic-Con when one of them told me that every woman in the world knew that Spock was the sexiest member of the Star Trek crew. Disbelieving, I turned to the other friend in the conversation who agreed that, yes, this was a well-known fact and the only reason that I was unaware of it was my lack of female genitalia. Although those weren't her exact words, to be fair. I've since checked with a lot of women, and it has to be said... there's a lot of support for this theory.
Quite clearly, this means that everything I know is a lie.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not surprised that some hardcore fans long for the Vulcan lovegrip. As the linked site tries to explain,
He's got a very distinctive, *sexy* voice. Doesn't he!? Doesn't he!? You know what I say is true. Nobody else sounds like Spock. You could pick him out even in pitch black darkness, Right? And some of you would like to try, right? He ain't bad lookin'! Some people really go for that exotic (and somewhat demonic) kind of a thing that he has going on. His strength and gentle grace are sexy. He's tall and fashionably slim, with devilish eyes and kissable lips. His hands are beautiful. And his hair is so soft and shiny that your palms just itch to pet him, don't they? Don't they? Well, anyway, mine do. You wanna pet his yummy dark, silky chest hair too... doncha? ohhhh YEAH! Admit it.
I'm also not surprised that message boards are alight with conversations over Spock's hotness:
OH MY GOD i love him i practically drewl everytime heshows upon my TV. Everyone i know thinks i am wierd for LOVING him so i am so relieved that i found evidence that i am not the only one who feels this way ..... Thank You!!!!!
But when NPR do stories about Spock embodying "the mystery of masculinity"? That's got to be the point where a sharp-eyebrowed fetish goes mainstream:
"It's a struggle we all face," says Henry Jenkins, humanities professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Are we driven by our emotion or by our intellect? And how do we reconcile those two things?"
One of the things Jenkins studies is Star Trek fan culture. He says Spock's struggle makes him an unlikely sex symbol.
"Spock is sexy for a large number of people, male and female," Jenkins says. "Many of the female fans I studied really are attracted to the emotional depths of this character." Like many men, Spock "represses outward signs of emotion," Jenkins says. He's a character "who tries to hold it all in, but who seems to be sensitive, sensuous at certain times."
So, my question to all of you is this: WTF? Okay, that's not entirely fair, but where does this idea of the uber-sexy Spock come from? Is it the character himself? Is it the portrayal and good looks of Leonard Nimoy (and, soon, Zachary Quinto)? Just the very idea of makin' it with an alien in the first place? All of the above?
And more importantly, when the hell will Bones get his day in the sun? It's all about the bags under his eyes, I'm telling you.
Send an email to Graeme McMillan, the author of this post, at graeme@io9.com.
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