Vulcan Modesty

[WarpGirl]

Honeybee let me please clarify I don't call T'Pring a whore because she fell for Stonn. That's totally OK as far as I'm concerned.

My point is she was willing to commit adultry, and would have done so if Spock had not released her. That's whorish behavior. And society is slipping into the gutter because the attitude is... I don't love my spouse so I should be with the person I love. Screw morals. T'Pring had that attitude. T'Pol didn't. So their sexual behavior is quite different. Unless anyone has some concrete canonical evidence to suggest otherwise. In which case I swear I will never write another word for ENT.

[honeybee]

I seem to recall Spock being totally impressed by T'Pring's logic at the end of Amok Time - and Kirk being all - I can't believe you are impressed, she wanted you dead. It was one of those human versus vulcan cultural clashes.

In fact, I've always sympathized with T'Pring - it's not her fault that her only out was a fight to the death. I think I sympathize with her more than the writers did, that's for sure, because she did come off cold. In another permutation, she and Stonn could have been a Vulcan Tristan and Isolde.

I was also always impressed that T'Pol clearly didn't want either Trip or Koss to die in Home and didn't seem to even consider calling a challenge. It seemed that she just planned to leave until the whole blackmail/her mother's career thing came up.

Well, you see marriage where I see forcible rape, WG. A society that gives women no agency and forces them into a marriage with someone they don't love deserves to slip into the gutter, as you say. To me, rape trumps adultery on the ladder of sin. That's where we differ. T'Pring did not want Spock. She wanted Stonn. She never promised Spock a thing - if Spock won the challenge she would have been forced to marry him. She never lied to Spock. Her parents gave her to Spock and her society viewed her wishes as nothing. So, if Spock raped her to save his own life, as far as I'm concerned she'd be more than within her rights to seek solace in the arms of the man she truly loved.

[pdsldl]

Yeah she would have committed adultery by human standards but we don't really know what was normal for Vulcans. And it's a bit different if she's declared she does not wish to marry him and is forced to if her champion losses. That may have been the way things worked but I can sympathize with her desire to be happy if she had had to marry Spock and didn't love him.

[Kotik]

I seem to recall Spock being totally impressed by T'Pring's logic at the end of Amok Time - and Kirk being all - I can't believe you are impressed, she wanted you dead. It was one of those human versus vulcan cultural clashes.

In fact, I've always sympathized with T'Pring - it's not her fault that her only out was a fight to the death. I think I sympathize with her more than the writers did, that's for sure, because she did come off cold. In another permutation, she and Stonn could have been a Vulcan Tristan and Isolde.

I was also always impressed that T'Pol clearly didn't want either Trip or Koss to die in Home and didn't seem to even consider calling a challenge. It seemed that she just planned to leave until the whole blackmail/her mother's career thing came up.

Well, you see marriage where I see forcible rape, WG. A society that gives women no agency and forces them into a marriage with someone they don't love deserves to slip into the gutter, as you say. To me, rape trumps adultery on the ladder of sin. That's where we differ. T'Pring did not want Spock. She wanted Stonn. She never promised Spock a thing - if Spock won the challenge she would have been forced to marry him. She never lied to Spock. Her parents gave her to Spock and her society viewed her wishes as nothing. So, if Spock raped her to save his own life, as far as I'm concerned she'd be more than within her rights to seek solace in the arms of the man she truly loved.

There's the r-word. This thread is doomed

[WarpGirl]

People must have missed the part where I said T'Pring took the way out that was opened to her. I don't condem that. But it was NOT her only option she could have fought Spock herself. And I'm sorry where did it say Spock would have raped her if he won, she was WILLING to "become the property of the champion" having sex with Stonn is adultry even to a Vulcan ask tuvok.

[honeybee]

The key word - property. Property = Slavery = rape. That's where I get that. T'Pring had two choices - call a challenge or marry Spock. Since she clearly did not want to make any false promises to Spock, she called a challenge and was willing to see him die. If he won, she would have followed the laws of her planet - but that doesn't make the laws just.

And I recognize that I'm judging the whole marriage ritual based on human standards. T'Pring probably wouldn't see being forced into marriage as strongly as a human like myself would, and I recognize that. But being a whore is a human, not a Vulcan construct. Certainly, a society where a person can die if they don't mate would view things differently and develop different moral constructs - including being able to mate outside of marriage if it saved one's own life or the life of another.

The episode makes that clear that Vulcans see things differently in the way Spock handles things at the end. He seems impressed rather than angry. And thanks to Kirk, everything works out.

[aadarshinah]

What may or may not count as spousal rape among humans may or may not count as such among Vulcans. And, what seems to remain unsaid on this thread is that, except for the he's-a-human factor and the imanense of pon farr, the same thing happened to T'Pring that happened to T'Pol. The direction that Trip and T'Pol's relationship took after her wedding - ie, the lack of on-screen suggestion of a continued romantic/physical relationship between them - was partially influenced by Trip being human and following human mores - ie, that sleeping with another man's wife, even if that wife doesn't love her husband, is adultery. But Koss eventually came to his senses and realized this, and so divorced her. Problem solved.

With T'Pring and Spock, it's a bit more difficult, because we really don't know much about T'Pring, but best I can guess is that, once the blood fever was resolved - however this may have happened, be it with Kirk's apparent death or with mating - Spock probably would have come to the exact same conculsion as Koss. Vulcans are nothing if not logical outside of the blood fever, and I highly doubt any are cruel enough to force a spouse to stay in a marriage that they are willing to go to such extremes to get out of.

Plus, if kal-if-fee is considered so barbaric to modern day, peace loving Vulcans, what does their society consider the victor of such a contest, who, by surviving, commited murder? They may not think anything of it, being alien and outside our understanding, but I'd like to get other's opinons on that...

[Aquarius]

That's true. The lack of a continued affair between TnT could've been all Trip. Nothing suggests that T'Pol wouldn't be all about it if Trip was open to it. It *did* seem awfully important to her that Trip knew that she and Koss did not consummate their marriage.

[honeybee]

It's definitely true that Spock didn't seem interested in being a husband to T'Pring - and was only returning to her out of biological necessity. I could very well see him letting her go and be with Stonn, and it's only a shame that Vulcan law didn't give them all an option C to get out of the situation more gracefully. I wish Crystalswolf was around, as she has explored this possibility in several of her fics and has thought more about it than I have.

It seems to me that Vulcan marriage rituals are a holdover from the pre-Awakening time - and they are kept secret and hidden because they do contradict how Vulcan's present themselves. Certainly, I don't think that the winner of the challenge would be viewed as a murderer - especially if he was in the throws of pon farr. And certainly the Vulcans wouldn't see forcing a woman into marriage with the same lens some of us humans do. But they are ashamed of it, thus the secrecy. So, that makes me think that they recognize that there are things wrong with their system.

However, we have seen two Vulcan woman - T'Pring and T'Pol - being forced into marriage against their will. Both of them managed to get out of it - but neither was a pleasant situation for the women as we saw on screen. So, even setting human mores aside, you can at least believe that Vulcan marriage laws didn't always work the way they were intended, to the detriment of some people.

[pdsldl]

It may have been the custom or what was expected but things only change when enough people object to the status quo and it didn't seem that T'Pring had option except to refuse to agree to the fighting simply refuse to marry Spock or take her chances with tradition and hope that Spock wouldn't kill Kirk.

I do question the monogamous thing with a bond if T'Pring would have serviced Spock's Pon Farr and bonded with him then she shouldn't have been able to return to Stonn. And if she were bonded to Stonn she wouldn't have been able to be with Spock. Infinite combination's and possibilities with the little tidbits they fed us.

[Aquarius]

We know that Vulcans can and do have sex outside of the pon farr drive. That's canon.

And--newsflash--glands control human sex drive as well. Glands make hormones. Hormones make sex drive, among other things. And we make a *choice* to be monogamous or not; I'm sure the Vulcans aren't wired that much differently. It's a choice and a lifestyle, not "a gland made me stick with one person."

So, knowing that glands don't make you monogamous, and that pon farr isn't the only time that Vulcans are capable of mating, then yes, an extra-marital affair is entirely possible, especially in the instance of an absent spouse who is less likely to know things through the bond.

Furthermore, if a bond between Trip and T'Pol was already in the works, then an extramarital affair becomes that much more likely.

And I still am wondering what this has to do with a Vulcan being shy about showing his or her goodies?

[honeybee]

We have gotten off topic haven't we? But I think sexual mores and nudity do go hand in hand - even though they shouldn't always go hand and hand.

You know - one thing that bugged me was that the bond between TnT was already nascent in Home. It still sticks in my craw that there was no way to check if both parties were bond free before T'Pol and Koss's marriage. You'd think that would be like a blood test. In the books (yes, I know not officially canon but still) the bond is the marriage. So, T'Pol was already married to Trip and just didn't know it. It basically says that in the books.

And that throws a wrench into Amok Time - clearly the childhood betrothal bond - the one that brought Spock to T'Pring - exists separately from the one that TnT had and T'Pol never had with Koss. Unless, of course, the betrothal bond was somehow broken long distance after Breaking the Ice, but I doubt that. So, it's possible that T'Pring was already bonded with Stonn. It seemed likely that they were lovers.

Anyway - this all gets back to Vulcan mores. But maybe a new thread is in order!

[aadarshinah]

Anyway - this all gets back to Vulcan mores. But maybe a new thread is in order!

Agree. Though I am inclined to think that the bethothal bond is more of something to ease the formation of a real bond - maybe something like "syncing" the pair's brains so that they'll be able to bond - rather than an actual bond....

Again, though, none of the Vulcans we've had the pleasure of seeing on screen are exactly "normal". They either don't have mates, don't want the mate they're promised to, (or are in a different quadrant from their mates and so, even if they normal elsewise, can give us very little on typical Vulcan marriages), we don't get to see it. So we have to generalize, and what Spock (a half-human) or T'Pol (potentially half-Romulan, with pa'nar and a trellium addiction to consider) might do or consider normal isn't nessicarily so.

[Transwarp]

You know - one thing that bugged me was that the bond between TnT was already nascent in Home.

Rest easy then. The time or place TnT's bond formed is never specified. If that scenario bugs you, you can say it happened later.

[Silverbullet]

Well for sure they mated before home and it always bugged me that T'Pol seemed to have forgotten that as she never mentioned it to her Mother or Koss. I would assume that would be a marriage breaker.

In my ST Encyclopedia it says that there is a Betothal bohd formed at age seven when the children are engaed. It is a vey light bond though.