Kirk: Spanking Questions
by Laura Goodwin
Spanking comes up more than once in TOS. That's significant. Other kinds of corporal punishment pop up now and then too. Kirk gets whipped in Patterns of Force and in Gamesters of Triskelion, and he is forced to wield a whip in Plato's Stepchildren, for example.
If he believes it's wrong to hit women as we are led to believe by his remarks in Charlie X, then threatening the Dolman with a spanking goes against his beliefs. Kirk is not the kind of guy who goes against his own beliefs, so I don't like a simple hypocrisy theory. More likely the writers just were careless. Still, it's worth thinking about.
Kirk is a very physical guy, with everybody. We've seen him get physical with women enemies...he wrestled around with Vanna in Cloud Minders, for example. I'm sure that in a true battle situation the gloves are off. That he considered spanking appropriate for the Dolman tells me he thinks she's acting like a bratty child, not like an adult enemy who's a serious threat. This also is a hint that he favors the idea of corporal punishment for naughty children. Perhaps he himself was spanked as a child.
Still, if he calls it an "ancient" custom does he mean ancient as in time-honored and venerable, or as in passé? Could be he's only heard about it. I doubt that, though. He'd have been such an aggravating kid that they'd revive the custom just for him! ;) (IMHO)
I do know Kirk thinks it's wrong to bully women. He generally is respectful to them. I imagine he must have had much love and respect for his own mother and the females in his family. I believe he and his brother were the only kids of those parents, but he might have grown up with lots of little female cousins and such around that he was supposed to care for. Kirk has lots of women friends, and obviously is popular as a sex object too. He gives women no reason to be scared of him, unless they are identified as enemies, and even then it's not the first thing he tries.
The first thing he tried when he met the Dolman was to kneel before her, an extraordinary gesture of respect, which he doesn't offer everyone. It was purely ceremonial, but still. He tried to remain patient (not his strong suit), and didn't threaten her until ~after she'd already attacked him~. He was pretty darn angry when he said that, and people sometimes say things they don't mean when they are angry.
I see no reason to believe he's prudish about consensual spankings between adults. He might have considered trying to explain *that* to Charlie, then realized it was too complicated, changed tacks, and the result is what you hear in the sample. Lots of people today, both spanking fetishists, and parents who use spanking for disciplining children, assert that spanking and "hitting" are two different things.
As I recall, Charlie told Kirk he gave Rand a swat because he saw one of the guys give one of the other guys a swat, and assumed this was an acceptable gesture. He'd never lived among his own kind, and didn't know how to act, so he just behaved imitatively. That's why Kirk says, "...man to man is...is one thing..."! LOL What a can of worms! Too bad he didn't try to explain when it's OK for a guy to swat another guy on the butt! That would have been hilarious!
The issue with Charlie X was really inappropriate (non-consensual) touching. Rand was offended that Charlie was overly familiar, not that he hurt her. There was no hostility in the swat, although there certainly was a sexual undercurrent.
The question with both Charlie *and* the Dolman was the issue of appropriate behavior. Kirk is in the business of regulating people's behavior, so of course he had an opinion and got involved. His opinion in both cases is that people can't act however they want, they have to try to behave in socially acceptable ways.
Kirk does allow for the occasional exception. To him rules are guidelines he freely ignores if they hamper him unduly. He'd agree with the saying: "You can't bend the rules until you know how to play the game."
In the Alternate TOS universe of my imagination, Kirk is into spanking as an erotic practice, and would happily give or take them in private with consenting partners. He knows the difference between love taps and abuse, and is himself never abusive, nor does he allow himself to be abused. He stands up to bullies, and believes in cherishing women. Still, if a lady expects to be treated like a lady, she should act like a lady.
He took Rand's part with Charlie because Rand is a shipmate whom he's responsible for, but also whom he respects as a courageous lady. If Rand and him had a thing going on and she wanted to be spanked by him, ~hell yes~ he'd do it. It would be ungallant to refuse!
