#just for less reactionary and stupid reason than that first garbage post

[ichayalovesyou]

Please stop making up problems about fictional alien cultures ❤️ they arent humans, and bonding isnt marriage. Vulcans dont even have marriage so please stop judging it like that? They can also break the bond when they get older. They make arranged bondings because it is logical to make sure your child has a mate come pon farr. Seriously this stuff is just nonsense stop trying to earn woke points by over-examining a fictional, non-human culture. Its not arranged marriage. Its not child marriage. Its not marriage at all nor is it sexual. Stop clogging up the star trek tag trying to bitch about how you dont understand it. Problematic… theres no debate on Vulcan and Vulcans have never once complained about it in canon or otherwise because no one cares because it doesnt matter to them lol

In reference to this post.

I thought about deleting the post, because I will admit it is, very reactionary. I got a little more heated than I should have. I could’ve been a little more articulate. For that I apologize. But I haven’t changed my mind.

I really wasn’t gonna share this, anon. I disagree with you on a good chunk of what you’ve said, I still think it’s worth talking about. And I do think your anger with that particular post is justified.

I’m going to break down why I feel the way about Vulcan childhood bonding the way I do in a more responsible and coherent way, and explain why I disagree about why these topics shouldn’t be discussed.

I will never, ever stop talking about fictional races and cultures and how they affect and reflect upon the real world. Vulcans, among many other alien cultures, are amalgamations and abstractions of our own cultures. The Na’vi from Avatar help us examine colonialism, the extra terrestrials from Arrival help us examine how we perceive time and language. Vulcans, when it comes to this topic, are an examination of traditions and how some do more harm than good (like the homophobia Amok Time is allegorical for). Fiction has to be analyzed, it’s meant to be examined, learning from what we read is an important literary (and life) skill.

Star Trek especially! It’s purpose is turning genuine philosophical questions into drama and discussion topics for everyday people. Morality plays in space, it’s why the cast is so diverse for the sixties, it’s why there are racism and Cold War allegories all throughout it’s the Original Series. One of the reasons I love Star Trek, and Vulcans, is because they are flawed and can be examined from many angles. I’m not angry to be “woke”, I’m angry for the reasons Amok Time is meant to make you angry.

You’re right, bonding isn’t marriage. It’s more intense than that. They are mentally bonded in ways humans cannot be, and they are arranged in such a way that they will be married, and Vulcans DO get married. Sarek and Amanda are married, Tuvok and T’Pel are married, both Sarek and Tuvok refer to their partners as their wives. The betrothal is not just for clout, they will eventually have sex, it’s a guaranteed Pon Farr security blanket. Yes they can break it when they get older technically, but the only known socially acceptable way to get out of it is death via Kalifee, one way or the other. The entire point of Amok Time, is that all of that tradition is incredibly cruel and wrong. It causes Spock to “kill” his best friend, and T’Pring to condemn a stranger to death.

Nevermind questions of consent when it comes to children and when Vulcans mature as my short opinion on that is pretty aggravatedly stated in that post. At the very least it’s unfair to Spock, who cannot physically/mentally mature as a Vulcan or a Human. So if T’Pring can fully consent to betrothal, it’s certainly up in the air whether Spock can.

One of the reasons I love Vulcans so much is despite their beautiful philosphy that I really believe more Humans should strive for. They are at the same time as they are serene and logical, they are rigid and extremist in their beliefs and traditions that they’re illogical as well. The only thing logical about Spock and T’Pring’s arrangement is the assumption that if he had Pon Farr, and no Vulcan would want him (because, hey, Vulcans are insanely xenophobic, illogically) at least he’d have T’Pring in that emergency, assuming she’d be willing to capitulate to that once she was an adult. Big surprise, she didn’t, because 24 years had passed and they were both completely different people by that time, and it almost killed James Kirk.

I want to clarify that I’m not attacking arranged marriages as a cultural practice in real life. I understand it can be an extremely important cultural cornerstone and there are many examples of happy couples in marriages arranged by their parents, I’m not knocking that. I’m criticizing the way Vulcans specifically practice arranged marriage. Both because of their philosophy, and that the only respectable way out being murder. Which I can’t condone under most circumstances anyway.

There is very little logic in betrothal, other than reputation, which is a huge deal to Vulcans even though they preach meritocracy. And the aforementioned failsafe for Pon Farr, but there are cases (like Starfleet officers) where that justification is shaky. Whether the betrothed old enough to understand and accept their responsibilities not withstanding. It assumes the children involved’s sexual/gender orientations and that they both have the self-awareness to know what that will be, and that the parents know and have accepted it as well. That they will be the same people/love each other (or at least be willing to have sex with each other, which is not a given) by the time Pon Farr rolls around in the coming decades and all subsequent cycles.

All of that would be easily fixed and rearranged and such provided that the parents are reasonable. If the parents are unreasonable the two could alienate themselves from their families by refusing to get married to each other. Except there’s one problem, in Vulcan culture, as far as we know, the only way to get out of an arranged marriage like Spock and T’Pring’s is Kalifee, which results in the death of at least one of the betrothed, or the death of champion the other has chosen. In Spock and T’Pring’s situation, T’Pring willingly condemned a stranger to death, and Spock murdered his best friend. There is no utilitarian purpose to a crime of passion, Vulcans, in this circumstance, forego the simple, bloodless option instead letting people kill each other in the dirt over sex at the simplest and love at the most optimistic. There is nothing logical about that.

The point of Amok Time, the betrothal, the Kalifee, all of it, is that it does actually hurt Vulcans to practice this tradition. That it is flawed, that it is restrictive, Spock is at his most heavily queer-coded in this episode, he is not in love with this woman, and he kills the man he loves most to escape. T’Pring has blood on her hands too, all so that she could be free to make her own choices because she did not want Spock, bodily or romantically, and she’s completely Vulcan. We’re supposed to object to those practices, the same way we now advocate for same sex marriage and the eradication of child brides. They’re very old practices, but they are hurtful. Humans have them, Vulcans have them. Humans object to that cruelty for moral and logical reasons, why shouldn’t Vulcans be able to as well?