However Star Trek was never created to be a children's or young adult program, it's target demographic has been identified as the 18-25 male audience many times so it is actually surprising that it hasn't got more material in it that is not suitable for the young. The answer is probably that the studio executives believed, probably correctly, that American TV and movie audiences weren't ready for a wide release franchise that graphically tested the edges of social conventions.
This is not to say that Star Trek was without confrontation and sex appeal, simply that it was more subtle and, perhaps because of this, had a bigger impact. Who does not know of Kirk and Uhura's first interracial kiss, which is held up as ground-breaking? I know that for an impressionable young boy, some of the costumes were quite sweat-provoking - and I don't just mean the mini skirts...
Star Trek fans have no such restrictions placed on their fertile imaginations, they are continually asking 'what if?' What if McCoy had not been there in the Vulcan arena to revive Kirk in 'Amok Time'? What if things had gone against Kirk & Spock on Organia in 'Errand of Mercy'? Of course, hopeless romantics that we are, many fans ponder the possibilities of romantic entanglements between canon characters, not just the ones known to exist, like Chakotay and Seven of Nine, but the unrequited affairs, like Chakotay and Janeway, and the more unusual ones like Chakotay and Tom Paris! To take the bull by the horns, gay romance is one of the mainstays of Star Trek romantic fiction, ranging from platonic 'hurt/comfort' stories to sweaty slash epics!
Today, we at TrekUnited release the second of our adult anthologies,
Music : Remember the Dreams by Per Kiilstofte on Machinimasound.com
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