Pon farr

Pon farr /ˌpɒn ˈfɑːr/ is a phenomenon in the fictional Star Trek universe. A part of the reproductive cycle of Vulcans, pon farr features in the canonical TV series as well as in various spin-offs and fan fiction.

Description

Every seven years, Vulcan males and females become aroused. They undergo a blood fever, become violent, and finally die unless they mate with someone with whom they are empathically bonded or engage in a ritual battle known as kal-if-fee.

A common misconception associated with the series (and Spock in particular) is that Vulcans only have sex once every seven years. However, pon farr is not coincident with the sex lives of Vulcans, and they are able to have intercourse without the affliction, and thus more than once every seven years. Star Trek: The Original Series writer and continuity story editor D. C. Fontana explains that pon farr is not the only time that Vulcans feel sexual desire or engage in sexual activity:

Vulcans mate normally any time they want to. However, every seven years you do the ritual, the ceremony, the whole thing. The biological urge. You must, but any other time is any other emotion—humanoid emotion—when you're in love. When you want to, you know when the urge is there, you do it. This every-seven-years business was taken too literally by too many people who don't stop and understand. We didn't mean it only every seven years. I mean, every seven years would be a little bad, and it would not explain the Vulcans of many different ages which are not seven years apart.[1]

Vulcans not only are able to mate outside of pon farr, they are also able to mate with species other than Vulcan e.g., in Star Trek: The Original Series, Spock's parents are human/vulcan couple; In Star Trek: Enterprise, T'pol, a vulcan, has a romantic and sexual relationship with Trip, a human; in the Star Trek reboot, Spock is in a relationship with Lt. Uhura.

In Star Trek canon

Pon farr was introduced and prominently featured in the original Star Trek series episode "Amok Time", written by Theodore Sturgeon. In the episode, Mr. Spock experiences pon farr and is returned to his home planet Vulcan by Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy to undergo the mating ritual and save his life.[2]

Additionally, Spock experienced an accelerated version of pon farr due to the Genesis planet's influence in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, as a young man. He was aided by fellow half-Vulcan, Saavik.

In the Voyager episode "Blood Fever" Vulcan Ensign Vorik experiences pon farr and attempts to mate with B'Elanna Torres. Due to a partial empathic bond, Torres experiences pon farr as well. Vorik attempts to control the pon farr through meditation, drugs and a holodeck mate, while Torres, trapped on an away mission, nearly mates with Tom Paris. The pon farr is eventually resolved when Torres and Vorik battle together in the ritual fight kunat kal-if-fee on the planet.

In Voyager, Tuvok experienced pon farr while the vessel was trapped far away from any other Vulcans, and so was unable to mate with his wife. Initially he claimed that he had Tarkalean flu to the crew to spare the embarrassment of discussing his actual condition. He attempted to control the pon farr through meditation and drugs, but he was not ultimately successful until he met with his wife in a holodeck program.

While originally described as an experience restricted to male Vulcans, the character T'Pol underwent pon farr as a result of an exposure to alien bacteria in the episode "Bounty" from the Star Trek series Enterprise.

In fan fiction

Pon farr also occurs, and has been extensively elaborated from what is canon, in fan fiction. One such fan fiction story is "The Ring of Soshern", which was probably written before 1976, and circulated as samizdat until 1987, when it was formally published in the anthology Alien Brothers. The story is denoted as a Kirk/Spock story — the designation for fan fiction stories that feature an explicitly sexual relationship between Kirk and Spock. (See slash fiction.) In the story, Kirk and Spock beam down to an unexplored planet and are marooned there when the Enterprise is forced away by an ion storm.[2]

One element of pon farr in fan fiction that is typified by "The Ring of Soshern" is that Spock is unwilling to engage in sexual intercourse even when in the full throes of pon farr. This plot device allows stories to include many more occasions for erotic couplings. Other such elements include "plak tow" as the name for the blood fever; the fact that Kirk, because of his empathic bond with Spock, can sense when Spock is about to go into pon farr, and even suffers some of its symptoms himself; and "lingering death" as the name for the death of a Vulcan male in pon farr who is unable to claim a mate.[2][3][4]

Interpretation

Pon farr stories are so popular with slash story fans that at least one fanzine, Fever, is devoted to containing only pon farr stories. Constance Penley, professor of Film & Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, believes that part of the stories' popularity rests in the idea of men being subject to a hormonal cycle, observing that in slash fiction the symptoms of pon farr are "wickedly and humorously made to parallel those of PMS and menstruation, in a playful and transgressive levelling of the biological playing field".[3]

Contrast

Pon farr in canon and pon farr in fan fiction are presented differently. In the TV series, sex is an intrusion into the world of work and male companionship. Vulcan males find pon farr to be embarrassing. It is uncontrollable, physical, and frightening. In fan fiction, in contrast, pon farr reveals male emotions in a controlled manner, making them available to the female partner, who controls the male's less controllable physical urges via the telepathic contact that married Vulcans share.[5]

Fan fiction stories embodying this are the "Night of the Twin Moons" series by Jean Lorrah, in which Amanda teaches Sarek and then other Vulcan couples to enjoy pon farr and to accept their physical and emotional natures.[5]

In other media

References

  1. ↑ Dorothy C. Fontana, Edward Gross, Mark E. Altman, Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, Little Brown & Co, 1995. p. 53
  2. 1 2 3 Bryson, Norman; Holly, Michael Ann; Moxey, Keith P. F. (1994). "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and Popular Culture". Visual Culture: Images and Interpretations. Wesleyan University Press. pp. 311–312. ISBN 081956267X.
  3. 1 2 Penley, Constance (1997). NASA/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America. Verso. p. 130. ISBN 0-86091-617-0.
  4. ↑ Verba, Joan Marie (2003). Boldly Writing: A Trekker Fan & Zine History, 1967–1987. FTL Publications. p. 29. ISBN 0-9653575-4-6.
  5. 1 2 Bacon-Smith, Camille (1992). Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 103–104. ISBN 0-8122-1379-3.
  6. ↑ Adams, Scott (11 January 2011). "Dilbert comic strip for 01/12/2011". Dilbert. Retrieved 15 February 2013.

External links

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