stunt_muppet

ARRGH IF ONLY I HAD MORE THAN ONE DAY OFF A WEEK. D:

Oh hai, I think Fall Break for both of us is next week.... I could come up Sat. night (Oct 10) and leave Tuesday night or Wednesday morning (13 or 14.) Please, PLEASE tell me everyone will be staying on campus.


I can actually understand the sexual component because I, er, can't differentiate between sexual and non-sexual contact/affection all that well. I guess what squicks me is the infantilization and the caretaker mystique, since being dependent was hugely frustrating as a child and I have no patience for or desire to have someone be dependent upon me.

That being said, I'm totally cool with drug-based incapacitation or infantilization being sexualized, so your alien spore idea sounds really nifty. What pairing was it, out of curiosity?

Emotionally kinky! That's an awesome phrase! Yes, yes, this hypothetical fic was definitely emotionally kinky, especially the main engine of the encounters is Kirk's Daddy Issues.

I don't think I need to handwave the corporal punishment so much as properly establish it (which I think is what you meant anyway.) Starfleet, as a fictional device, is based hugely on the British Navy (TOS used the bo'sun's whistle as a communicator sound effect) which has corporal punishment coming out the wazoo. As a diegetic institution, it probably functions a lot like the US military or Special Forces. Unlike a school, Starfleet has ownership over both the mental and physical capabilities of its members. This naturally allows for physical punishment in a way that (I personally feel) schools do not.* In other words, you probably wouldn't think it was weird at all if Pike told Kirk to "Drop and give me twenty!"

Of course, there is a distinction between making a boot camp grunt run laps or do push-ups, which are productive exercises in other contexts, and beating them with an implement, which has no other purpose than to cause pain. The advantage of a dedicated punishment is that it can be more carefully regulated (E.G., this offense deserves this number of hits, etc.) and thus prevent possible abuse ("Drop and give me twenty thousand!")

The way I've got it set up, it's a largely archaic rule that most people aren't even aware of, and Pike only digs it up because he can't let Kirk get expelled. Of course, since it's an official disciplinary measure meant to "wipe" a certain number of demerits from Kirk's record, it has to be documented and then Kirk has to sign the paperwork. He also gets CC'd when Pike submits the report to the Academy administration, and boy howdy doesn't Kirk just fucking love that. So yeah, the main focus of the fic is the emotional calisthenics rather than the physical act.


*I suspect corporal punishment in schools arose from a conflation of the relationship between teacher and student and the relationship between parent and child. Parents, from whose physical bodies children are literally derived, have a certain natural right to their children's bodies that an unrelated adult does not. Obviously, the right can be abused, and whether or not corporal punishment is an appropriate form of discipline is a hugely complex and individual issue.



I'm literally running out the door to work right now so I'll just post this comment and reply to the rest when I get back tonight.