[Background] The Money and the Flesh

[behnd_blueyes]

Title: The Money and the Flesh
Rating: R (for underage sexual activity)
Words: <1,000
Summary: For sharpestscalpel, the first time Jim Kirk turned a trick.

Comments

[sharpestscalpel]

You know I love you, yes? And I have already told you how awesome your timing is with this.

There is something about all of the nuances of Kirk's firsts - and that his first fumbling kiss with a girl comes after the first time he has sex with a woman. It's like there is this catalog of things, with far more specific levels of granulation than most people would have, to keep track of all the horrible things he's experienced. I can't decide if that is so they are more easily managed or so that he can mitigate their awfulness somehow - like this scene with the trick where he is managing to find some scraps of what he needs, enough to feel like he finally has some control, is empowered.

It's the best tool he has in that situation and he's going to use the hell out of it, isn't he?

I will probably have more to say later.

[behnd_blueyes]

<3 Thank you.

And yes. I think it's all part of his compartmentalization for survival: if he chops these things up, he can have something that is his, that is not at the mercy of others' whims. It's a question of his being a victim vs. being a character with the sort of ambition or autonomy we want a James Kirk to have: if his backstory has all this shit in it, how do you turn it so that for him, at least, there is some triumph? How do you lead him to a place where it is not all victimhood? Where he does not believe himself to be one?

Anyway that's what I'm trying to get at, and I think it's probably a little of both the things you said. Kirk is about sex. Things have to be broken down to be managed, to retain scraps of pleasure.

[sharpestscalpel]

We're obsessed with close reading, aren't we? I think it's great.

Compartmentalization! It's my own personal favorite coping mechanism. But it's also really good at breaking traumatic experiences down into manageable chunks.

How do you lead him to a place where it is not all victimhood?

It seems to me that he is victimized but the essential Kirkness of him is that he does find ways to own something still in the midst of it. Yeah, James T. Kirk is always going to have that hedonist streak but I think he's also, if you'll allow me a moment of cheese, the captain of his own destiny. We've talked before about how TOS Kirk often approaches situations like he can determine the outcome through sheer force of will; it's the one thing that stood out and rang true for me in Generations, even. numKirk is so limited in his choices - but making them, making his choices to express some control over his life, that's what he's doing here.

[behnd_blueyes]

He's making his choices and he's making the choices that are, more or less, made for him matter. Reclaiming them. Like with Pike, later, who essentially shows up and says "this is just the pattern laid out for you, this is just survival, transcend it." You know, by raping him in an alleyway. It's not a choice, but Kirk has trained himself to turn that around and take advantage. It keeps him from falling down and it does give him ambition. I think you could argue how much his belief he's in control in any measure is an illusion, but at the same time, isn't everyone in Starfleet sort of working under those conditions? Finding the scraps that make it worth it, finding where their own autonomy lies?

[sharpestscalpel]

That's one of the things I was playing with when I first envisioned mSpock - when you aren't presented with any choices but subjugation, how do you make that work, how do you keep yourself in the midst of all that?

It's fascinating.

Starfleet is this huge pressure cooker of Darwinism.

[behnd_blueyes]

It is. It really is. I mean, McCoy's dealing with some of the same things, the hand he's dealt, the compulsions he has, the "choice" Pike gave him.

[shoot4theface]

I love the story and the meta both. ♥

[behnd_blueyes]

Thank you! :D