# Did Mr. Sulu ever have a romantic relationship in any of the Star Trek shows? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 18, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214 "2006-04-18T21:02:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/41 "2006-04-20T06:56:25Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > He has a daughter in Next Generation, so presumably he found a girl somewhere along the line. As far as I know, Sulu’s wife/girlfriend/one-night-stand/whoever has never been seen, or even spoken about. Pick up the Trek novel, “The Captain’s Daughter,” by Peter David. A tale completely devoted to Sulu, his daughter, and said one-night stand. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/42 "2006-04-20T12:29:19Z")
One time Sulu had to ordered to take his hand off the captain’s log. ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/43 "2006-04-20T12:49:55Z")
> [@Sir Rhosis](#): > > No. You’re thinking of a scene written, cast, but never filmed. Sulu was to have seen a small boy whom he recognized from photographs (or holophotos, whatever) as his great-great… grandfather. Hmm, I wonder if that was connected to a seemingly-random scene near the beginning. The crew are walking in front of a building with a big Yellow Pages ad on it and someone comes out the door. An Asian woman stands in the doorway and yells after that person for a few seconds. The crew just stand around looking sheepish. Then the scene ends. I always figured a. They did a lot of the filming on real San Francisco streets. Maybe that just happened by chance and they decided to leave it in for flavor. b. It was written that way and the gag falls kind of flat. c. There was supposed to be more to it but it got cut. > [@Saltire](#): > > McCoy fell in love in “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” And “The City on the Edge of Forever”. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/44 "2006-04-20T14:26:27Z")
> [@Number](#): > > And “The City on the Edge of Forever”. If you’re talking about Edith Keeler, that was Kirk who fell in love with her. McCoy ended up at her mission but there’s no indication he had romantic feelings for her. ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/45 "2006-04-20T23:14:42Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > If you’re talking about Edith Keeler, that was Kirk who fell in love with her. McCoy ended up at her mission but there’s no indication he had romantic feelings for her. Whoops, I should know better than to post first thing in the morning. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/46 "2006-04-20T23:25:11Z")
Has Star Trek ever had a gay character? It’s strange that in a show that’s otherwise so liberaly touchy-feely that I certainly can’t recall anything from the… too many episodes I’ve seen. Sulu is gay, of course, but that’s the actor, not the character, and he only came out like, a few years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/47 "2006-04-20T23:34:29Z")
^^^Like a “few months ago”–November 05, iirc. I don’t think there has been a gay character stated flat out on the shows, but they have done a couple “parallels.” I didn’t see it, but methinks I remember hearing that Enterprise did an ep with the Vulcan mental equivalent of AIDS. Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/48 "2006-04-20T23:35:37Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > Has Star Trek ever had a gay character? [Full circle](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=368076) ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/49 "2006-04-20T23:40:20Z")
> [@Sir Rhosis](#): > > Well, Jerry Sohl’s first two drafts (entitled "Power Play, then “The Way of The Spores”) of what became the episode “This Side of Paradise,” had Sulu as the former love interest of Leila Kalomi. D. C. Fontana’s final rewrite had Spock as her old flame. This was symptomatic of US television of the time, which was excessively star-driven. It was hard enough for Nimoy to keep Shatner from stealing his lines, let alone a featured player like Takei to get a major plot role. And remember, everybody: Takei is gay, Sulu is straight. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/50 "2006-04-21T00:19:19Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > And remember, everybody: Takei is gay, Sulu is straight. Cite? The question of the thread is whether or not Sulu ever had a romantic relationship. So far, no one’s presented any canonical evidence that he has, with a man, woman or otherwise. His online bio says he was married, which doesn’t restrict by sex, and in another series he apparently had a child, which also doesn’t prove anything. I hope you’re not just assuming that he’s heterosexual despite there being no evidence to support it. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/51 "2006-04-21T00:36:33Z")
Sulu was supposed to have a female love interest in “This Side of Paradise” until Nimoy stole his plotline. Sulu was repeatedly shown flirting with various women, including Uhura. None of this proves diddly, but I’m leaning toward straight until Takei comes forth & sez he intended Sulu, the character, to really actually be gay. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/52 "2006-04-21T02:41:38Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > I hope you’re not just assuming that he’s heterosexual despite there being no evidence to support it. I submit that is a fair assumption for a TV show produced in the 1960’s. Don’t want to annoy you. I wonder why Kirk and Spock weren’t Jewish when Shatner and Nimoy are. ;j ---
**Author:** ![H3Knuckles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba8739/32.png) [@H3Knuckles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/H3Knuckles)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/53 "2006-04-25T04:01:17Z")
> [@Steve MB](#): > > OK… but then what are we to infer from the fact that Kirk’s evil opposite had his own “Captain’s Woman”, hmmm…? :dubious: Well, I always took it as “normal” Kirk being a womanizer out of the fact that he loves women too much; “evil” Kirk has a “Captain’s Woman” and messes around because he’s a misogynist (hates women) and believes that they exist to sate his desires. Two sides of a coin, you see? A light and dark side of the same character trait (or flaw, depending on who you ask, and, in the case of a female, when 😉 ) As an aside; I think it’s safe to say that because he was married, and had a daughter, Sulu was a heterosexual character. I maintain this even though from a logical standpoint (based on the overall fiction), neither should guarantee it in the Star Trek universe. But if you keep in mind the point-of-view of the various writers (who exist in the here and now); the evidence does in fact lead to only one conclusion; Sulu’s straight (or at least bi 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![H3Knuckles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba8739/32.png) [@H3Knuckles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/H3Knuckles)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214/54 "2006-04-25T04:11:15Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > \ > Don’t want to annoy you. I wonder why Kirk and Spock weren’t Jewish when Shatner and Nimoy are. ;j Well, unless Spock’s mom was Jewish (and even then, considering his upbringing, it wouldn’t really matter), he wouldn’t be. Sarek, and indeed all Vulcans, seem to hold tightly to their own religious traditions and ideologies. Since Spock’s existence in the series is to serve as the traditional sci-fi archetype of a non-human character whose perspective can be used to re-examine basic assumptions of our own culture, it would have been counter-productive to give him a traditional human faith. Much better to give him a philosophy that is such an extreme version of one of our own (and an ancient one, no less) that it seems completely alien. As for Kirk, there’s no real reason in the fiction for him not to be, and frankly, I don’t know that it was ever shown he wasn’t (but I’m not very knowledgeable about TOS, I’m 22 :o ). AFAIK it’s never explicitly said what Kirk is. From a production standpoint, however, I think it’s safe to blame this on '60’s culture again. Of course _the Captain_ of this highly diverse crew-of-the-future would be the most WASP-y, all-American, macho, tough-guy they could make him. Don’t get me wrong, I like Kirk a lot (IMO, the old crew’s movies are way better than TNG’s, even with stinkers like TMP and V: The Final Frontier), but I think it’s safe to say that even forward-thinking Gene Rodenberry couldn’t keep popular, traditional conservative views from influencing his production. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mr-sulu-ever-have-a-romantic-relationship-in-any-of-the-star-trek-shows/353214.md?page=2)