# The myth of James T Kirk as a reckless horndog.

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-myth-of-james-t-kirk-as-a-reckless-horndog/746409
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [February 18, 2016, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-myth-of-james-t-kirk-as-a-reckless-horndog/746409 "2016-02-18T03:01:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 3

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### Author: ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2016, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-myth-of-james-t-kirk-as-a-reckless-horndog/746409/41 "2016-02-19T21:00:46Z")

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> [@mlees](#):
>
> I am the one surprised that a heterosexual man, entering into an occasional, and more importantly consensual, short term relationship with the current-guest-actress-of-the-week is seen as misogynist.

Hear, hear!!! 🆒

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### Author: ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-myth-of-james-t-kirk-as-a-reckless-horndog/746409/42 "2016-02-19T21:18:38Z")

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I’m currently re-watching the series, and tend to agree that the ‘horndog’ thing is a bit overblown; plenty of contemporary TV characters spend as much or more energy trying to have sex with women.

I think part of what makes it more dramatic/noteworthy for modern audiences is less about Kirk, and more about how the (scantily-clad) women in the series all seem immediately ready to go to bed with him, or at the least immediately ready to enter into innuendo that leaves that possibility open. He’s a horndog only because he doesn’t seem to have to try.

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### 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: [February 20, 2016, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-myth-of-james-t-kirk-as-a-reckless-horndog/746409/43 "2016-02-20T00:51:53Z")

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Kirk was mostly married to the ship. The extreme horndog stuff is from later fan tales or something.

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### Author: ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2016, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-myth-of-james-t-kirk-as-a-reckless-horndog/746409/44 "2016-02-20T01:37:39Z")

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> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> [Here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hXoEfoQYxbo) you go.

Hey, what’s wrong with our hero getting himself some tail…s 😛

> [@mlees](#):
>
> I don’t recall Kirk in the original series using the “boyish” approach to relationships. It’s only in the reboot movies the he does.
> 
> Society’s values changed, I recognize that. It’s just that I am the one surprised that a heterosexual man, entering into an occasional, and more importantly consensual, short term relationship with the current-guest-actress-of-the-week is seen as misogynist.
> 
> The OP is trying to make the argument that Kirk wasn’t a “horndog”. I happen to agree (for slightly different reasons).

Right. The reboot Kirk parodies/lampshades some elements of what is established for the “prime” character either in black-letter canon or in public perception, including Kirk’s “ladies’ man” vibe. Especially with the whole contrivance where they get catapulted into their major roles a decade and a half early in life. When 60s Kirk was the age of Reboot Kirk, he was an Ensign being ensingy and probably getting his game shot down right and left.

Seeing someone who in the 1960s contest was a competent adult “entering into an occasional, and more importantly consensual, short term relationship” with equally competent adult women he encounters along the line, as somehow misogynistic, sounds like an implication that those kind of short-term casual liaisons have somehow been discovered to be “wrong” to have, or that it is “wrong” to have as many as Kirk seemed – and he did not really have _that many_, for 72 episodes. Kirk as girl-in-every-Starbase, knock-‘em-over-with-a-feather interstellar ladies’ man is a fan perception creation.

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### Author: ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2016, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-myth-of-james-t-kirk-as-a-reckless-horndog/746409/45 "2016-02-20T01:40:01Z")

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Besides, Bones was the real ultimate Man. Kirk couldn’t have that role when it was already taken.

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### Author: ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2016, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-myth-of-james-t-kirk-as-a-reckless-horndog/746409/46 "2016-02-20T03:20:39Z")

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Proconsul Claudius Marcus of planet 892-IV (“Bread and Circuses”) even gave Kirk the use of his slave girl Drusilla the night before he was to be executed on television. Hard to see why. Kirk’s men didn’t fight as well as those from the “Beagle” and Spock, besides asking an idiotic question, interfered with the rules of gladiatorial combat.

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