Learning From Fan Fiction: Difference is Not the Same as Revolutionary

My choice for Ben and Simon

On Votaries, I reference my Voyager fan fiction. I present a confrontation in the Mess Hall between one of my fan fiction characters, Ben, and my fan fiction villains, Crewmembers Piyus and Malyce, the bullies of Voyagers. 

I also use Ben and his husband Simon to spoof intellectual academics in the episode "Living Witness," a fascinating episode about how people retell history for ideological ends. 

Ben and Simon are from Gemine. On Gemine, twins marry. Ben and Simon's relationship conflict is mostly based on Ben being raised human since he was approximately six years old. Consequently, he has human mores. Outside of Cleopatra's Egypt and some Japanese manga, the taboo against incest is a given among humans. And likely would be for most Star Trek species. 

In other words, Ben and Simon are a perfect case study of "diversity" or "fighting the system" or whatever people tell themselves to justify throwing temper tantrums. And they highlight a huge mistake made by leftist academics and even, it appears, by folks on the supposed right, namely: 

Difference = avant-garde, challenging, progressive, revolutionary, edgy. 

The reason Piyus and Malyce detest Ben and Simon so much is that Ben and Simon don't perceive themselves as needing a defense. They don't want to be a token diversity/outsider couple. Philosophically and behaviorally, they are the most orthodox, down-to-earth, non-edgy couple on Voyager. By a huge margin. Ben works in languages. Simon works in security. If they lived on Earth today, they'd have a house with a picket fence. Dogs. A cat. A kid. They'd attend PTA meetings, go on family vacations, support middle-of-the-road politicians, pay their taxes, back the rule-of-law, play sports on the weekends. They would strive for "average, normal, everyday." 

In the episode "Living Witness," a copy of the Doctor attempts to correct an inaccurate historical record of an event in which Voyager got caught hundreds of years earlier. The mafia-alternate version of Voyager is actually a lot of fun. The Doctor's efforts to tone down not just extremist positions regarding Voyager but the extremist/conspiracy rhetoric regarding various crewmembers is well-rendered. 

In my fan-fiction, Ben and Simon appear in the recreation of evil Voyager as fellow brother-warriors. Even the angry people who hate Voyager can't imagine that Ben and Simon were lovers. The Doctor corrects the record, much to the consternation of multiple academics who find the thesis/premise of their dissertations demolished. 

Ben and Simon's relationship is not included in the new recreation (don't want to offend the children! or cause riots!) but academics can obtain permission to go into the archives and learn more about them. Various historians write dissertations on the Alpha Quadrant’s “aberrant” sexual practices. 

However, these dissertations are naturally debated by historians who claim that within their own culture/evolutionary biology, Simon and Ben were “natural,” even orthodox, and shouldn’t be perceived as outliers or rebels or progressive/revolutionary symbols. 

Yup! Their creator concurs!

And I couldn't help but reflect, again, on feminism, and how many current "acceptable" sponsors of the political face of feminism present themselves as rebellious and edgy despite being quite reactionary. In the meantime, true outside-the-box thinkers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali are treated with contempt. 

The difference: the so-called "acceptable" sponsors look the part of "not like us!" Ayaan Hirsi Ali has embraced Western culture. 

It is, unfortunately, yet another example of how high-school and appearance-based a lot of current political doctrine turns out to be.