Rejoined: the Perils of Taboo and Trill Sacred Tradition: Part One

This episode. As controversial and feather-ruffling as Plato's Stepchildren and its famous interracial kiss. Digging deeper, the episode with Trek's famous first intragender kiss may be even more controversial, since it gives a serious look at the taboos that arise from socio-cultural traditions. Ostensibly not about homosexuality, this episode has broader debates about sexuality all over it.

So let's stroll through this minefield shall we?

The Tradition in question in the episode is indeed a restriction on sexual relations for joined Trill. Current hosts are forbidden to engage in relations with partners of previous hosts, or—if the partner is also a joined Trill as is the case in this episode—the current host of a previous host’s partner. The stated purpose of this prohibition against Reassociation is to preserve the integrity of the current host, and the integrity of the current host-symbiont relationship. As expected of Hollywood, some voices dismiss the rule as bearing no relation to its intended effect. Perhaps surprisingly to our ears, it is Kira Nerys, the most explicitly religious character in the show, who gives voice to the refrain that people should be free to be with whomever they want. Ezri would later ignore the rule without the same soul-searching experienced by Jadzia, perhaps giving us the Dax symbiont’s—and the show’s creators’—final answer on the question.

What is fascinating is that Rejoined doesn’t give us a final answer, but rather takes seriously the way both religious and secular traditions of modernity account for personal integrity in sexual relations. Similarly, it explores the way liberalisms of the past put ambiguous pressure on decision-making in the present. The complicated, non-linear dynamic between past and present as experienced by joined Trill provides an excellent vehicle for expressing the complicated, non-linear dynamic between past and present experienced by postmodern humans.

First, the episode takes seriously the possibility that ancient traditions could be right about the limits of sexual liberation. Those who want to uphold the rule against Reassociation are not portrayed as selfish, fearful or interested only in upholding dogma. They are genuinely concerned primarily about Jadzia’s welfare, concerned that she is legitimately making her own choices lucidly, and wish her (to employ admittedly Christian terms) to continue in her vocation of enriching the legacy and identity of the Dax symbiont. Importantly, all three concerns represent the best of the liberal tradition, and none of them are excluded from the Christian tradition as well.

Second, Jadzia’s scenario explores the ambiguity of individual choice, not in a way heretical to Hollywood liberalism, but in a way that provides a deeply important critique and a feminist one at that. I’ll delve into this more deeply in part two.