Yikes, I realized it’s been a damn long time since I’ve posted anything fandom-history related. As always, please click the links and you will be taken to the appropriate fanlore.org article, which gives more details and sometimes more art as well!
The photo is from the back of Grup 4, the fourth (obviously) issue of the first “adult” Star Trek: TOS zine- the date was 1975 (I think- Grup 3 was published in 1974). Apparently, this type of humorous page was pretty common in a variety of non-fandom science fiction zines, and as media fandom grew out of SF fandom, they carried the tradition with them.
I chose this page and circled one particular “reason” in red (which reads “You agree with Dynie! (Listen, Sweetie…)” because it highlights something very important beginning to brew in Trek fandom at this time: widespread and open discussion/debate of “the premise”, aka the idea that Kirk and Spock’s feelings for each other might be more than platonic- that they might, in fact, be in love with each other. Note that I don’t say “Kirk and Spock might have slashy feelings for each other”; let’s take the time to remember that while the term slash was first created and used to describe fan reactions to the K/S relationship, the word did not come into use until the later 1970s and early 80s.
“Dynie” is short for Diane Marchant, the author of the first published K/S fanfic (with two accompanying pieces of fanart!), which was published in Grup 3. The next issue, Grup 4 (the one whose photo you are seeing) contained “Pandora’s Box… Again”, which can be described as something between a proto-ship manifesto for K/S and more general piece of meta about Spock’s psychology and emotions.
Diane Marchant, as well as Carrie Peak and Carrie Brennan, the women who published Grup, was truly breaking new ground, slashing where no fan had slashed before! We owe so much to them!
Keep on (classic) K/S-in’ across the fandomverse, everyone! <3
P.S. I can’t leave without pointing out that mpreg was being discussed in the 1970s >:D
Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.
In her later years, Diane Marchant did not talk much about “Fragment of Time.” It was not until I finally found a copy and saw the illustration that she drew to accompany the story, that I understood how carefully “coded” this first slash story had been. The drawing made it clear that the two characters in the story (who were never named) were Spock and Kirk. But you had to look both at the story and illo carefully to make the connection.
Another factoid: Diane Marchant lived in Australia and was the Australian representative of the Star Trek Welcommitee. She once received an audio letter from Gene Roddenberry which is preserved here.