Sex and gender questions in Star Trek

1. In an early episode of DS9, Sisko gets mad at Dax and says something like "If you were still a man..." with the implication that he'd hit her but for the fact that she's now in a female body. I'm kind of surprised that the idea that boys shouldn't hit girls would still be around in the 24th century. It's an old-fashioned idea - don't get me wrong, I appreciate it, it makes life more convenient for me, but it is old-fashioned - and I can't see it being around 400 years in the future. I know they can't really go around showing on TV Sisko hitting Dax (or, rather, Avery Brooks hitting Terry Farrell) but they could make it because he's her commanding officer or he could smack his fist on the desk and get all in her face or do something different.

2. The Ferengis are sometimes idly touch their own ears. But it's a sex act for someone else to stroke a Ferengi's ears. So when they touch their own ears, is that masturbatory?

3. There's an episode of TNG where an alien from a genderless planet comes to the realization that she is female, and is ostracized for it. It was supposed to be an allegory for homosexuality. But the flaw in the logic is that how can you have a gender that doesn't exist at all within your species, that can't even be defined or explained within your gender framework? That's would be like a human coming to the realization that they are in fact a cogenitor.

Things Starfleet Should Invent: a universal translator with a slight accent

When people on Star Trek are incognito on some alien planet, they depend on the universal translator to communicate. On this type of mission, they usually claim to be from some other place on the same planet (the southern continent, the other side of the ridge) that's far enough away to explain any cultural tonedeafness they might have, but close enough to be plausible.

To facilitate this, the UT should give them a slight accent in whatever language they're speaking. It's a lot easier to play at "Sorry, I'm not from around here" when your speech isn't perfect.

Geordi La Forge

Geordi's best friend is Data. This makes me wonder if there's something wrong with Geordi emotionally or something.

Don't get me wrong, I love Data. He's my favourite. I'd love to be friends with him if he weren't fictional. But I'm just not sure if a person who is incapable of emotion can fulfill the best friend role. So I wonder what's up with Geordi that a person who is incapable of emotion gets the #1 friend spot, over and above all the people he knows who are capable of emotion.

Temporal anomalies

On Star Trek, whenever they realize they're caught in some kind of temporal loop, someone always suggests that they go back, and someone else always says no, we can't go around second-guessing ourselves, turning back might be the very thing that triggers it.

But it always ends up that turning back would have been the right decision, doesn't it?

Data

On TNG, a crewmember is kissing Data. This makes me wonder if Data is warm-blooded or cold-blooded. It would be weird to kiss someone who isn't physically warm.

Then later, (because you have to have a technical plot when you have an interpersonal plot) the ship is trapped in some kind of nebula and they have to be guided out by a shuttlecraft that requires l33t expert piloting or everyone will die. So Picard says he'll pilot the shuttlecraft himself. But why not have Data do it? Data's a computer, he must have better visual acuity and response time!

Try!

An oft-repeated bit of dialogue in Star Trek:

A: "I can't remember!"
B: "Try!"

Yeah, because it never occurred to them to try.

Silly things Harry Kim says in "The Haunting of Deck Twelve"

1. To a mess hall full of people, when an emergency begins to occur: "I want everyone to report to their stations until we figure out what's going on!" But these people are off duty, that's why they're in the mess hall! We know that Starfleet vessels operate on rotating shifts, so if all these people report to their stations, their stations will all be occupied by someone else!

2. To a frightened crewman in a dark hallway: "Trust me, there are no aliens roaming the corridors." Um, yeah...Vulcans, Klingons, Talaxians, Bolians, a handful of Borg drones...it's a Federation starship! Actually, since the crewman in question is a Bajoran, HARRY is an alien to her.