Talk:J'naii

It's a good article, about a race from what is overall a pretty good episode (though it's a rather obvious and somewhat forced allegory for...well, what it's obviously an allegory for). It's unfortunate they haven't been seen again since. Could we possibly give a better explanation, however, of how it's possible for J'Naii to have "male" or "female" inclinations? In a race with no gender anyway, what exactly does this mean? If two J'Naii who have male or female "inclinations" mate, how exactly would that be any different from how any other two J'Naii mate? They've got the same sexual organs after all, and presumably engage in the exact same mating ritual (since Soren knew so much about how "pleasurable" it is). I don't think the article makes it clear enough why the J'Naii viewed sexuality as a taboo.

Then again, I suppose the episode didn't really explain that this well either, so perhaps the article does do the best that it can do. But I never really noticed how inherently illogical its premise is until now. Even a conjectural explanation might help, if there's not something I'm missing in the episode that helps to clarify it...

--Antodav 06:14, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

P.S.: On a personal note, this is something I've always disliked about Star Trek: the way it will sometimes go out of its way to whack you over the head with a particular point of view on a political or social issue, not only without presenting both sides but often without even really making much sense. Good science fiction does deal with issues, normally, but usually it can do so without having to try so hard. But that isn't really relevant to my question or to the article, so nevermind.
 * Well, this is speculation on my part, and therefore does not belong in the article, but I always felt that the episode did not make clear im the species was anatomically lacking in gender, or whether they just suppressed gender behavior. I personnally lean towards the latter, but I have no evidence to back that up. --OuroborosCobra 06:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Janai
Apparently "janai" means "not" (for adjectives and nouns) in Japanese. According to my Japanese-major sister-in-law. 12.146.27.188 09:04, October 24, 2009 (UTC)


 * That's nice, but unless there is evidence the writer had that in mind when creating that name, such information cannot be in the article.--31dot 10:37, October 24, 2009 (UTC)