Was Captain Kirk a sex addict?

These are the voyages ...

Was it comedian Eddie Murphy who joked about a certain starship captain's sexual adventures with aliens by saying "let Captain Kirk go where no man has gone before"?

It definitely was Dr. Leonard McCoy who, after watching Kirk space-snuggling with the shape shifter Martia (Iman) in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," muttered "What is it with you, anyway?"

Now, it's longtime Star Trek writer and producer Brannon Braga saying that Kirk had more on his mind than the Enterprise's five-year mission. "Kirk would be considered a sex addict by today's standards," Braga told startrek.com while defending the Seven of Nine character on "Voyager."


Here's the exact exchange:

Startrek.com: Take us to the arrival of Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine. Some people loved the character and some people despised the character, but any way one feels about it, it was a game-changer...

"A nice touch of magic."

Braga: The show needed a kick in the ass. Creatively, we needed something. A Star Trek series, in my opinion, is only as good as its captain, and Captain Janeway was a great captain, but she didn't have her Spock or Data, really. We just didn't have that special science-fiction character like Spock or Data, the striving-to-be-human character. The idea of putting a Borg  on board gave us a chance to have a wild child there. That was the metaphor, a wild child, and Janeway would be her mother and try to tame her and help make her human again. That was a new take on that kind of character. That's not to diminish the Doctor, Bob Picardo's character. He was great, but he really wasn't a foil to Janeway. He wasn't someone Janeway could play off of. To me, Seven of Nine added a nice touch of magic that the show needed at the time. The fact that she was a beautiful woman was just, to me, a benefit. A lot of people thought it was in poor taste that we had a buxom babe, but I'm like, "Have you actually watched TOS?" That was babes on parade. Kirk would be considered a sex addict by today's standards. A certain sensuality has always been at the heart of Star Trek. So I'd dispute that criticism of Seven. I thought the character was a great addition to the show. And it kind of lit a fire under the cast, too. It was very controversial. We got rid of Kes and brought in Seven of Nine, and some people in the cast were upset about it and some thought it was cool, but at the end of the day I think it did all the right things creatively to the show, in my opinion.