I really hope most people are aware of why Amok Time was made in the first place
I should start off by saying that Star Trek was made with a female audience in mind. It’s why Captain Kirk’s shirt rips and why he’s shirtless a lot, since the makers of the show were expecting to draw in a female audience with the good looks of William Shatner. Star Trek was even considered fake sci fi for girls by most male sci fi fans.
I have to mention that first because the show was banking on the female audience to fawn over Captain Kirk, and many of the women watching did, but they soon realized that even more women were fawning over Spock. When the show got renewed for a second season, they wanted to make sure they could retain the same female audience, most importantly the Spock fangirls, so they decided to treat their female audience with Amok Time.
Every single decision involved in the plot of the episode was made with “how do we give these ladies what they want without hurting his likability?”. Pon Farr was made up so Spock would have a reason to act super horny while still being the same alien everyone knew and love, T’Pring leaving Spock while Spock was planning on being loyal to her to show off how loyal he is to romantic partners, and his Pon Farr being cured without actually having sex was to keep him single.
TL;DR Amok Time was made for straight girl wank bank but instead they created the K/S community
I don’t think it was inadvertent at all – Theodore Sturgeon, the writer of Amok Time, was openly gay and was known for constantly trying to slip gay shit past the censors. He also wrote the backrub scene and lots of other k/s moments. Lgbt people in the 60s wanted to see themselves represented in media just as much as we do, but because of censorship laws it all had to be subtextual.
Star Trek can make as many new series and movies as they like, and still nothing will ever truly beat the golden awkwardness of this one shining minute of dialogue.
Loki is the Philosopher King 