Things were a little sexier in one of The Motion Picture drafts
Back in 1977, while the script for The Motion Picture was coming together, Gene Roddenberry wrote a screenplay of his own that was a little racier than what ended up onscreen. The draft, entitled “In They Image” opens with Captain Kirk and his girlfriend, Alexandria, swimming naked. When he is contacted by Starfleet on his wrist communicator, Alexandria pulls him down under the water. That seems mild enough, but that was just the beginning.
Along with two female yeomans asking a new Vulcan science officer about pon-farr, the script had Kirk and the Deltan, Ilia, in a conversation that would have raised eyebrows. When Kirk meets Ilia, he tells her he knows Deltan females are not wanton, hairless whores, a comment which has her laughing delightedly (according to the screenplay). And she retorts “on my world, existence is loving, pleasuring, sharing, caring.” Kirk responds by asking her if she’s ever “sexed” with a human.
After Ilia is taken over by V-Ger (Ve-jur in the script) and replaced with the probe we did see onscreen, things heat up even more. The Ilia-probe is especially interested in Captain Kirk and wants to get to know him in a more intimate manner.
"“Kirk, let us make sex. In a few hours, Ve-jur will arrive. I will return to my original form.”"
The Motion Picture draft was discarded
In Roddenberry’s script (as described in The Fifty-Year Mission-The First 25 Years) both Decker and Ilia survived and presumably live happily ever after. That is, if she doesn’t get too attached to Captain Kirk. There’s no telling how much time Kirk would have actually spent on the bridge in this version, as between a girlfriend, Ilia, and an alien probe, he would have been kept a little busy.
While some fans might think a little bit of sex would have spiced things up in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the director of the movie, Bob Collins, and other studio execs didn’t agree, and Roddenberry’s script was scrapped.