'Gorean' Society

The vast, vast majority of Goreans suck.

I mean it. A huge number of them are pretentious, snobbish, disrespectful, abusive 'one-true-way'ers who can smile sweetly while reaching inside, ripping your heart out and eating it beating. And I'm talking about free and slave alike. There's a limited number of Gorean groups on FetLife (if you don't know it, and are kinky, go check it out), and I just left one because of the above behaviour. It dominates the online forums and chat rooms which I frequent, and searching for the gems among the grit is hard work. But they are there.

Gor attracts an unfortunately higher percentage of abusers because of the way the wider society is structured. If you can quote it from the books, then pretty much, save for actually killing people, anything goes. The problem is Norman appears to contradict himself frequently on a wide range of topics that are fundamental to Gorean philosophy. You really have to read and absorb every single word to get the whole picture. Yes, slaves were regarded as animals, rightless, open to all sorts of abuse and carelessness, and yes, even death. But slaves were not expendable. Despite the focus of the books on slavery, slaves were actually quite rare on Gor (this is mentioned several times, though you wouldn't be able to tell from everything else that was written), there was a much higher ratio of masters to slaves on Gor, so they were viewed as rare and valuable. Men would fight over them. Some men would have chains of pretty slaves simply as a status symbol, like driving a Porsche, even if they didn't do anything more with them than show them off in public.

Yet frequently through the books there is mention of love slaves. They are never killed, though they may be sold because of anger or such. They have the highest demands set on them, but are also loved, and cared for. Abusive Masters aren't looking for their love slave though, they're just after fresh punching bags, or someone to satisfy their selfish wants. Unfortunately Gor also has plenty of girls who would take it, out of desperation, or just because they didn't know any better.

Then of course there are those who have read all the books, who have set up their own websites, have gathered all the quotes they want, and proclaim themselves Twoo Masters of the Gorean way. Disagree with them, and you are not Gorean, no matter the supporting quotes you dig up or the impact it can have on life here on Earth. I've found that slaves are the worst offenders in this regard.

Yet the real, beating, life-giving heart of Gorean society is something completely different. Here, slavery is built on love, devotion, and trust, on both sides. A slave may have to jump when told and do just as the Master says, but as his most precious and cherished possession she is never injured, and is cared for meticulously, well beyond the level of a favoured pet as mentioned in the books. These are the love slaves and their Masters, a slavery which is quoted as being far more strict and exacting, a much harsher slavery than any other. Yet here is love, and with love, the weight of a collar, no matter how heavy, becomes nothing at all.

This is the life I hope to one day be a part of, rather than glimpsing it at a distance.

From Gor: The Concept of Beauty

Though I love Gor, it is unfortunately greatly misunderstood in the larger BDSM community. I get some very strange looks when I mention it at club munches or on BDSM themed sites. I think the vast majority have no clue what it is really about and are influenced by only a few misguided fanatics, just like the greater society is influenced by the misguided fanatics among BDSM. I could rant for pages and pages on the concepts and principles that real life Goreans follow and my own interpretation of such (and likely will at later dates), but tonight I wish to focus just on the Gorean concept of beauty.

While Norman writes essays and essays within the books on how natural selection would create a healthy and vital population free of unattractive features and debilitating genetic problems, this is not so. He immediately contradicts himself by including fat people, short weedy people, ugly or plain people, people with deformities even, who are all valued in Gor for what they can do and the honour they show. Despite all his ranting and the great emphasis on beauty the novels have at times, in the end it doesn't matter what a person looks like.

There are quotable accounts described in the books of women becoming more beautiful when they accept that they are a slave and eventually start to act to attract the attention of men, of women that despite being less beautiful than some by the accepted standards are more desirable because of their personality and fire. A woman will look with adoration upon her Master or mate because as a free man of Gor they hold honour above all else and will stand to protect his family and his home without question. A man who acts with courage and fairness is admired more than most warriors, and even a slave may gain a measure of respect, though in law she deserves none.

While there are some who take the books at face value and support just the oft repeated views stated in the essays without looking at the stories as a whole, I don't. I think that they show that people become beautiful when they accept what is inside them, and show strength of character and beauty of the spirit beyond physical appearance. I wish that such was encouraged more in the world today. Maybe then I wouldn't hide so much.

I am Woman

While I was thinking of things to write for my next post, a thought entered my head that threw me so much it brought up a whole new topic to discuss and I completely forgot what my original idea was. It went like this: "(blah blah blah) really satisfies me as a person."

I don't expect many, if any, people to understand what I find wrong about this thought. Have a think about it anyway before reading on.


I'm heavily influenced by Gorean philosophy. One of the big ideas put forward in the Gorean books is that the society of Earth has become choked, frustrated and stagnated sexually. The sexes have been merged into one genderless blob, rather than having our uniqueness acknowledged and celebrated. We are no longer man and woman, but 'people', the same, equal. (Granted this was written some time ago and deals purely in male/female poles, but by no means should anything in between or converts be ignored. If I end up slipping into the male and female poles its not to be leaving the rest out.)

My thought should have read "(blah blah blah) really satisfies me as a woman."

If I had been thinking of something mediocre or general, that is experienced pretty much the same by both genders, I doubt I would have even noticed that I had put 'person' instead of 'woman'. But I wasn't, I was thinking about sex. Based on your own physical gender and the gender of your partner, sex is experienced differently. Penetrative sex is an experience unique to man and woman. While gay couples might have penetrative sex, its in a different way and is a different experience, simply because of how we're built and how we're wired. Lesbian couples its different again. Even with a sex change, you're still you, genetically and psychologically.

So what really got me thinking is: why was I thinking in generic, sexless terms when expressing something that is so intrinsically linked to gender and sexual identity?

Despite knowing what sex was from quite a young age (its rather hard to ignore when you have a variety of birds and other pets doing it in your backyard) my sexuality was heavily repressed, at home and at school. I don't mean in the development of it though. My mother had gay friends and we were brought up to see them as no different than straights. There was a cross-dresser among the committees she was part of who was 'kind of weird' because he just liked to dress up and identify and didn't want a sex change. I'm glad that I didn't find out she was anti-bisexual until after I had figured out I was quite straight. Kind of mixed signals, but not repressive. What was repressive was in the expressing of it.

We were kind of a skin friendly household only up until the first of us started going to school. Sex was not discussed beyond 'this is birth control', 'this is where babies come from' and 'this guy likes guys instead of girls and that's okay'. A good foundation but not really expressive.

What I would really like to see is the ingrained sexiness of men and women celebrated. And I don't mean flooding our media with more images of sex and what sexiness and sexuality is, I mean learning that we are what we are, and that it is not only acceptable, but should be exciting and liberating. Our deepest darkest urges should not be so deep nor dark, we should not have to hide who we are and what turns us on. I think the truly vanilla would be shocked at how many kinky people would arise, and the supressed kinksters shocked as well. I could certainly do with a bit more choice among kinky partners.

So, yes. I am woman. I am sensual, sexual, and oh so kinky.