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I don't get it. You see, I have stumbled across stories from it here on this website and elsewhere, and i've done some research into it. What I've learned is that it seems to be an extremely sexist, hyper male power/sex fantasy where females seem to be nothing more than worthless abuse toys. I...I just don't get it. If someone can help me try and understand this I'd be grateful because I don't understand why anyone would find this attractive or would want to be part of it.
Comments
As a female
I would agree with you that abuse is nasty and some stories do feature what you say but I would suggest the majority of them here don't feature females as toys for abuse to power male egos, if anything the opposite.
Angharad
Gor
My understanding is that John Norman wrote the Gor books as a counter to the feminist movement of the '60s. The books are rather turgidly written and honestly, I don't see how he got a publisher. The first 3 books are kinda fun as they are mostly swashbuckling fun if you like that kind of adventure. Then they just go downhill after that. I've only read the first 7 out of 23 or 24 books. I only read them because on-line I role play a Gorean slave girl or Kajira. It's hard to explain the whys...for some, including me, find it liberating to hand over, if only for a hour or so, all your decisions to someone else. You either get it or you don't. But it's all just role play. If you're curious, I can tell you more in PM.
I hope you read my Gor story, Kajira's Dance. It's more of a parody than a homage. It's college kids playing an advanced console game.
Melanie
I have read all of them
and you are right, the first few were decent action adventure stories.
after that, the protagonist went to the dark side and became the worst of the enslaving males.
What gets me is those who actually try to live it for real. I have met a couple of their victims.
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.
A small reality in many women
As a result of this week's discussion on Gor, I read this story again, having forgotten I had read it in 2012. The game, um story, caused my inner parts to react in a way that has not happened in a long time. Just because I understand masochism does not mean it is curable.
Also had a Saudi guy stay with me this week. He does not know about my past, and he treated me fully like a Muslim woman, so it is with great certainty I can say that if the right man came into my life ... There is 40 years between us so he saw me like auntie, so he touched me only to hug me.
I have known him for 10 years, and his staying with me was a surprise. I think I can safely make some generalizations about the visit. Men can be very nice in a thrilling way if they choose to do it. He did get grumpy once and it absolutely terrified me, and I was willing to do anything to notch him out of grumpy. In Surah 4:34 in the Qur'an, men can strike the woman, and it made me know with considerable certainty that if he chose to do it, he would, though it would probably be on my hind quarters. The last time I was struck like that, complete disassociation for about 20 minutes followed, so it would have scared the hell out of him. No disassociation in about 3 years.
Your story followed the Gorean story line absolutely, but you are an infinitely better writer than John Norman.
I could like totally see myself as a silk slave.
Gwen
I bought the first few when
I bought the first few when they came out. They were at least as readable as Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars books (damning with faint praise there... :-)
Being something of a sub I was able to get into the kajira role somewhat, though it quickly got *really* repetitive and boring.
The final straw was the book where the Hero Tarl Cabot got captured and enslaved. and this big, mighty hero type *falls apart*. Completely out of character.
I quit buying them then. I did read a few more because a housemate was into them.
I also bought John Norman's Imaginative Sex. a book of sexual fantasies/roleplaying scenarios Norman wrote. I wish I'd kept it because most folks have trouble believing how *bad* it was.
I once described it as "Norman covers the range of sexual fantasies fron A to B" (actually, he never gets to B. all the scenarios are the exact same type of fantasy with just prop changes)
Gorean types in "real life" appeal to what many in the BDSM community refer to as "twue doms". Folks who haven't got a clue and don't want one.
And all too often they're abusers using the trappings to lure in victims who don't know any better.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
I've never read them but...
As near as I can tell from what I've seen of writing by people who have, Gor is a horny little boy's fantasy. As long as fantasy stays fantasy and no one tries to make it real the world is generally a better place. Of course you can't have my communicator back (AKA a cell phone) ala Star Trek. Then again Star Trek and its ilk were not pure fantasy but an attempt to peer into the future and see what we might be. I hope we get transporters and warp drives someday!
Aardvark's tale is a very satisfing twist on the "Gor" genera
I got to test read
The Warrior From Batuk
some years back. His story takes place on the planet Zhor, not Gor. But is clearly based on it and it is a far better version of a Gor tale IMHO.
Mind you some of the earlier chapters involving the main character seem like a standard Gor tale, with all it's misogynistic bent but it sets the scene for a far grander tale. One with good, neutral and evil persons on both sides of the gender line.
A long read but one of my favorites here at BC.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
John Norman of Riverworld
Back in the 70's Phillip Jose Farmer wrote a series of books called RIVERWORLD, in which every human who ever lived has been mysteriously resurrected on a large constructed planet that has a river spiraling around and around it. Over the course of five books he tossed together numerous historical figures who never got a chance to meet in their first lives, from Mark Twain to King Arthur. It was a lot of fun to read and I'm surprised I can't find any fanfic of it on FANFICTION.NET, because the possibilities seem limitless...
Then I read a GOR book, or most of it, and my reaction was "Wow, this guy is seriously fucked up in the head!"
I still think that; I mean Jesus Christ, his male supremacist utopia sounds exactly like what ISIS is doing! I just Wikipedia'd John Norman (which it turns out was his nom de plume) he's still around, a professor of philosophy someplace who's big on Nietzsche and Social Darwinism and other closet-fascist hooey, but at the time I imagined John Norman as a pasty faced twerp with serious impotency issues; and thought: What if he was a character in a Riverworld story? I toyed with the idea of a fanfic, with him and some fellow famous misogynists like George F. Gilder (author of the hysterical anti-feminist screed SEXUAL SUICIDE) trying to set up a real Gorean slaver empire along the banks of the great river, only to get their asses righteously kicked by a bunch of Suffragettes and Amazons. My motto has always been if you're repulsed by something you read isn't to try and ban it, but to write a rebuttal story. So maybe I'll write it some day. And maybe throw Wonder Woman in there for good measure, I've never been fastidious about genres, although she's a lot nicer to assholes than what I'm imagining for this one...
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
I watched the movie
On Universal. A very interesting idea but also disturbing in a way. The aliens had food disbursers and people like Pizzarro secured them so they could control people.
Sydney Moya
Slavery
Farmer called them "grail slaves" if I remember correctly.
Understanding Gorean John Norman
To fully understand all this, one must be "seriously 'f'd' up", and I most certainly am. I'm spending a few days with a Saudi Arabian guy couch surfing in my apartment, no seriously. When he turns on the charm, it is very nice, and when he is not charming, it is like having one of John Norman's slave masters.
I loved Aardvark's "Slave of Batuk". It spoke to me in a wonderful way. I read most of John Norman's books, but must say he is a very bad writer, and I think his wife probably beats him. It's a pity that his books are so badly written, and he is so whiny because the storyline is not bad.
One would probably need some expertise in Psychology to understand the mind of one who would connect with John Norman's books. I am she because I am an undergraduate in Psych, and due to a childhood of unspeakable abuse, and a marriage that was emotionally abusive, (which is now unlawful in the UK), I came to believe that I was only worth being abused and made to cry. Personal Psychology is largely a toss of the dice, so my abuse made me gentle, and in some, abuse makes them angry and abusive themselves. Who can predict such a thing?
In my very late 60's it is now clear that abuse is not fun, and makes one sad. While I thought I wanted was a Master, all I really wanted was someone to hold me, comfort me, and maketh me to behave. Neither shall happen.
Gwen
Gorean community
As many know, I used to be very active in the virtual world SecondLife. In SecondLife there are many communities. Now I was,and still am, deeply entrenched in the Vampiric Nations(Bloodlines and Netherworld). There are many in the Nations that are involved in Gorean communities. There are many regions in SecondLife that are dedicated to Gor. Its a very involved rp. For the most part the setting is medieval. While I never found the allure, I did know some who did. There were some clans of the Vampire Nations that indulged in Gor. Court etiquette and Gorean etiquette are vastly different. Away from their dedicated regions the Gor clans acknowledged all royalty and infrastructures, in their dedicate regions the only royalty and infrastructure they recognized were in Gor fashion. Males were the pinnacle and the females that were attached(married to those males) were acknowledged. Lower stations were not recognized and any form of servant or their perception of a servant (familiar/blood doll/ blood angel) were ignored if they brought no attention to themselves. a servant that did draw attention was a great insult. Non-vampiric Gor settlements objected to the presence of anyone in the Nations on their lands, especially those that were hunting(recruiting for their clans). The attire of a Gorean person is determined by their station. Women of influence wore full length attire that also included a veil. Slaves wore attire that covered the necessary unless they were a comfort nature(sexual slave) then their attire would be scant and alluring. People on the fringes of the community(free people) wore light armor, usually leather, and armament that usually consisted of bow and/or sword and things of the like. That's about the extent of my knowledge.
quidquid sum ego, et omnia mea semper; Ego me.
alecia Snowfall
Which might explain ...
What you say may explain my attachment to Islamic culture. In much of it, males are the boss and the women have to put up with their antics. The only saving grace is that most males are not 100% jerks, so once in awhile they are nice to you. The one staying with me actually took me to see Star Wars VII and to breakfast. In the evening he was back to his usual inscrutable and distant self. He snapped at me late in the evening and I discovered that I am still very afraid of males. And, having him around feels like baby sitting. I'll be glad when he's off to college again.
"Life is like a box of chocolates" and you never know which one will blow up in your face.
Gwen
movie
wasnt there a movie called Gor? or something like that in the 80s?
There was but it was based on
There was but it was based on the books so loosely that one wonders why they bothered to use the name
Polly
Movie Gor
There was and it was worse than the books. Writing, acting, production values kind of bad.
Those books
As a young person I spent as much time as I could in libraries, partly because they were one place I never saw the people who beat me up every day. I read every SF or similar book I could find, including the first few Gor books. The initial premise that the word for stranger is the same as the word for enemy was a neat touch, but as my sexuality as a pre-adolescent was a bit borked by my dysphoria, all the rubbish about slave racks and bracelets flew right past me. A few years later, I tried a later book in the series, and managed about ten pages before it went back on the shelf.
I have also read all the Riverworld books by Farmer, who was also a little strange in his approach to life, and like Laika enjoyed them. I would personally like to think of Norman meeting my own characters Ginny and Kirsty and trying to put them in "their place". Ouch!
What worries me about that sort of tripe is in the ability of the average teenaged wanker (no matter how physically old) to separate role-playing masturbatory fantasy from their real life.
Or to not separate fantasy from real life?
I know exactly what you are talking about and was an avid reader of any book that would sit still. The beatings and bleak life drove me into my room where I shut the door and hid. There was a two year period where I was involuntarily confined there, so lots of reading.
Due to the willy nilly nature of personal Psychology, much of the time living in the fantasy felt far better than the reality. It is still amazing to me that I did not start killing, some do. I did actually try to kill him once, with a hatchet, but being who I am, he easily took it from me. That insured that I would never be able to do personal combat, though I am lethal with a gun.
What you related, I know so well. I hope that no one is abusing you now.
Gwen
Louis Lamour
So far as I know, Louis Lamour was the originator of the idea that the word for stranger is enemy. I certainly recall that phrase from some of his earliest work. Now he may have been quoting someone, so I could be wrong...
That actually comes from
That actually comes from tribal languages. Specifically, in most native american languages, and I would suspect most tribal languages from other continents, you have two words for people.
The people in your tribe are 'The People', and those in other tribes are 'Not People'. One tribe's name for the Inuit tribes translates as "Blubber Eaters" or sometimes "Eaters of raw meat" (Algonquin), for example.
(It was spelled Esquimaux by the French, and then anglicized into Eskimo)
Once you've pointed out that the other people aren't like _your_ people, it's easier to fight them when resources are low.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I Use To Be a Member
I use to be a member of a couple of Gor Worlds in Active Worlds. I won't give what my role was as that was in the past.
I only read the first 4 books and couldn't go any further. Not because of the overt violence and sexual violence, but because I found then too hard to read.
I can understand peoples reaction to them and respect their opinion. But I think with everything one has to take these books with a gran of salt. They are just fantasy, nothing more.
Yes some people role play online, and to a degree in real life as well. But I like to think, that those people know where to draw the line.
Oh. And I have seen the movie that was made. Talk about corny. God that movie was so bad it was funny. I think they did a second, but don't quote me on that. Hehe.
Daphne46
While there is a plenty of
While there is a plenty of FemDom universes why not one or two shelves for MaleDom? I don't like femdom but there are a couple of stories written by talented authors and I really like those stories. The same is with a Gor universe - I really like Melanie Brown's Kajira's dance. Parody or not it's a very good story.
Another question why? FemDom is about hating a masculinity as opposite to femininity, while MaleDom is thinking much of femininity at any cost.
Having read about half of the
Having read about half of the Gor books, I can say the protagonist, the one that is the POV character in the first ten or so books, is a MASSIVE Mary Sue. The guy is perfect. He is a perfect physical specimin, can fight better than professional military soldiers and the WWF fighters and MMA fighters, is accurate and a genius in playing chess and more. So that's one problem. I also think that he has a massive problem with women and can only be happy if they are in a lesser position than he is. And thus it is an insecure person writing his perfect world for him.
That said, at times I've wanted to be there as a slavegirl.
It would be horrible, it would be a never ending nightmare, but there's some dark part that wants it.
The books are not very well written, there's no development of characters, and Deux ex Machina is very apparent all over, but some people like them. I was only able to get about halfway through "Fighting Slave of Gor" before getting fed up and not reading them anymore.
The bulk of most of the book seems to be long internal monologues of the people on the page about the nature of slavery, sex, women's place in the world, and how men are in charge of it all. Lots of menninist apologetics and power crap.
Let me put my opinion this
Let me put my opinion this way.
Considering what percentage of FictionMania is 'FemDom/Sissy', (5503 out of 26,000, so approximately 20%), it's the SAME kind of people. Extremely sexist, hyper female power/sex fantasy.
That's it. It's pure escapist fantasy, and it was written for a purely male audience. To reference another poster, it's just like the Edgar Rice Burroughs books, in many ways. It wasn't written for a complex set of characters with complex goals. It's simple stories written for people to read without having to concentrate on every character in depth. (Unlike War and Peace). All of the various books I have read from that same time period, in the same sort of 'adventure' genre, have much the same structure. Even Louis L'Amour.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Gor is Boring
The Gor series had a moderate following back in the 1970s when they first appeared. The books were published because they were popular. The basic moral of the series was that no woman was happy unless she was on her knees in front of a man.
Every man -- and a lot of women -- have rape fantasies. The important thing is to keep them just a fantasy. OR to do them as part of sex games with a willing partner, knowing that, after she fulfills your fantasy, you have to fulfill one of hers. The point, of course, is to have fun with sex, keeping in mind that Norman's world view is hardly appropriate.
A thought
I know I am replying years after the thread began, still as the poster above states, rape fantasies exist in both male and females. If I were the female I should be, I certainly would not wish to be subject to that. Indeed my fantasy is to find myself a young female complete with my knowledge and take over the world muhahahahahaha... though there is another theme that occurs within gor and zhor, the girl (or boy now a girl) finds her true master, and gives herself to him, more so than any other... he is the one for her, that completes her, and she him.
But If you examine a lot of stories and for that matter games on the game website, you find misogyny figures into a lot of them. I think a big part of it is that because a lot of us are not the girls we wish we could be, we enjoy fantasizing about being a girl, and even though it is abhorrent part of being a girl is being not as powerful physically as a man, finding ourselves in positions only a girl could find herself in as a way to satisfy our need to be the girls we truly are.
Another fantasy is that of a DnD character I had years ago. He was a well meaning misogynist, ie gallant swashbuckler type, who loved the ladies... many of them. His father had to pay off at least a couple of families to send their daughters away to deal with their pregnancies, as a result of his nocturnal activities.. girls loved and cast aside for the next, they band together and punish him by transforming him into a female where he has to deal with becoming a girl... and living as a girl in a mans world. Which brings another theme, to the above mentioned... that of bad boy to good girl, which is a much larger theme on the site.
Face it girls... we are more complicated than most women and most women. I once hypothesized that more intellectual people wonder about such things than your average male. A good half the male population wouldn't wonder... and only 10% perhaps of us actually go further than that and realize that we are indeed female.