disinformation | slavemasters of gor: fantasy fetish or fetishizing fantasy?

Welcome to Disinformation | July 06, 2003

Abuse Your Illusions - the follow-up to Everything You Know Is Wrong & You Are Being Lied To is in the store and every bit as essential. The long-awaited Disinformation DVD is in too!
>>Go

U.S. Weighs Military Intervention in Liberia
>>Go

What The European Papers Say
>>Go

Violence Mars Nigerian Strikes
>>Go

Religion in the News: June 2003
>>Go

slavemasters of gor: fantasy fetish or fetishizing fantasy?
by Nick Mamatas (laddertrick@gvny.com) - January 09, 2001

The Gor books of John Norman (a pseudonym for Professor John Lange) sparked the sexual awakening of many a science fiction fanboy back in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Combining the twin poles of attraction of science fiction (the alienation of the reader to modern society) and fantasy (the desire for mastery), the Gor books presented us with the world of Counter Earth, which can be found on the other side of the sun. Counter Earth is a pastiche of barroom sociology, Robert E. Howard's Conan settings and virulent sexism. On Gor, as its inhabitants call Counter Earth, the majority of women are the sexual slaves to the warrior men who populate the planet.

The draw of this set-up to the heavily alienated adolescent science fiction fans is obvious, and epic fantasy's appeal to desires for mastery is undoubtedly compelling. The first Gor books were published while the sexual revolution was still sticky and covered in afterbirth, so the PG-rated bondage and off-screen rapes helped the Gor books slip past busy high school librarians and worried Stepford moms.

At about the same time, leather culture and Dominance/submission (D/s) started to emerge as a public subculture in the United States. Buoyed by the sexual revolution and the gay liberation struggle, D/s relationships and practices became more popular. While sexual relationships where one or more partner is seemingly inferior to the other smacks of 19th century social mores, D/s was different. D/s relationships were and are built on explicit negotiation of limits and desires, and the power in the relationships is not simply seized or assumed, it is exchanged.

Underlying the praxis of sometimes severe behavior (a Dom or Domme may negotiate to control the sub's clothing, use of furniture, or sexual practices with other people, as well as dole out pain and pleasure), there is an essential recognition of equality between partners. Things only go as far as the sub wishes, and the explicit rules and regulations of D/s can often evolve into a profound implicit understanding of needs, desires and personality. Many sexual subs are dominant in everyday life, while Doms and Dommes are rarely order-barking goose steppers outside of their relationship roles.

The combination of science fiction fandom and D/s necessarily led to the appropriation of "Gorean" sentiment and practice into BDSM. Goreans are different than your run of the mill BDSM relationship though, in that many of them reject the essential equality of men and women. D/s opened up a whole new array of choices for people, but Gor shuts them down. All women are inferior to all men. Dominant women just haven't found the right man yet, and lesbian women haven't found the right penis. Submissive men are freaks of nature, or the end result of too much pampering and cuckolding.

Some members of the real-life Gorean subculture believe that Earth is much like Counter Earth, in spite of the lack of barbarian hordes and giant, superintelligent crickets. And if liberated 1960s gals can be raped into humble submission on Gor, why couldn't it work here? Goreans stop short of calling for mass rapes and duels to the death, as the police and mental health professionals are everywhere, but the Gorean subculture is growing, especially online.

Gorean chatrooms and IRC channels are filled to the brimming with purple prose and asses streaked red from leather straps. Gor is the fanboy's ghost dance: years ago, before the emergence of Milquetoast liberalism, didn't all women want to be ravished by strong men? Weren't gays and lesbians "freaks of nature"? Wasn't wife beating legal?

Through fantasy, brute force assertion, and pseudo-scientific bleating, Goreans hope to drag us all to this vicious fantasy world beyond the sun.

Welcome To The Slave Web Page
It is hard to say what is funnier. This page, its tedious theme songs and overblown art and rhetoric, and its difficult to navigate frame system, or the fact that the author is apparently a member of the HTML Writers Guild. This page does have a complete listing of the Gor books, art from each book and the tagline of each book. That is worth checking out.

An Historical Overview Of Heroes In Contemporary Works Of Fantasy Literature
A survey of fantasy heroes, with a brief mention of Gor. It is a good primer for people not familiar with heroic and epic fantasy. The narrative tropes of the Gorean mythos and the appeal of the lifestyle can both be understood through the prism of heroic literature and its ability to supply the reader with feelings of mastery over fate and a sense of place in a logical universe.

Welcome To HOX
Funny, I didn't feel all that welcome. A selection of fan fiction written in the "style" of the Gor books (think Peyton Place meets The Book Of Mormon). After reading a few of these pieces, I had to sympathize with the character who shouted, "Please Master . . . show a girl pity!!!" I didn't get any either, in this joint. The first few Gor books are actually better written than this material.

A Crazy Little World Called Gor
Here is a brief examination of the Gor books, John Norman and the Gorean lifestyle phenomenon. It makes the distinction between the first three Gor books and subsequent Gor books, but doesn't tackle the problem of ghost writers, or the rumor that Norman wrote the books just to show that genre literature was a debased form and that publishers would literally publish anything. This piece risks taking Gore more seriously than it was intended to be taken, a mistake the lifestylers have made.

Gorean Nazism
A brief examination through juxtaposition of the Gorean philosophy as explicated on the Silk & Steel Web site, and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. Well-meaning, but a bit wrongheaded. Gorean philosophy is certainly reactionary and epiphenomenal similarities to a variety of Social Darwinist, Nietzschean philosophy and abstract appeals to some brutal human nature abound, but most Goreans certainly aren't Nazis.

Silkswan's Secret Life
The ad-heavy, but otherwise fun Web site of a woman who claims to be in a "modified total power exchange relationship." The site has lots of pics and stories and a few stray pits of philosophy. Even though this woman has a Master and considers herself a "slave" after a fashion, there is an essential mutual respect between the partners, and no notion that Silkswan is necessarily or categorically inferior as a human being to her Master. That's the difference between D/s and Gor.

Outlaws Of Gor
Gorean fundamentalists who believe that John Norman's work (and the work of his ghost writers, presumably) is not open to interpretation. "To expose the Gorean philosophy to such silliness is ludicrous, and only exposes those who are truly uninformed for what they are: Uninformed." Oddly enough, most of the pics of the Gorean masters don't reveal heavily muscled studs in loincloths. Apparently the pot belly is the most powerful symbol of Mastery on Gor.

Kajira Forum
Kajira is the Gorean term for slave. Unlike most real-world slaves, kajira can read (after all, they only end up being kajira after reading the Gor books). Unfortunately for the commentaries on such vital subjects as how to properly dress and dance for the Master, few of these slaves can write. Remember girls, if you are beaten for something you didn't do, and want to know who to complain to, check out the FAQ: "No one, and no one will care. You are a slave, and as such, occasional beatings, sometimes for even no reason at all, are a part of your life. Even if you are a preferred girl and a prized possession, this does not change the fact you are only a slave, and complaining might not even fall just on deaf ears, but may get you beaten even more."

Silk & Steel
A major resource on all things Gorean. Go to their IRC channel and Dalnet and have some sexy blonde pour you some ka-la-na wine, then have her beaten! If you're one of those brainy types, check out the "philosophical" essays, which include such profundities as: "To scarlett's mind, there is a distinct difference between the 'station' of slavery and a female 'possessing the inner nature to be' a Gorean slave girl." Half-wit essentialism is one of the basic epistemological strategies of the Gorean: evidence that runs contrary to their beliefs is ignored, and the claim that all women are inferior to all men stands as being self-evident.

Bondage.com
One of the leading sites for BDSM on the net. Stories, pics, personal ads and its own IRC server. Not Gorean at all, for the most part, but there are many Goreans on irc.bondage.com, the IRC server. For D/s aficionados with brains and reading habits that have changed since age 14.

No Messages Posted Yet...