Okay, so it's much too late to be posting to this thread. My excuse is that I don't get out much, and, besides, there's always the possibility that you'll discover this reply at some point.
The only exposure that I have ever had to the wonderful world of Gor was an online Batman crossover fanfic called "A Cat and a Bat on Gor". I kid you not. I don't remember how I stumbled on the story. I don't know why I read it the whole way through. All of us literary types insist that we'll read anything that comes to hand but that doesn't excuse my complete lack of any instinct of self-preservation. All I can tell you is that the brain damage was permanent.
Warning: Spoilers ahead!*
The plot follows Catwoman and Batgirl, the character everyone loves to hate, as they are kidnapped by Gorean slave traders, taken back to Gor, 'broken,' and sold. I don't know what I found more disturbing, the scene in which Bruce Wayne (now a Gorean master-man) slaps a giddily slavish Batgirl around or the story's closing moments, which suggest that Bruce Wayne planned the whole kidnapping so that he could enslave all his hott super-nemeses.** Oh, I almost forgot the several inexplicable references to Princess Diana, who, I'm sure you'll all be relieved to know, did not actually die in a car accident, but is, in fact, now a happily barefoot and pregnant slave named something like Sweetbreasts living in Gor's northcountry. Did I mention the brain damage?
The prose, as you can probably guess, was like your typical hemorrhage-inducing fanfic style on acid. Imagine a twelve-year-old trying to imitate John Norman.... No, wait. Don't do that. I'm sure you get the picture.
The outcomes of this experience are, first, that I have a much deeper understanding of the varied nature of torture, and, second, that I never want to be exposed to anything having to do with Gor ever again.
I've also had the dubious pleasure of running into lifestyle Goreans on message boards. Roleplaying? Fine. D/s or BDSM lifestyle? More power to you. But the moment you try to generalize your sexual preferences into a political perspective that demeans and has the potential to turn the clock backward on the social progress made by a still-disenfranchised portion of the population is the moment I go textually berserk in front of a bunch of forum strangers.
Why is it that all of these men*** believe themselves to be experts in the field of evolutionary neurobiology? Argh!
I'm sorry. The whole Gorean philosophy, from what little exposure I've had to it, drives me absolutely crazy. Basing your private life on it is one thing. Embellishing it into a belief system that passes absolute judgement on women's roles and social worth is really ludicrous. In sum, this concept of Gor confuses and infuriates me! May I never run into a Gorean in real life.
* Sorry. Now I'm just being mean. :-)
** I'm recounting my memory of the story here; the details may be inaccurate to the text, but there's no way I'm going to try to find it to fact-check.
*** Because, in my experience, they're all men -- though, on further consideration, perhaps this is because the Gorean slavewomen are too busy kneeling with c*** in their mouths to use the keyboard.
no subject
Okay, so it's much too late to be posting to this thread. My excuse is that I don't get out much, and, besides, there's always the possibility that you'll discover this reply at some point.
The only exposure that I have ever had to the wonderful world of Gor was an online Batman crossover fanfic called "A Cat and a Bat on Gor". I kid you not. I don't remember how I stumbled on the story. I don't know why I read it the whole way through. All of us literary types insist that we'll read anything that comes to hand but that doesn't excuse my complete lack of any instinct of self-preservation. All I can tell you is that the brain damage was permanent.
Warning: Spoilers ahead!*
The plot follows Catwoman and Batgirl, the character everyone loves to hate, as they are kidnapped by Gorean slave traders, taken back to Gor, 'broken,' and sold. I don't know what I found more disturbing, the scene in which Bruce Wayne (now a Gorean master-man) slaps a giddily slavish Batgirl around or the story's closing moments, which suggest that Bruce Wayne planned the whole kidnapping so that he could enslave all his hott super-nemeses.** Oh, I almost forgot the several inexplicable references to Princess Diana, who, I'm sure you'll all be relieved to know, did not actually die in a car accident, but is, in fact, now a happily barefoot and pregnant slave named something like Sweetbreasts living in Gor's northcountry. Did I mention the brain damage?
The prose, as you can probably guess, was like your typical hemorrhage-inducing fanfic style on acid. Imagine a twelve-year-old trying to imitate John Norman.... No, wait. Don't do that. I'm sure you get the picture.
The outcomes of this experience are, first, that I have a much deeper understanding of the varied nature of torture, and, second, that I never want to be exposed to anything having to do with Gor ever again.
I've also had the dubious pleasure of running into lifestyle Goreans on message boards. Roleplaying? Fine. D/s or BDSM lifestyle? More power to you. But the moment you try to generalize your sexual preferences into a political perspective that demeans and has the potential to turn the clock backward on the social progress made by a still-disenfranchised portion of the population is the moment I go textually berserk in front of a bunch of forum strangers.
Why is it that all of these men*** believe themselves to be experts in the field of evolutionary neurobiology? Argh!
I'm sorry. The whole Gorean philosophy, from what little exposure I've had to it, drives me absolutely crazy. Basing your private life on it is one thing. Embellishing it into a belief system that passes absolute judgement on women's roles and social worth is really ludicrous. In sum, this concept of Gor confuses and infuriates me! May I never run into a Gorean in real life.
* Sorry. Now I'm just being mean. :-)
** I'm recounting my memory of the story here; the details may be inaccurate to the text, but there's no way I'm going to try to find it to fact-check.
*** Because, in my experience, they're all men -- though, on further consideration, perhaps this is because the Gorean slavewomen are too busy kneeling with c*** in their mouths to use the keyboard.