RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (Full Version)

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ShaktiSama -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 2:51:28 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol
Women don't need to fantasise so much about dominating men: they just go ahead and do it.


I've never understood this attitude, actually.  Fantasizing about a thing and doing it are NOT mutually exclusive, and I really enjoy lovers with a rich fantasy life.

Besides, it's not just the BDSM that makes certain fiction hot--it's the opulent setting and the removal of banality.  Real life can be REAL tiresome sometimes.  Being a valkyrie who can just descend on a winged steed and throw a sex-ay man over the pommel of my saddle so's I can take him home and ravish him has a certain appeal.  So much less complicated than having to exchange emails!  [:D]




LadyKathryn -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 2:54:01 PM)

Hi everyone,

If you read between the lines of the Gorean novels, you'll see one very obvious thing: to be true to who you are, no matter who that is.  Granted, the author tends to disagree with the feminist movement or women in any position of authority in the books, but he has also been quoted in interviews as saying that the novels were all purely fiction, and that the views in the novels are not his true views about women.  Look for another of his titles, "Imaginative Sex".  He talks about Gorean scenarios being "roleplay" and talks about safe, sane and consentual practices that do not harm the women involved.

Many Goreans (though, by no stretch of the imagination, all) are very concerned about the safety of the women involved in this type of relationship.   If partnered and serving as a slave, a woman is totally submissive to her male partner, but they are also very well cared for by him, emotionally, physically and mentally.

(I've spent the last 6 years seriously learning about the Gorean lifestyle.  I own all of the books, and have read them (both for pleasure, and serious study of the philosophies), more than once.  I've also spent great amounts of time on the Gorean board here, and seeking information from other real life Gorean groups).

Feel free to contact me on the other side if you need any more help.




kittinSol -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 2:56:32 PM)

Fair enough, but what you're describing is far from being obsessive about dubious pieces of literature. What I'm referring to is a very particular mentality that obsesses, semi-autistically, over points of detail in 'fantasy' novels and other 'dungeonesque' and 'dragonesque' stuff.




ShaktiSama -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 3:03:06 PM)

Ok, but I'm not sure that being an obsessive geek really breaks down along gender lines.  Any geek can be obsessive, male or female.  I have been a gamer for well over 20 years now, and a science fiction and fantasy fanatic since I was able to read a book longer than Dr. Seuss.  I've long since lost any shame over it, and I've certainly never found that my Uber Geekitude was a hindrance to having a real sex life, including domination of men and women alike.

Fantasizing doesn't substtitute for a sex life.  Just supplements my sex life.   [;)]




kittinSol -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 3:08:01 PM)

Geek or nerd? The debate rages on [:D] .




slaveboyforyou -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 3:09:44 PM)

quote:

(I've spent the last 6 years seriously learning about the Gorean lifestyle.  I own all of the books, and have read them (both for pleasure, and serious study of the philosophies), more than once. 


There is no philosophy in the books anymore than there is a philosophy in Star Wars.  John Norman has repeatedly expressed bewilderment and disgust at the idea of lifestyle Goreanism.  They are pulp fiction, and they are written at around the 5th grade reading level.  That's not an insult to those that enjoy the books; it's simply the truth about the books. 

I imagine John Norman feels about the same as William Shatner feels when a overzealous fan comes up to him to discuss the philosophical implications of a particular episode.  They are only stories for fuck's sake.  I love fiction just as much as the next person, and I love fantasy.  But you come dangerously close to mental illness when you start trying to formulate a worldview and way of living based on a fictional story.  It reminds me of the vampire lifestylers that used to hang around the front of Anne Rice's house in New Orleans.  The poor woman had to move to get away from them.  Real life can be incredibly boring and routine.  But you can't escape it by applying the pages of a science fiction novel to your life.  That's just nuts. 




ShaktiSama -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 3:14:55 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Geek or nerd? The debate rages on [:D] .


Lol...I'll answer to either.  I generally prefer Geek, though--I tend to think of nerds as being better at math and less inclined to be social.




LadyKathryn -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 3:31:15 PM)

slaveboyforyou:

Each to their own.  I don't base my life around the books, nor do I wish to.  I just decided to share the fact that I've actually chosen to learn, enlighten myself and form my own opinions, rather than bash something just because I've heard that it's bad.

have a great day!




kittinSol -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 3:33:45 PM)

You might find the following article interesting  (I did - it's how I first found out about Gor):

quote:



Yet today, despite the fact that most of the series is no longer available except in secondhand stores (the first six books were recently rereleased by erotica publisher Masquerade Press but met with retailer resistance), Gor has experienced a huge revival in the virtual world of online role-playing and, perhaps most surprising in this post-feminist era, also serves as the philosophical template for a self-styled community of "lifestyle Goreans," who enthusiastically embrace and practice consensual female slavery in their everyday lives. The lifestyle Goreans also adhere to other rituals, codes and precepts of the fictional Gor, and community sites such as Silk and Steel and the Gorean Public Boards serve as an important means of education, fellowship and recruitment to the lifestyle.

A major theme running through the Gor novels, and often echoed in Gor fandom, is that the free women secretly long to be owned by dominant and powerful men. "Slavery, of course, is the surest path by means of which a woman can discover her femininity," the author observes in "Magicians of Gor." "The paradox of the collar is the freedom which a woman experiences in at last finding herself, and becoming herself."

On Gor, only the slave women completely indulge their sexuality; free women are supposed to maintain a chilly dignity. So if a free woman should make the error of behaving with less than Madonna-like circumspection (for example, by flirting too whorishly with a man), she has revealed her fundamental desire to submit to him -- her "instinctive" wish to be mere chattel at the man's mercy -- and thus forfeits her right to remain free. She's usually stripped of her face veils and slapped into chains forthwith.







aidan -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 5:11:28 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: slaveboyforyou

quote:

(I've spent the last 6 years seriously learning about the Gorean lifestyle.  I own all of the books, and have read them (both for pleasure, and serious study of the philosophies), more than once. 


There is no philosophy in the books anymore than there is a philosophy in Star Wars.  John Norman has repeatedly expressed bewilderment and disgust at the idea of lifestyle Goreanism.  They are pulp fiction, and they are written at around the 5th grade reading level.  That's not an insult to those that enjoy the books; it's simply the truth about the books. 

I imagine John Norman feels about the same as William Shatner feels when a overzealous fan comes up to him to discuss the philosophical implications of a particular episode.  They are only stories for fuck's sake.  I love fiction just as much as the next person, and I love fantasy.  But you come dangerously close to mental illness when you start trying to formulate a worldview and way of living based on a fictional story.  It reminds me of the vampire lifestylers that used to hang around the front of Anne Rice's house in New Orleans.  The poor woman had to move to get away from them.  Real life can be incredibly boring and routine.  But you can't escape it by applying the pages of a science fiction novel to your life.  That's just nuts. 



While I agree with you that taking a piece of fantastical fiction literally is an intellectually flawed endeavor, I have to disagree with the suggestion in your post that fiction has no philosophical merit.

To use one of the examples you gave, Star Wars is actually laced with a great deal of philosophical and religious themes and iconography. Whether one agrees with those themes and responds positively to those icons will vary from person to person, but to suggest that they're not there is simply untrue.

A way of life based of fiction? That's going to the edge, in most cases. An outlook or world-view? I'm living proof that that's a viable option.

Remember, stories have been used since humanity started to convey knowledge.

*ahems and adjusts his glasses*

Now...on topic.

Gor. Yes. Not my cup of tea, I tend to group the people who practice it in roughly the same category as those who wear ther Federation uniforms 'round the house. But that's neither here nor there. They enjoy it, so good on'm.




bipolarber -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 5:26:57 PM)

Next up: are all sub women actually Orion slave girls from Star Trek?




aidan -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 5:31:13 PM)

If that's true, I may just have to consider this whole Switch thing*.





*Just kidding, Mistress. Honestly. Please don't make me sleep on the floor.




SweetDommes -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 5:46:38 PM)

I've read the first 6 of the books ... it wasn't easy, but I made it ...  barely ... and I just couldn't make it through the 7th - I gave up and sold them all.

I, personally, can't agree with any system where any group are treated like they are lower than trash (male submissives) and even so-called "free women" are supposed to be submissive to free males, and may be forced into slavery at any time.  The majority of the goreans that I have ran into felt that Holly and I should defer to males simply because they were gorean males and we are females *snort* not bloody likely.  The majority of the gorean slave girls that hang out in chat rooms are ... to put it politely, more annoying than nails on a chalkboard.  And then there are specific people - one who told us that it didn't matter if we thought our boy needed punished or not, because the male of the couple didn't agree - one who said that if he was online and someone (whom had been invited/was expected) came to the door, they would have to wait until he was done with whatever he was doing, even if it was 15 minutes or more and the guest(s) were not early.  I tend to avoid self-proclaimed goreans at all costs now because of our previous experiences. 




LadyHibiscus -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 6:22:25 PM)

To those of you who have read ALL those books....wow.  Just....wow.  I couldn't get past the first one, and one other one that I read at random figuring HEY, it might have gotten better with practice....

SlaveBoy, THANK YOU!  I love ERB, and Haggard, and all those pulp authors....and the hot bondage cover art. 

There are more than a few Goreans here in Detroit.  I wish I could say that they deserved some kind of respect, but their behavior shows that they do not.  But, they could be jackasses anyway, and the trappings of Gor may or may not have added to that.  [;)] 

I fail at games, but many of my friends of various genders are gamers.  I wear my geek tiara proudly!  And I want my very own Orion slave boy!  If they have qualities like the girls, I would die with a smile on my face. <G>




Lynnxz -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/25/2008 10:34:37 PM)

O lord.. I had my first face to face experience with a practicing Gorean the other day... I couldn't keep a straight face.




khem -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/26/2008 8:53:45 AM)

Some people like some of the rituals that are described in the books such as positions and language styles.  I read em all, just so I could say I had.  My first exposure was, as jailbait, a Gor chat room.  It was complete nonsense, but I do get why people like to do roleplay based on fiction.  I used to hang out with the guys that played D&D in high school.  The more things change...




ShaktiSama -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/26/2008 9:39:55 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: aidan

If that's true, I may just have to consider this whole Switch thing*.

*Just kidding, Mistress. Honestly. Please don't make me sleep on the floor.


No worries, boykin.  Green wimmens are hawt.  And besides, Orion slave girls (and boys, presumably) are already a switch fantasy--the whole gag is that they're vicious and irresistable, so people try to dominate them and end up getting pwned....

Hmmm.

*goes off to the closet to dig up a belly dancing outfit and an airbrush to paint herself green*

Being a Geekette just never gets less fun.   




DesFIP -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/26/2008 11:07:37 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: bipolarber

Next up: are all sub women actually Orion slave girls from Star Trek?


I went to a frat party in college dressed like that. Got more attention than I could handle.

I think that was after I had hit my first Trek con.




missfrillypants -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/26/2008 11:23:23 AM)

no, more importantly, are any of the dominas actually bene gesserit from dune?

because i think it's more realistic to think of a bunch of women with the power to alter their voices which forces the hearer to do their bidding secretly disguising themselves as wives and mistresses and such and plotting to breed a god (goddess?) than any group that believes that all women secretly desire to be totally and absolutely submissive.  i've met too many girls who's eyes light up at the sight of a good looking man all tied or pinned or otherwise incapacitated. because you can fake a lot of things, but the lit up eyes are really hard to do.

plus, i wonder what the gay goreans of both sexes do? that can't be fun.


quote:

ORIGINAL: bipolarber

Next up: are all sub women actually Orion slave girls from Star Trek?


*flashes some d20s at the crowd to show that this is another nerdy girl talking*




ShaktiSama -> RE: Gorean Lifestyle? (4/26/2008 11:35:15 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: missfrillypants
no, more importantly, are any of the dominas actually bene gesserit from dune?


Lol!  My ex used to accuse me of using "the Voice".




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