While I can understand that one woman would be horrified by the thoughts of wearing the collar of a slave, or the silks of a Kajira. Another might find that it is just her place as my own Kajira had. So if you find it horrifying, then DON’T PLAY IT!

Most of those against Gor talk as though Gorean roleplay threatens to undo all that feminists movements have done… sorry, but that is not true. Culture has advanced sense the dark ages, and it is now safe for women to poke their heads outside. A bunch of people on a computer game are not going to take your rights away, so stop trying to take ours.

I play Gor for multiple reasons.
1. Roleplay! I have never seen better roleplay anywhere else in SL.

2. Swordplay! Battle! I love it! Rushing against a horde of defending enemies with sword and shield in hand, or defending upon the gates with bows and spears…how can you beat it?

3. I admit, I like to take charge. This does not just mean telling some poor naked girl to dance or to fetch me paga, though I do adore lovely little slave. It also means taking charge of domestic disputes to come up with a solution befitting both players, organizing raids and defense, plotting out city layouts, role play, politics, trade between cities, alliances, and the occasional panther hunt when I get the chance.

The fact is, Both Master and Kajira have their bounds. As a master, you are responsible for the health of your ‘house’ mentally and physically. You cannot simply ignore your ‘underlings’. Or the house falls apart. For most free men, they do not only have the responsibility of their house, but their home stone as well, failure to take care and protect either of these ends with dire consequences.

The age of the sword is gone, The age of slavery for the most part is gone (excluding slave trades, which we are still working on). We all know this, and we are not going to be sending any bills of slavery to congress lol.

I will admit to one thing, if I had to choose between the world of today, and the world of Gor (where you could die or worse, very quickly.) I would have to choose Gor. Its where my heart stands. Curse me if you want, but remember, its YOUR world I am forced to live in. NOT mine.

Thats when I felt a little uneasy knowing that the sadistic torture side of gor…i shall get to see now. Little did i know that before the RP the captor and the captive decide who wants to rp with whom and in what manner. The limits etc. Those who do not want to RP are traded off back to their own camps or released. Those who want fun RP stay with the seasoned players and are given crazy tasks of supposedly like finishing obscene amounts of food for their freedom. It is varied, and of course we have a fair share of “cap=whores” who shoot arrows in the air, get capped , enjoy a good furring [sex] session or BDSM session and are released.

That wasnt too bad, and this was outlaw group. So yes i accepted invites to their group and had some of the most fun on sl for a long time. The entire group gets on voice chat before raids and most groups have separate servers for voice on Vent as well. We laugh joke and giggle and scream as we do the raid. I have made some of the closest friends in Gor during my time there. I have been a part of the a few of the best RP groups of gor. And its been the best high of my otherwise prudish boring content creating SL life.

The kajiras are sort of a controversial matter in Gor. I can best sum them up in 3 varieties. One is the seasoned player who likes good roleplay, and are slaves in outlaw groups. The slaves of the outlaws are different from the other slaves. They are very important part of the storylines. The are spies, they are scouts, they fight with brooms and stones, they are the first ones to be given protection and moved to safety during raids. And good and well known outlaw groups almost never take slaves as captives. Some of these slaves are called bonds of their masters, they have a single master or a couple as master and mistress. Others are camp slaves. Most of the bonds almost always have a variety of restrictions and protectors for they are dear to their masters. So noone can just randomly mistreat her. It is almost like a regular love relation, only difference is the submission part. They revel in their submission. And a many of these relations usually end in the de-collaring and FC ceremony of the girls as the mates truly fall in love. Also i have seen the master and slavegirls are usually the bestest of friends and lovers outside gor. True it may appear that the master dominates but the fact remains that even the master is bound to the slave girl, though he may order her, he may punish her at times [usually some spanking or whipping no grotesque violence, i know any form is violance is unacceptable but say that to the subs please] but the master would never do anything that would count as betrayal. But of course like men dump women all the time, that happens here too. These kajiras are fun and an integral part of group life.

Next are the girls, the outwardly like the sadist sad life of slaves. Strangely they mostly find their way to City Gor Sims. Men in city gor sims are not interested in combats, only pixel secks and elaborate sex and bdsm sessions with their kajiras and political controversies. The action part is very boring. Most cities do not even allow outlaw groups with women to raid them. Its outright boring. These are the girls who freak me out a little. The emotional involvement is scary honestly. They are the ones who are mostly exploited and used by the assholes around. And there are assholes everywhere you cannot deny that. Hence they are also target of roleplay violence often. Of course a strongly bound city group may be as fun and caring as an outlaw group but somehow i was never a part of this nor would i in the future.

Next are the girls simply looking for a romping good time. They come for one purpose, being naked and having secks and they just simply drone on and on. I mean i cannot imagine a girl prattling on with the “yes master no master” routine 24/7 no matter how submissive you are. And a 3/4th of them are noobs. So yes in a way to me they are similar to the battalion of girls roaming around FSL looking for some secks .

Then there are the Pannies. [The word pannie offends most of them lol]. These are usually runaway slaves and they love royally screwing and taking the case of male outlaws. I personally was very scared of pannies. Then of course there are other rare groups such as the human flesh eating Mambas etc. We had one group when i was in the Dar Kosis and we used to challenge each other to chuck things in the mamba camp, all as a part of the roleplay.

These groups are usually a very good set of friends or eventually become. Of course where there is a large group of avs gathered, politics would be there, but the bonding is strong. Be it the slave or be it the owners. The ultimate goal is of self preservation in RP. And when other groups may not be present or observing, most people just relax and dont even bother to RP out, it is like a huge party and i have seen this in 99.9 percent of the main largest groups of RPers in outlaw Gor. Of course there are groups with whom people refuse to outright RP such as those using babblers or those who type short one liners. And every single person has a choice to walk out of the RP. And your group almost always comes for a trade or rescue no matter what, unless you mention to them that you wish to stay and RP with the captors. This applies to all not just the masters. Every member of the group. Then we have the universal hitlists lol, see this and you will get an idea – http://www.mostwantedgoreans.com

They are not even squirmish, i have seen kajiras traded for upto 5 bags of salt. And salt is one of the most expensive items ! Point is your group looks out for you. And me telling all this is because break that attitude about violence and subjugation of women in Gor. That is for only who chose that way because of some sadistic fetishes they harbour in their minds. The rest of us just have a really good time. I used to hate and verbally abuse Gor too. I went, I liked, I stayed and I moved on. And although they moan and cry if we lift a sword or anything bigger than daggers, also know that the top 10 outlaw groups in Gor are headed by women. And we do all this with rock music blaring through the stream . Also you may like the check out the renegade personal groups – “Bimbos of gor”, “Gummy Bear Outlaws”, “Manthers” [Male panthers lol], “Old Farts of Gor”, “Bored in Gored” etc. Its just a whole load of people having some serious ass kicking fun, i mean i have cammed into black caste towers known for their extreme violence and seen them doing onigokko around !

P.S – This is SL Outlaw Gor. The internet RP groups need to be banned because they really are violent and extremely sadistic just like the books.

I entirely understand where you are coming from (and thanks for the kind words, btw). On the one hand, it is difficult, and unpleasant, to criticize women who have made choices for themselves; it can seem, in fact, to fly in the face of everything I believe in. And, on the other, there is a kind of emotional exhaustion that can set in when one realizes that many of the very people one is fighting for really don’t “get it.”

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Your statement simply speaks of elitism, reducing those you claim to be protecting or fighting for, to the role of fools reminds me of the cleverly veiled derision against the bourgeoisie and aristocrats in Swift’s Modest Proposal. You chose to fight what you viewed as the ‘good fight.’ Bully you. Yet your struggle seems to have turned you blind to the wants, desires, and mores of the women you claim to be protecting.

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On the whole, I don’t like to criticize individual choices that women make. I don’t run around SL ARing Goreans or BDSMers, and I don’t go door-to-door proselytizing. What a woman chooses to do in the privacy of her own bedroom/dungeon/whatever is, so far as I am concerned, really her own business.

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And see, here is the problem, your form of feminism seems to focus on what is permissible to you. My form of feminism empowers women to make their choices, by what is permissible to them, whether in the privacy of their own home, or on the streets, as long as their actions don’t actually harm another. Even, in your example, the Ku KluX Klan, deserve this same respect, and while I may not agree, I will defend their right to believe how they wish.

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The problem is that we are all connected. When someone makes a choice, as Heidi has done, to go PUBLIC as a kind of good will ambassador for Gor, she is reflecting not merely on her own choices, but on ALL women. What happens here, elsewhere on the net, on TV, at the movies . . . it all collectively impacts upon public attitudes towards women . . . towards me, towards you.

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A goodwill ambassador of Gor? Really? Your playing a game of argumentative shadow boxing. Heidi represents her ideas, her views, and if your perception of her paradigm is so disgusting, so faulting of how you view yourself as a woman, then the issue lies with you, not with Heidi. To be honest, the statement rings even further false when you realize how few women actually are estimated to sit behind those computer screens. Where is your sense of empowerment here? Instead of being a supportive woman, you assign to her the same base accusations that you accuse men of doing to women.

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Feminism has succeeded to the extent that it has precisely because it challenged, and ultimately changed many of those attitudes. It HAS impacted upon the way that women are portrayed, or portray themselves, and that is both a cause and reflection of the way in which largely cultural attitudes towards gender have changed.

So, as far as I am concerned, it is not about haranguing individual women about their personal choices. It isn’t even about taking on individual men. It’s about education, challenging people’s complacent assumptions, and introducing new ideas. That’s why I am often skeptical about attempts to “legislate” change in RL, and why I don’t support bans in SL: they treat the symptoms, not the disease.

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While I would agree with the first portion of your statement, even going so far as to agree with your comments on education, your entire post is in direct opposition to your statement about targeting the individuals who don’t fit into the molds that you have created.

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And that is why I post here. Heidi is welcome, so far as I am concerned, to RP Gor to her heart’s content. Really, the “choice” that she has made that I am criticizing is not her Gorean RP: it’s her conscious decision to showcase HERE a “philosophy” that makes a very conscious and explicit assault upon ALL women. And in that sense, it’s a choice she has made not only for herself, but for me as well.

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And I think you closing statement, is merely indicative of what I’ve already stated.

Please send your feminists to my neck of the woods… the ones I deal with and wanting me to join wants to strip men of any sort of rights they have like the local feminists wants to keep the “rape victim” hidden in newspapers but put the “rapist” on front pages… we had one such “rapist” covered on all accounts of him raping a girl… until the fact that he lacks a penis after an accident showed up and the feminists wanted to keep that fact out of the public ear.

the Feminists I have nearby have three rules
1) Men are in the wrong, no exceptions
2) Suggestions for any rule benefiting men at all is grounds for expulsion
3) Showing affection to men is also grounds for expulsion

Violence happens
rape happens
Neither good in RL but this is SL nothing is real
I will not kowtow to arrogant short sighted people that gets pissy at Gor but has no trouble showing thier 5 year old Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm street saying “Oh it’s just a movie. No one takes it seriously” tell that to the nut that made the Freddy claws and injured his wife.

I’m not too fond of the Gorean groups that goes too far into the lifestyle. if you were to take the slavery out of the Gor books you would have a badly written version of good action books.
the books pisses off the money grubbing church, Feminists, biblethumpers… I think John was on the right track… but generally I’m a RL submissive and LOVE playing a slave in Gor but that is the main detail… PLAYING. My lover is a RL dom and he loves playing SL Gor lettingme play with other doms because when the night falls I’m his slave and he knows it.

-Julie

Thank you for taking the time to respond, at least in part, to my comments.

You suggest that I have said “Do what you want, but don’t you dare talk about it in an open forum.” This is actually not true; I have nowhere suggested that you don’t have the RIGHT to address Gor here or anywhere else. I should have thought that my earlier comment, regarding my dislike of bans and legislated responses to what I view to be reprehensible views, would have made this clear, but if it didn’t, let me state it more clearly. I am not “pro-censorship,” and I would never challenge your right to post your ideas and views here, or anywhere else. What I in fact DID say was that, as you HAVE posted this here, I feel compelled to respond. And I think you will grant that that is also MY right.

The world is full of views that I find ugly, mean-spirited, or dangerous. I dislike right wing politicians and political parties; I hate expressions of misogyny, racism, or homophobia. That doesn’t mean I want to see any of these “banned” or censored: it means that I will feel it necessary to respond to them when I see them. I oppose Gor strongly: I would LOVE to see it disappear (as one day, it will). But that does not mean that I want to legislate it or ban it out of existence: my view (and I’ve expressed this elsewhere in earlier postings) is that it should be allowed to wither away as education makes it seem more and more the ridiculous, facile, and dangerous viewpoint that I believe it to be.

The notion that feminism is “pro-censorship” is largely fallacious and a little knee-jerk; there are, in fact, several large international feminist organizations that are devoted to free speech and fighting censorship: I would be delighted to give you the URLs if you’d like.

I am delighted that you “revel in [your] femininity.” What I would question, however, is the implication that there is only ONE way to “be a woman.” The essence of feminism has ALWAYS been choice: your choice as to the KIND of woman you want to be. There is nothing in the world wrong, for example, with CHOOSING to be a stay-at-home mother, so long as that is YOUR choice. Equally, a woman is no less a “woman” for choosing a different path for herself, as, for example, a professional, a firefighter, a retailer, artist, etc., etc., etc. And yes, including a Gorean slave. It IS your choice, even if it is one that I abhor. I would not limit my definition of “woman” to exclude yours; you should equally be careful of the implication that “being a woman” is ONLY possible via a philosophy such as that espoused through Gor.

One final note: an apology. I did not intend my use of the term “sweetheart” to seem condescending (in the way that it might more obviously been had I addressed you as “Heidi, sweetheart.”) If it inadvertently came across this way, I apologize. I frankly detest your viewpoint and the choices you have made, but that does not mean that I can’t also respect you as a person, and your right to make those choices.