Gorean Question

First to Chav...I politely beg to differ with your assertion that you've put in the effort. You've admitted to not even reading a book. That seems to be the least effort one might make to gain any insight into the platform for Gorean rp. I just read the fine print on my pill bottle; does that make me a chemist? Hardly. At best I might actually be able pronounce the words, but that doesn't mean I understand them. I'd have to excercise a bit more due diligence to really understand the complexities of drug compositon to even begin to wrap my brain around how they work or how that information might be applied differently for different outcomes.

That said, Gor is not for everyone...nor are furries...or vampires...or ageplay or any other fantasy rp found in SL or elsewhere. And the wonderful part of it all is this...if you don't like it or find it personally offensive, don't play...don't go there. But, if you find it intriguing, then learn about it completely before you start passing judgement about things you don't understand. It simply amplies and broadcasts your ignorance to those who have taken the time to learn.

Quite frankly, I find a couple of the above listed fantasy rp concepts offensive or distasteful, but I'm not about to bash them or the people who enjoy them. I don't understand what pleasure they derive from it, but I'm not interested enough to learn about it either so more power to them...To each his/her own.

Just to be clear. I'm not an all out die hard fan of Gor either. But, I do identify with some of the concepts and values put forth there. Nearly all of them are earth virtues that have been sadly, long forgotten: Honor, integrity and yes...I'm going to say it...personal empowerment for WOMEN....the power to embrace their own sexuality without fear of being judged or shamed by a society that has determined how a woman must behave to be "proper." There are important nuances and political statements in the books that can and will be misunderstood by the casual observer in a role play setting.

The Hospitaity is the most ironic double standard as it exists on SL Gor.
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In Kajira of Gor both the former Tatrix and her imposter (both now slaves) are offered as hospitality to a man who had just been proven an enemy . But since he was a high ranking member and came under the banner of truce - was accorded the treatment of honored guest, and the sexual use of the now "love slaves" (who presumably were normally "restricted"
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I find the fact so few of the gorean Masters will let others touch their slaves even if they have 3,4, 5, more, amusing considering this.

But its natural human jealousy - obviously. And another comment on how online relationships work. Presumably a large number of these very same restricted slaves in SL gor are touched in their first lives and the SL Master conveintly is able to handle that part.

The same for non gorean relationships a woman might get totally irate to catch her man cheating on her - even though both are married in their first lives and not to each other.


Michael, your slaves probably wouldnt like being offered as hospitality either - many in SL gor wouldnt (some would relish the idea tho). While in the book form of gor slaves learn early to be pleasing to (and eventually enjoy) any man the Master chooses to send her to.


There is a definite distinction between fantasy and reality
It is possible to make the arguement Norman does not really approve or at least not actively endorse of what the RL goreans do. From what I understand his non fiction work on the subject of sex (that one i have not read) is more "standard" type of BDSM play as subject material.

A reality where Women were forced agaisnt their will to be sex slaves to men is entirely deplorable. And it is againt this metric that I beleive most people who find Gor obscene are judging it against.

The fantasy of Norman's gor where inside every woman is basically a subbie who needs to be Mastered and is sexually freed by becoming a sex slave. This is different than any reality.

In reality its basically impossible - only a tiny fraction of people are into the D/S BDSM lifestyles.

Of course far more are into BDSM from the safety of the internet. Thus Gor is pretty visible and popular online.

I guess the real problem is most of the participants dont bother to educate themselves on any of this before diving in.

The same for possibly any sub group in SL.

This jealousy may seem natural to your own culture and obvious in light of ideologies you may or may not have examined, but is it healthy, and would it be a product of Gorean culture? It seems to be as absent from the books as many other contemporary neuroses, and those few characters who exhibit it, while they may exhibit some qualities of value and are therefore tolerated, also show inexperience, emotional volatility, and a tendency to suspend or subvert their codes of honor for their own purposes. Selfish emotional drives just aren't a thing of value given the destructive results, and if you lived in as harsh and demanding an environment as Gor, you may learn the survival value of devaluing rather than supporting those drives.

'Cheating' and 'restricted' are as incongruent to Gorean culture as open sexual sharing is to someone without the emotional security of certainty of self and their relationship.

Traffic reports will show that a great number of ppl are drawn to BDSM roleplay. Surely they're shelthered from the reality, but that doesn't change the fact that they're there to experience it at least in some ephemeral way. This doesn't indicate a small fraction; the numbers are growning.

As for the fantasy, well-considered fantasy is a comment on reality, and Gor is no exception, esp with consideration to this 'fantasy'. Real life experience pretty much shows that women are contentedly submissive with someone who can dominate them with sexual prowess and force of personality (yes, you may call it intelligence and sense of humor, but the fact is that your perception of those qualities rest pretty heavily on and are influenced almost exclusively on those more basic qualities).

You may not like this conclusion, but you in your own experience will find more examples that confirm than contradict this, and you will probably also find many examples of women bitter that they haven't been Mastered, or have been Mastered and left. You don't have to like it and it doesn't have to be right, but it happens more often than not.

You know, it's funny, though. Nevermind what those novels do or don't say -- really, they're just old pulp novels. In actual practice, most men seem fairly ill-suited for either end of the lifestyle. As slaves, they're nearly always fighting the leash a little bit sooner or later. As dominants or Masters or whatever term makes you happiest, they tend to lack the necessary empathy, subtlety and even ruthlessness. Brute strength and unfocused aggressiveness might be frightening, but they alone can't even begin to truly master anyone.

That's going to be an unpopular observation.

This statement would reflect my RL experience, iff "women" is replaced by "people".

Yep. It's why arguments that posit Gor as valid in any way other than as (sexual) fantasy are the ones that freak people out a bit. In the history of genuine slavery isn't exactly bursting with accounts of loving relationships where both parties were happy with their respective roles. Again, the enjoyment of Gor is highly based on the fantasy element, which is the side that I imagine would offend far fewer people -- "it's just a game, I don't think of it as real."




...would you like to talk about your relationship with your mother?

I refer the honourable lady to the earlier comment someone made earlier about eating rancid meat.

But seriously, most Goreans probably haven't read even one of the books. "You don't understand it" is a classic handwave for any idea that's getting criticised abd wants to dodge it. Unless the books reveal the whole thing to be a hilarious parody, I'm afraid it really is unlikely that they'd change my mind.




Okay, umm. I am not your slave. I am not seeing this supposed self-control and so on from you, I am just seeing defensive anger. Understandable, but not giving me the impression that you're any more self-aware than any other person on these forums. Just FYI.

Could you maybe stop being rude and insulting to me as a person?

This is an interesting intrepretation you are taking, and I dont agree based what Ive read.

Since Jealousy by both Earth natives and Gorean natives does occur in the books. Often the slave girls are jealous that their Masters are finding favor with others. The is a considerable rivalry between the Slave girls.

-A good example of cheating done by a "restricted" slave girl takes place in Raiders of Gor. Bosk/Tarl is quite hurt by the incident - At least momentarily, since at this point he still cares that his slaves love him. And while it could be said that since he is of Earth orgiin and not fully acclimated to the Gorean Culture yet - how do you why explain none of the Goreans seemed confused by his reaction?

-In fact, in the culture most notable for its lack of jealousy over sex - The Inuit based one in Beasts of Gor, the red hunter freind of Tarl/Bosk is happy hes taken his love slave rather than wife becuase it will mean less of the men will come by to visit him. Since they share their wives as hospitality; And while he eagerly and enthusiastically shares his other slaves , his love is a bit of an exception.



This is an amazing take on my fantasy vs reality comments. Real women who are taken as sex slaves against their will show severe emotional distress and phychological damage.

To compare how willing participants in the d/s scene respond to domination to how people who are forcable enslaved is to deny reality.

Statements of how women need to be mastered is really baseless. Outside of the D/S community, there is no real outcry for men to control women. Either by men or women.

While I know many women who feel that way -They have ALL been participants in D/S.

I know many more women who feel men are pigs. Where do they fit in your sweeping generalization?

Not to mention most lack the simple stamina to keep a chain of 2,3,4, more slave girls sexually content.

=pPpPp

You presume it is rancid meat; others see a well aged slab of prime rib and are enjoying a banquet of delectable decadence. No one is forcing you to partake though you are welcome to join or you can stand on the sideline looking down your nose while spoon feeding yourself warm porridge.

You are likely at least partially correct about most "Goreans" having not read the books. I'd guess that it applies to a good number of those who play in SL Gor which actually in a most circuitous route brings us back to the origins of this thread and undoubtably contributes significantly to your misconceptions about Gor:



But make no mistake, that doesn't let you off the hook for enlightening yourself before you go off half cocked, making assumptions and commentary on things you don't understand. That "classic handwave" is not directed at criticism of ideas, rather it is dismissive of willful ignorance. How do you expect to engage in intelligent conversation about a topic when one of the parties comes unprepared to the discussion, armed only with their visceral reactions?

Your responses to others who disagree with you are very telling about how you might engage in a dialogue about Gor or any subject and so, it is not likely that you will find many, save those who agree with you, who will put much effort into a serious discussion for long. Perhaps by holding yourself to the same standard that you ask of others would be a good start.

There's nothing in it that would support your frame of reference, but as long as you're trolling for cheap shots, do you have something to share about your own?

And speaking of people more repressed than driven, I do agree with Alex and Colette's observations. They've said some things that I have shown more courtesy than to say about the Earth men of their experience.

Actually, I think it's a very astute observation and can be applied equally to men or women, Master or Mistress, Dom or Domme, though is a whole topic of discussion onto itself.

I still remember my first visit to a Gorean sim in SL. It was the first I'd really heard of Gor outside of some disparaging comments years previously about Boris Vallejo paintings. September or October 2005.

A group of us went on a field trip, we were in typical jeans and tee-shirt, except one. She was in her furry avatar complete with sci-fi armour.

We mooched along the main path having read the rules and put on our titlers and stuff, and we met a group of the locals on the main promenade. The Magistrate of the City included. They were all actually quite pleasant, and even the magistrate was showing off a starax wand or something and had no problems chatting in a friendly manner with the visitors, including the furry from another planet.

We went into the scribery to have a nosey- I think a couple of us got playing Hangman that was in there, and my friend in the furry av went afk as she often does. The Head Scribe or someone came in and objected to the presence of this incongruous avatar, demanding acknowledgement of his concerns. Another friend spoke up in her defence, and they were then both banned from the sim. For wearing an inapropriate avatar inside the one building actually designated as somewhere for visitors to learn of the setting, when outside in open public in front of one of the civic leaders, there was no problem at all.

That experience about summed up a lot of Gor for me, though I've learned a lot more since.

Still waiting on Parking Wardens of Gor - I'm guessing it must exist because it seems a lot of people base their behaviour on it.

I still visit Gor sims, I pay attention to the rules, and never disrupt the roleplay. I have friends in that scene and that's ok for them. I don't know if I ever found a "proper" Gorean sim, because I'm imagining true gorean hearted men are out shooting deer in the woods living off the land, not playing on the computer.

You know, this whole arguement is going to go round and round and round and round. People are going to say "zOMG GOR IZ EBIL, BAN DE GOR" and others are going to go all preachy about the books. Here's a rather simple concept. The books of Gor are fantasy books about a culture that accepts a ritualized form of slavery. To them its not wrong because it is the way of their culture. Fine. Its a BOOK, of FANTASY. Now, people who are already into BDSM, have taken said books and based forms of M/s relations off of it. Key point:THEY BOTH CONSENT TO IT. Slavery here is not real slavery. Go hang out on any city docks and watch the kajira scoff at having to serve a visitor, and you'll see it. No one is forcing anything on anyone here. Comparing this to real slavery is ABSOLUTELY laughable. Last I checked, real human slaves didn't have a little red "x" button in the upper right of their screen. And to be honest, if I had ancestors who had been real slaves, I would find the comparison completely offensive. To compare a coddled sex slave who CONSENTS to it to a real human slave who was abused and worked to death is ridiculous. Some people, not all, find gratification in the power exchange. Long before there was Gor, there were submissives and "slaves" wearing the collars of Masters. And there seems to be a massive forgetfulness of male gorean slaves, which, omg, do exist. Its not just females here. And again, everyone is consenting to the play. You can always close out, or tp out, of a scene that is bad. Even as a sim admin, I've made rulings in favor of slaves who ended bad scenes.

On an admin note, if you don't like the culture, or the rp of the culture, don't come. I completely agree with Prod (suprisingly) that likely Chav did not go to the sims with an open mind, willing to learn about the culture we rp in. I am very open to visitors to my sim. I've asked nicely for furries to change to human form, and I explain that its hard to keep to scene when some 6ft raccoon is walking past. Yes, we have stringent rules for the most part. WE'RE ON PRIVATE SIMS. We own the "land" and we can make the rules. We allow visitors, and we ask that they not participate or detract from our rp until they've learned a thing or two about the structure of the rp. And as far as us being "mean", I deal with at least 5 to 6 furries A DAY who refuse to don a human avi simply to annoy the residents of the sim. I deal with people riding giant hotdogs, and spewing anti-Gor rhetoric. I deal with people who walk onto the sim and demand to be serviced by slaves, and when asked anything, they're response is "I thought people came here to have sex." Trust me, if you got to deal with the stuff we do, you'd be cranky too. The rules are simple, and to defend the enjoyment of the residents of the sim. So sorry if they don't cater to your every wish and whim. Wait, nope, not.

People are into all sorts of different things. We should not be judged based on what turns us on, when both parties are consenting adults. Its rude and closed minded.

Oh, and for the one asking about panthers. Panther girls are women who voluntarily give up the trappings of Gorean society so that they may escape being forced into the two acceptable societal roles of Gorean women, which are Free Women and slaves. By giving up gorean society, they are outlaws, and are hunted and arrested. They live in the forest, avoiding the men who wish to claim them. They hunt and survive as savages, living in camps. They occasionally take men as captives, use them as slaves, then sell them for coin or goods. Basically, panther girls are option C as far as women's roles, A being Free women, B being slaves.

And for the one pointing out that in Gor women were only acceptable as virgins or sluts, and how rl is similar, you're right. There is a theory called something along the lines of the Madonna/Magdalaine theory, citing the Virgin Mary and the whore Magdalaine from the bible. In this theory, women USUALLY are judged to be in on or the other catagory, and straying at all from the behavior of the one catagory, will place you in the other. This is highly evident in the military, where female soldiers/seamen/airmen/marines are either seen as cold, or sluts, with no inbetween. Just pointing out that that isn't really just a gorean concept, but a human one.

Damn thats a long post, sorry

~Dream

What makes Gor so much more complicated than anything else? Why does it require so much study before one can pass comment? Indeed, most Goreans probably haven't read the books, most probably haven't studied RL slavery, and probably a few know little about power-play sexuality either.

There are certain statements and ideas in Gor that frankly are extremely unlikely to appeal to me any more if I did a PhD in the subject. If it's built on a visceral reaction? Well, Gor isn't exactly known as a hotbed of intellectualism, is it? It bases itself on "basic" animal reactiona and "natural" response.

Can I ever manage to defend the idea that an instinctive reaction against sexism and slavery isn't necessarily a bad thing?

Asked and answered by previous posts. My response to you remains the same.

You are entilted to your reactions even if they are founded upon misinformation. You are entitled to remain willfully ignorant. And I am entitled to no longer indulge either. If, however, you should invest a little time into learning about the topic you choose to belabor, look me up; I'll be happy to have an dialogue with you.

Willful ignorance is something to be expected more often than not, and it's refreshing when someone who decides it isn't for them can still look at it with an objective eye and appreciate what there is of value.

However, going back to the original poster's point, willful ignorance isn't as easy to stomach among ppl who should know better, and that includes a great majority of those who are involved in SL's execution of Gor. They have made it not Gor at all, a dissatisfying compromise that I have distanced Myself from by not taking part in it, by developing a completely distinct culture that doesn't acknolwedge Gor. Goreans are welcome to apply if they are willing and able to adapt to it, instead of doing, as they do now, and taking what they like and disrespecting the whole, or interpreting what they presume it should mean instead of grasping an understanding of that it IS.

Chav, I think you actually make a good point here, in the sense that ethical stances are not always decided by an appeal to authority, but can also be the result of instinctive reactions. Culture no doubt figures in as well.

I've been studying Gor for a few years now, including reading some of the books and enough notecards to go cross-eyed, which is more than a lot of people have ever done. I don't claim to have complete knowledge, but I'm probably better versed than many. Norman makes some valid points that modern and post-modern society overlook at their peril, but the tendencies to narcissism in the books and textual fundamentalism in the fans are problematic.

One thing that is really striking about your opponents, Chav, is that so many of them make an appeal to authority their primary argument.

This reminds me of the arguments made by religious fundamentalists... if it's in the book, and you're not in the self-appointed clique that interprets the book, you're never allowed to criticize or question their interpretation. You will never be granted the status of someone with authority to interpret.

Didn't the Initiates tell Tarl that their religion was something that man should eventually overcome?

The refusal to allow outsiders to do any interpretation of Gor leads to arguments which are circular, and it walls off sincere people with interest who don't have a fundamentalist type of mental set, because we want to evaluate arguments on a case by case basis, instead of by making an appeal to the books, which contradict themselves anyway.

When I moved beyond the fundamentalist religion I was raised in, I became very aware of how textual literalism works, and it's a matter not of the details of the text, but of a kind of psychological perspective.

If you have a post-Enlightenment scientific mentality, then textual literalism always feels like a straight jacket. It's impossible, when inside of it, to bring in empirical observations or debate anything. It's extra ironic to see so many Fundamentalists of Gor when the root philosophy in the books is atheist.

The liberation of female sexuality doesn't require slavery, if female sexuality is not feared. However, as long as it is feared, you get the whole madonna/whore dichotomy, which isn't based in anything rational that I can see, and I also do not see it in all cultures as much as I would if it was a hardcore biological given. The dichotomy seems to be a feature of specific psychohistorical stages, and reaches a zenith in monotheism.

Wherever monotheism breaks down, the madonna/whore dichotomy also starts to break down. As a result you only see it, in Western society, in subcultures which are still sincerely Christian. I am struck by the number of SL Goreans who live in the Bible Belt. Norman seems in the books to say that Earth (Western) society is repressed, yet at the same time secular Western society has become one of the most libertine Earth has ever seen. So what gives? Simple, extremely primitive humans don't have the madonna/whore dichotomy and we've been cycling back to that position. Read up on bonobo chimps to see what the biology looks like. It makes sense that an Information Age society would favor biological tendencies over religious ones.

And with that, suddenly and surprisingly even to myself, I'm out of Gor. I still have friends there and I will still raid Gor for source material for roleplay, but I have gotten fatigued by fundamentalism.

I finally reached a point where there were too many things I would like to question, and no way to do it.

I think if they changed things a little bit for Second Life and called the relationship partners Masters and Servants less people would be offended by Gor. It's all based on fantasy anyways and going on posts from this thread, the Gor sims are not parallel to the books. The word slave conjures up negative thoughts for people whose ancestors were enslaved or find female slaves offensive in today's times. In Second Life nobody is really a slave; the power of the relationship actually lies in the woman/enslaved avatar because they could teleport away at any time. I would also like to see there be more leniency regarding avatar appearances. Isn't wearing an observer name tag enough if the observer is not really interacting with the role playing? I think this rule makes Gor sims a target for griefing. Of course these are just suggestions. The owners of the sims have every right to continue with their own rules; and I will respect that.

Good. Questioning is a good thing. No one's words or ideas -- not those of Immanuel Kant, nor Lau Tzu (Li Erh, if you like), Friedrich Nietzsche, Sun Tzu, Jean-Paul Sartre, Marilyn Vos Savant, Yagyu Munenori, Plato; yeees, not even John Norman (aka John Lange), or for that matter anyone else you care to name -- should be followed unquestioningly or treated as entirely above criticism.

And insofar as you say that there is a certain tendency toward a kind of fundamentalist approach to those novels among some ... that is certainly true.

Chav, I think you actually make a good point here, in the sense that ethical stances are not always decided by an appeal to authority, but can also be the result of instinctive reactions. Culture no doubt figures in as well.

I've been studying Gor for a few years now, including reading some of the books and enough notecards to go cross-eyed, which is more than a lot of people have ever done. I don't claim to have complete knowledge, but I'm probably better versed than many. Norman makes some valid points that modern and post-modern society overlook at their peril, but the tendencies to narcissism in the books and textual fundamentalism in the fans are problematic.

One thing that is really striking about your opponents, Chav, is that so many of them make an appeal to authority their primary argument.

This reminds me of the arguments made by religious fundamentalists... if it's in the book, and you're not in the self-appointed clique that interprets the book, you're never allowed to criticize or question their interpretation. You will never be granted the status of someone with authority to interpret.

Didn't the Initiates tell Tarl that their religion was something that man should eventually overcome?

The refusal to allow outsiders to do any interpretation of Gor leads to arguments which are circular, and it walls off sincere people with interest who don't have a fundamentalist type of mental set, because we want to evaluate arguments on a case by case basis, instead of by making an appeal to the books, which contradict themselves anyway.

When I moved beyond the fundamentalist religion I was raised in, I became very aware of how textual literalism works, and it's a matter not of the details of the text, but of a kind of psychological perspective.

If you have a post-Enlightenment scientific mentality, then textual literalism always feels like a straight jacket. It's impossible, when inside of it, to bring in empirical observations or debate anything. It's extra ironic to see so many Fundamentalists of Gor when the root philosophy in the books is atheist.

The liberation of female sexuality doesn't require slavery, if female sexuality is not feared. However, as long as it is feared, you get the whole madonna/whore dichotomy, which isn't based in anything rational that I can see, and I also do not see it in all cultures as much as I would if it was a hardcore biological given. The dichotomy seems to be a feature of specific psychohistorical stages, and reaches a zenith in monotheism.

Wherever monotheism breaks down, the madonna/whore dichotomy also starts to break down. As a result you only see it, in Western society, in subcultures which are still sincerely Christian. I am struck by the number of SL Goreans who live in the Bible Belt. Norman seems in the books to say that Earth (Western) society is repressed, yet at the same time secular Western society has become one of the most libertine Earth has ever seen. So what gives? Simple, extremely primitive humans don't have the madonna/whore dichotomy and we've been cycling back to that position. Read up on bonobo chimps to see what the biology looks like. It makes sense that an Information Age society would favor biological tendencies over religious ones.

And with that, suddenly and surprisingly even to myself, I'm out of Gor. I still have friends there and I will still raid Gor for source material for roleplay, but I have gotten fatigued by fundamentalism.

I finally reached a point where there were too many things I would like to question, and no way to do it.

What is circular here is the same arguments over and over that 'outsiders' 'with interest' always posit over and over, and answering it becomes tiresome, esp in light of the fact that many of them could find their own answers if they were so motivated. Most of them just aren't, and I'm not about to hand out My hard-won revelations that I earned through real life experience and the various situations that could only be uncovered through virtual exploration. I just don't care if you get it any more than I care if you want to wander down the wrong street of this town demanding respect for who you believe you are while disrespecting the prevailing culture. But I will call bullshit on you if you're pretending to make the effort of understanding, as I have done for Chav, and I don't really care who's fundament he's clumsily trying to probe.

And the books don't contradict themselves, they may expand on cultural and situational permutations, but they are absolutely consistent.


I beg to differ, the 'masters' I've met didn't fear a Free Woman in any way, in fact they were comfortable with the sterilization of their sexuality. To My dismay I found that a well-trained and irresistably heated slave girl scared the piss out of most those boys posing as Masters. The more enslaved a female is by her own heat, the more vividly she expresses it, paradoxically the more sexually formidable she becomes. Tough to make a sale when the men find such a girl in chains to be inaccessible.

well a large part of the complexity is the sheer number of novels.

And the fact that neither the most outspoken critics, or for that matter the most outspoken Defenders - know what is written in them.

People get very touchy about a few things in this life - One they have a severe reaction to what they see as injustice and exploitation

On the other hand people have an equally strong reaction to being told what they enjoy doing is obscene and wrong.

Thus you get fervor on both sides.

Your reaction to Gor is completely justified as a surface level reaction Its more complex than what you see presented in Second Life, of course. Thus those who say you dont know what your talking about lashing out at you.

If you were for example to go into a stereotype of german history based only on what you got from a short trip to Germany, you might meet similar resistance from those who know a bit more.

Meenwhile a student of german history might dismiss both points of veiw as fairly ignorant.

Now Gor lacks the depth of any actual human culture. No series of books can do that. I think you were a bit more reasonble in your first post since you spelled out your level of exposure to Gor.

The accusations and arguements back and forth are expected when people take critiques personally.

I have read a bit more of the Gor series than many of SL goreans. I also have a degree in History so I am a little familiar with looking at things from observers and researchers point of veiw.

I personally take exception to those Goreans that honestly feel Gor is the proper solution in real life. I further find its stereotypes of how Men and Woman "naturally" are laughable as an Actual philosophy.

This is before you take into those who advocate actual slavery.

However, in the context of an Adult fantasy where the slavery is basically D/S relationships and all the participants are doing such voluntarily, then this changes. This is something they enjoy and the structure provides them something they feel they need.

SL Gor its self lacks what Online Gor has traditionally had becuase its become a sort of open admittance policy. A lot of gamers, people just looking for cyber sex, roleplayers of a non gorean wont, people curious about D/S, and generally people with no inclination to study anything have changed it from a reasonable simulation of the society described in the Gor Books.

This is what bothers the original poster, and many others.

Oddly enough this "dumbing down" probably helps SL gors overall community acceptance since they gloss over some of the things people might find objectionable.

You may have made more flattering conjectures of Chav's forray into Gor than he deserves. The reason I haven't even touched on discussion he claims he wanted, and the reason for My objections, is that he didn't approach objectively. He approached with his misunderstanding loaded and ready to launch, and approached grafted to a self-identity in the form of an avatar so ill-suited to the setting that it couldn't help but shatter the immersion for those who appreciate that setting.

So while he complains of the lack of hospitality, he has so far wriggled out of any of his own responsibility for the hostility he incited. Hence the reference to wandering down the wrong street in real life, and the due consequences he may whine about to someone with common sense equal to his own.

(Using an old geezer voice) I remember when I was hard pressed to find more than a half dozen Goreans wandering around SL. There was this one outpost someone had built. Just a little firepit and some furs tossed about. Nobody was ever there. Four of us had imported from SIMSONLINE and built our little Gorean enclave in a scenic little village by a river. Fellow enthusiasts would sometimes stop by to discuss the ways of Gor, or to chat about its many facets. Often we would talk about how neat it would be to do a Gorean sim. A few of those early guests (with more cash than I )went on to attempt just that. But somehow none of these ever felt very Gorean to me. The look of the place, or the feel. The robin hoodish outfits and the Bavarian chalets never did make me think of Gor. When reading the books I was thinking more of robes and sandals, slaves in camisks, more akin to a Roman theme than 18th century Europe. But I could ignore the physical elements of the build if the occupants of the places fit the Gorean theme in ways and deeds. From what I can see its all frosting but no cake. For every decent roleplayer you will find four who are there for all the wrong reasons. Plenty of guys, who still resent mommy, taking out their inadequacies as men upon others, just to make themselves feel better about themselves. Control for the sake of control. Pffffft. There are too many of these cookie cutter realms and not enough decent players to make it all work. Damned shame. The potential for a rich roleplay experience is there to be had. Just aint happening for me.
Perhaps its time to whisper in the Priest Kings ear ( or scent receptors) "SEND IN THE BLUE FLAMES AND RENDER THEM CITIES OF DUST. " Maybe a collaborative effort could arise from these ashes and come up with something that works. In the meantime, if you enjoy your SL Gor, have fun. But theres got to be better than this.