Trevelyan
Posts: 528
Joined: 6/12/2006 From: Mountain View, CA Status: offline
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Sylverdawn, Different people have different ideas about what it means to be "Gorean." To me, it means sharing the beliefs and values held by the Goreans depicted in the Gor novels, and incorporating those beliefs and values into your life here on Earth. Goreans in the novels who are not slaves are referred to as free men and women. JN, at one point, states that the object of Gorean morality is to make people free and great. I have personally been struggling lately to understand what being free means, especially in light of certain cultural practices on Gor such as the caste system and the way leaders are chosen for the cites. I have come to the conclusion that the essence of being free is to see yourself as having the ultimate power to make choices about your life. So a free man living on Gor may choose to follow the caste of his father, but he is aware that he can also choose not to do so. That choice will have consequences, but it is still his choice. A slave, by Gorean standards, is someone who has relinquished their freedom - their power to make choices about their lives. Because Goreans value their freedom so much, they despise slaves for having relinquished it. The books reiterates that point over and over, making it clear that Goreans do not even consider slaves to be human beings, and particularly emphasizing how free women hate female slaves. They are also full of examples of men who have been enslaved but have eventually regained their free status because they never actually relinguished their freedom. They are also have many, many examples of free women who eventually become slaves because they were never actually fee (in the sense of seeing themselves as having the power to choose and refusing to relinquish it) in the first place. One other point about Goreans and freedom - they believe that a free man or woman should be free, but that if they actually relinquish their freedom then they should be slaves. There is a second belief that Gorean's hold that is part of the answer to your question. Goreans believe in something JN calls the order of nature, which is the idea that evolution has shaped us in such a way that males are bent towards domination and females towards submission. The vast majority of women on Gor are free. Many will enter into a free companionship (the closest Gorean equivalent to marriage). They will still be free, but they will choose to be submissive to their male companions, even to the extent that if they are displeasing the men will chain them naked to the foot of the couch for the night. A much smaller percentage of women are slaves, and find fulfillment in submission to all men, and not just a free companion. There are exceptions to the order of nature - women like Verna, and men like the occasionaly male slave who is naturally submissive (I think there was one in Tribesmen) - but most people conform to it. A third issue is homosexuality. In the entire series JN gives one example of a male slave who is owned by a homosexual master. JN gives no examples of lesbian or bisexual females, free or slave. I think this is mostly a function of the time when he was writing most of the books. So, finally, to answer your questions: Can Gorean men own male slaves? - yes, there are many examples of it in the books, but only one where it is sexual, the rest are owned for their labor capacity. Are only heterosexual males allowed to use the term Gorean? - Not in my opinion. If a person generally holds the beliefs and values of the Goreans in the books, they are Gorean. There is at least one example of a homosexual Gorean, and I think that if JN had been writing the books now rather than the 60's, 70's and 80's there would have been more gay and lesbian characters. Can a female own a male slave? Yes, there are several examples in the books. Now, most if not all of those women ended up in collars themselves, but that is because they were not actually free in the first place. Silk slaves are male slaves who are proficient in providing sexual service to free women. This does run counter to the order of nature, but JN says that the order of nature is generally true, not necessarily true for each and every individual. Does being a male slave disqualify someone from being Gorean? No, not in my opinion. A male slave will be dispised for reliquishing his freedom, and will also be considered a little odd for going counter to the order of nature, but if he is willing to be submissive to a women then he should be. Trevelyan
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"In short the differences between the men of Earth and those of Gor were almost certain to be primarily cultural, and not physiological." Mercenaries of Gor
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