I have stayed out of this thread until now because after the first several posts I really didn't think that any of my thoughts would be welcome. But I decided to say what I have to say and everyone can either take it, or leave it.

Master and I consider ourselves to be Gorean. However, whatever pre-conceived notions you have of what that means, are probably wrong. Dragon and blizz coined the term "kajiramissive" to define blizz's role, and I think that sums up our relationship pretty well.

Firstly, most people's experience with Gor only consists of roleplayers. These people use venues like IRC originally, and Second Life more recently, to act out as if they live on Gor. It is entirely different from those who are Gorean in "real life" and the roleplayers have developed a sub-culture all their own. If you want to talk about that you will have to do it with someone else because I have no experience in this area.

We don't believe we live on Gor. We don't wish we lived on Gor. We don't consider Gor to be some kind of Utopia. We understand that the Gor series was a work of fiction, and do not treat it as a kind of bible for how to live. We simply consider some of the ideas explored in the series to be very relevant to our lives and belief-systems.

The above paragraph is so tantamount to what else I have to say, I almost feel like posting it twice.

If you ask 100 different Goreans what Gor is, you will get 100 different answers. Here is what it means to us.

- We believe that men are "generally" dominant, and women are "generally" submissive. Notice the word generally. Absolutely there are dominant women and submissive men (and switches all over the place), but that generally, naturally, that is the split. This is like saying that "generally, humans are heterosexual." Sure there are homosexuals, and bisexuals, and all sorts of various inbetweensexuals, but generally, most people are straight. This is an observation, and not a judgement.

- We believe in the values of Honour, Respect, and Obedience.

- We believe that submission is taken, and not given. Now here is where a lot of people have a problem. This doesn't mean that Master just randomly grabs women on the street and makes them submit. It means that in our relationship Master takes my submission, and it is not some "gift" that I give him and are free to take back at any time. He holds the power. Of course I was willing to give it, but the important thing is Master took it. On our first night together (in the biblical sense) he put a training collar around my neck, stripped me naked, grabbed the collar and ordered me to my knees. It was fantastic.

- We believe that different slaves have different values, and that a high-valued slave brings great honour to a man. A smart, entertaining, beautiful slave is worth a great deal, and would be desired by others. A man takes great pride in owning such a girl.

- My job is to be pleasing. His job is to protect me and care for me so that I can be pleasing. An oft-repeated phrase in our house is "a happy slave is a pleasing slave."

- We add and subtract other ideas and concepts as it suits us (or rather how it suits Master). "Traditionally" Gor only uses pain as punishment. A disobedient slave would receive a whipping or a beating, but a Master wouldn't take any pleasure or enjoyment out of it, and neither would the girl. However, we enjoy S&M play... so we do it.

- We believe in the concept of ownership, however a permanent collar is not something that is offered, but instead is begged for by a slave. The idea here is that begging the collar is the last free choice completed by the slave. Once the steel is locked around my neck (I don't have my permanent collar yet), it is no longer my choice to remove it. I can beg for release, but there is no guarantee it will be granted. Collaring is a very serious deal. (Disclaimer: When I say I won't have any other free choices, this does not mean I become some kind of mindless automaton. I still have the ability to make all of the little mundane decisions we do on a day-to-day basis. It just means that I no longer have a choice about our relationship. AND it also doesn't make me so stupid that I will stay in an abusive relationship just "because". In that case, all bets are off.)

So that is a brief overview of what we do. For us, it is how we live our whole lives, and not just what we do in the bedroom. I realize that a lot of people into BDSM also live so in and out of the bedroom, so this is not a exclusive concept. It is just what works for us.

Overall I think Gor is misunderstood. There is another active thread on here about trusting vanillas to understand what we do. Well when you are Gorean we have to go through this twice... vanillas don't understand, and often-times neither do BDSMers. So we are the outcasts within the outcasts.

To be honest I am a little disappointed in this thread so far. Not from the OP, but the posts that came after. There are many Goreans lurking around this forum, and none of them have had the inclination to post anything.... I would suspect because they don't feel like being judged, or jumped all over. For a supposedly open and respectful forum, this thread has the stink of judgement before anyone even posted anything.

I don't think that my beliefs are right for everyone, but they are right for me. Your mileage may vary. I also acknowledge that there are assholes who are Gorean, or who at least claim to be so. But there are just as many asshole BDSM Dominants. Heck, there are just as many asshole vanilla guys. So don't judge us all based on a couple of idiots.

If anyone has any honest questions, I would be pleased to answer them. I also hope a couple of the other Goreans around here have the courage to speak out.

I'll get off my soapbox now.