BDSM - Erotic Novels

[ksst]

I haven't found any Gor books yet. I think I would try them if I did. I don't want to cause friction here, but years ago, when I heard about them, some of my husband's friends were Goreans. I asked him if he had any or had read any of the books, and he had read them and told me what they were, but said that I should not because they were terrible. So I never did. But I was curious then and still am.

[Frances]

I haven't found any Gor books yet. I think I would try them if I did. I don't want to cause friction here, but years ago, when I heard about them, some of my husband's friends were Goreans. I asked him if he had any or had read any of the books, and he had read them and told me what they were, but said that I should not because they were terrible. So I never did. But I was curious then and still am.

I did of a google of Gor and I didn't like what I saw and read. But maybe I will try again with a more open mind and remembering that not all men are like that. And I can unload my gun and lock it back up.

[leo9]

I haven't found any Gor books yet. I think I would try them if I did. I don't want to cause friction here, but years ago, when I heard about them, some of my husband's friends were Goreans. I asked him if he had any or had read any of the books, and he had read them and told me what they were, but said that I should not because they were terrible. So I never did. But I was curious then and still am.

Speaking as a former fan, there's two aspects, the literary and the BDSM.

The series was initially commissioned as a 1960s pastiche of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic sword-and-science adventures, but after the first couple of books the author found his own voice. For the first six or eight books I (in my youth) devoured them as soon as they came out. It began to be obvious that he was reading up on some exotic Earth culture like Inuit or Vikings and building the next book round them, but it worked well enough. After that, I and a lot of people felt they got repetitious, and his weakness for three-page expositions got out of hand. But real fans are still reading them. His style is one you either like or hate, it's a matter of taste.

Burroughs' yarns were as sexless as all pulp adventure of the day, so no doubt part of the original Gor proposition was to add in some sex. But in the very first book he introduced slavery as an exotic detail of the culture, and described the look and handling of slavegirls with such eloquence that people like me, who didn't even know that what we were into was called SM, knew we had found a fellow enthusiast. That was enough to keep us reading for a while even when the books started to get slow and overwritten. Since his books were shelved with general adventure fiction when things like Story of O were under the counter, he was many people's first introduction to the joys of bondage and dominance/submission.

The down side (pausing to don bronze helm and armour and hold shield overhead) is that one reason he could write in Burroughs' style so convincingly is that he shares the old-time pulp writers' attitude to women: sweet weak things that need a strong man's protection, they may imagine that they want independence and their own way, but they're only really happy when a man takes charge of them, with whatever force necessary to make them see sense. In the later books this is elaborated with long sociobiological essays which say the same thing in bigger words. One reason I stopped reading was that I got tired of skipping these, but if you can take them as just local colour, and ignore what they remind you of in terms of our world, you can enjoy the books as M/f D/s fantasies.

[thir]

I haven't found any Gor books yet. I think I would try them if I did. I don't want to cause friction here, but years ago, when I heard about them, some of my husband's friends were Goreans. I asked him if he had any or had read any of the books, and he had read them and told me what they were, but said that I should not because they were terrible. So I never did. But I was curious then and still am.

It all depends, you know. For example, 9 1/2 weeks is a very intense story about two people and their journey into bdsm, and it therefore had a profound impact on me when I read it many years ago, because of the deeply depressing ending. So, some would love it for the hot and intense scenes, and some would hate it for the - in the long run - very negative (as well as IMO just plain wrong) view of BDSM.

The Gor books - all the earliest books - are entertaining and fun sword-and-sandal stories with lots of light-hearted but hot bdsm in them. The later books are different, less plot and more arguments on the blessings of male domination over females, which suits some fine, while others get bored. They are definitly not bad, if you like a good yarn.

The Marketplace books are completely different again, more intense than the Gor books, less so than 9 1/2 week, much less plot or story as such.

As I see it, all books and fantasies have to do with either how you want real life, or how you can distinguish fantasy from reality, and that, as I see it, differs a lot from person to person. For example, to some warlike interrogation scenes are hot, because some of us do not confuse it with real life, while others of us can't help but do. Some like 'non-consensual' fantasies a lot, while not condoning rape in real life, and so on. It all varies. A good book for one person is a bad for another. Other literary facts and impressions aprt., of course.

It all depends on what you want, and maybe also what you want at any given time. I'd say if curious, give it a try. What can you loose, apart from a few hours? ;-)