Hi Timberwolf, thanks for joining in.

You make some good points that I agree with. Goreans nor anyone involved in the BDSM lifestyle should react back with hatred just because they may have encountered it from someone before. But as humans we do. I admit to having been angered many times by Dom's telling me I was not a real Dom just because I happened to embrace some of the gorean philosophy in my BDSM lifestyle.

I am sure that has caused me to overreact later on when I felt an attack was coming when it was possible it wasn't. Wrong but human. We all tend to say "who are you to judge me" when confronted by others. Personally, I feel the only person that has any right to judge me as a Dom is my slave. If she continues to submit to me then I must be doing something right. No matter what name I chose to call my style.

The fundamental problem with this statemenet is, despite the elements of the Bible (or other holy texts) that are *more than likely* fable, the books still have a solid basis in actual history. Events that actually occured, and people that actualy existed. Gorean novels cannot lay claim to the same, they are pure fantasy from start to finish. I don't consider that a valid comparison.
Well I think what is being compared here is whether the philosophy contained in them is any more valid to base your culture off of then then any others.

Many people base their lifestyle on books that were written during a period of time that the writers believed the world was flat, the sun rotated around the earth. They believe in the philosophy of the book even though they know the events described were written by people with almost no understanding of the world around them.

If people needed a more historical real world based belief to follow then I would suppose we would have to either be muslim or mormon since both occured and were written about in more "modern times" by real people.

I think the point is yes, the Gor books do take place on a fantasy planet but would the philosophy concerning the D/s relationships between men and women be any more valid if Gor was really Hawaii and the lifestyle described was really one practiced by the natives of that island. I think not.

Remember all that is being said is that people do base lifestyles off of books, as to whether this book or that book should have more validity because of where, or when, or by who it was written is not in question.