I first encountered the Gor books about 8 years ago, when I was around 18 and canvassing used bookstores and the Library for interesting reading material to while away the boring hours of my night shift. I read one of the later books in the series first, the one where the main protagonist is invading/escaping (never could figure out which) the stronghold of the Insectsiod 'Gods'. I actually enjoyed it, especially the Insectsiod Culture parts, although I did skip over the boring bits! It was mostly about the protagonist's Quest, and how his perceptions of what he thought was reality were changed. There wasn't much sex, and the main female was regulated to the role of spoiled victim, so he had very little interaction with her or any other humans. The whole slave thing was only mentioned in passing, so I just passed it off as cultural relativism and thought no more of it. I liked the book enough that I decided to check out another one from the Library, and that's when Gor was forever ruined for me. That book was all about the sex and slavery, and although I usually enjoy a good kink!fic, I wasn't even able to finish that one - I think it was the Nomads one that was mentioned earlier, but I'm not sure. Anyway, what really turned me off of the whole series wasn't the mediocre writing or the hardcore slavery aspect, it was the underlying thread of 'this is natural, the way things should really be' that ran through the whole thing. It wasn't just that the native Gorians thought that way, which was to be expected, but rather that you got the definite impression that the author himself thought that way and it showed in the stories. What really raised my hackles was the way the Earth Woman (women?) who had the misfortune to end up in Gor adapted/converted so quickly. And not in a 'there are people I love here, have to take the bad with the good' way, either. No, there's a passage in one of the books where she feels sorry for her Earth sisters because they are 'forced' to be Free and she truly believes that they would be happier as slaves, that that is their true and rightful position is society! The spinelessness of the whole situation just sickened me. I kept having visions of transporting a modern woman, perhaps a Marine, into the Gor 'Verse and watching her kick ass, take names, and telling all those would-be 'rescuers' (and enslavers, rescuing a woman on Gor automatically makes her your slave) just where they could stick it!
Huh. Fanfic impulses. Must Resist! Nah, I don't think I could stand becoming familiar enough with the Gor 'verse to write a good fic in it, not even a fix-it fic.
The book gave me the same level of creepiness that I got from a hardcore snuff & cannibalism fic that I once accidentally encountered. The 'if only Magic were real and I could obliviate myself of that' vibe. Yuck. I haven't touched a Gor book since. Major creepiness, yuck, yuck!