liz_marcs | Borders-verse flashbacks: Gor

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Borders-verse flashbacks: Gor

So here I am multi-tasking. Working on The Last Tin Soldier (beta notes have resulted in some changes all the way to the very end), checking out the Deep Space Nine episodes I can watch for free online at TV-Links, and checking my FList before toddling off to bed.

So, here I am, riding the kind of high that I can only get by basking in the awesome that is Kira Nerys, when I spy with my little eye from theantijoss_on_IJ that Gor of Losers is making a comeback.

Thanks to Dark Horse.

My irony meter just went off the scale.

Not to mention that I now have whiplash. From Kira to Gor. I need a frigging neck brace.

I tried to read a Gor book. Once. In junior high. (Although I'm very sure that if my dad knew, he would've had a heart attack. No. Make that a zillion heart-attacks.) I'm pretty sure that Gor pretty much planted my aversion-to-writing-smut seed. That shit was just ugly, yo. Me not a big fan of slave games, even consensual slave games. Although if it floats your boat, go and float, says I. Just don't make me wear the ball-gag and nipple clamps and we're cool.

But even with my relatively innocent eyes, I could damn well spot a rape fantasy. Rape fantasies in and of themselves aren't bad, per se (even if it gets my squick running so hard that my knee starts jerking, if you get my drift). But this was a rape fantasy of a whole 'nother color. This was a rape fantasy for men. It's the really, really ugly shit where all women want it, all women deserve it, and all women will get it in the end. Failure to accept rape as a way of life is a brutal death sentence.

Why?

Because "no" ain't an option for women in Gor-world. Not when they're branded. Not someone chunks a slave collar on them. Not when they get assigned the role of "pleasure" slave, "reserve (virgin)" slave, or "scut work (not sexually attractive)" slave. Not when they get chained to a stone floor because they try to say no. Not ever.

Quick question kiddies: What's the difference between someone who's free, and someone who's a slave?

Answer: It's one word. "No." The power to say it. The power to think it. The power to act on it. One. Word.

Hunh. Guess the Gor books were edumacational after all. Who says the series is a total waste?

Well, actually, I do. Not even Dianetics comes close in the worthless books sweepstakes.

I remember my Bordersverse days rather fondly. I remember most of the customers rather fondly. I remember most of my co-workers rather fondly.

Know what I don't remember fondly? This one regular customer. He was a white male, always impeccably dressed in semi-expensive clothes. Glasses. Loafers. Sandy hair bordering on brown. About my age, more or less. Clean-cut. He looked like the type of guy who was involved in community service, or volunteering for some political organization or another.

Shit. I remember exactly how he looked, despite the distance of some years.

I also remember that he had this vibe. Long before I ever talked to him, I got the "something is just not right with that boy" radio signals so loud that my one tooth filling rattled every time he walked through the door. Straight ladies, gay men...I don't have to explain that whole serial-killer-in-disguise vibe to you, do I? I'm sure you've all had it once or twice. It's a feeling you don't forget. For the rest of you who don't know, the best way to explain it is as if someone's shadow just passed over your grave.

Anyway, I'd seen him around off and on for several months (and I always made it a habit to be elsewhere when he was looking for help). One day I didn't move fast enough and he got me.

Guess what our boy was looking for?

If you didn't say Gor books, then you haven't been paying attention.

Right. Needless to say, my brain went to DefCon 1 so fast that it's a wonder the word "tilt" show up on my eyeballs. Having no choice, however, I had to help Gor-man. A quick look into the database showed that we actually had a copy of the first book around (how, I don't know since they were out of print for a looooong time by that point). It wasn't in science fiction (Thank God!), but in erotica.

But that's not the real creepy part. The real creepy part is that Gor-man was talking about that damn book and how philosophical it was and how deep it was and shit like that. And he was asking my opinion about it.

Holy tomato, I thought to myself. Is this dude actually feeling me out about Gor?

Indeed he was. To be honest, I don't think he was hitting on me. I think he was on a little power trip. Obviously he saw my reaction when he asked for Gor, so I suspected that this guy — who towered over me by a good 6 inches — was trying to rattle my cage.

All he got for his trouble was my serene bookstore look: the one perfected over several years and honed in the fires of born-again customers trying to convert me to the Gospel according to Tim LaHaye, teenagers sneaking into the erotica section, and little kids running rampant in the children's section.

It's a look that's somewhat mask-like, coolly polite, vaguely condescending, and gives the cusomter abso-fraggin'-lutely nothing for their trouble.

Nothing pisses off a power-tripping customer more than that cool, polite wall of hell. They can't get over it, can't get around it, and can't dig under it. Hell, they can't even complain to the store manager about it. In short, they have nuffing! Once that mask is on, you will win power battle every. single. time. Plus, you get the joy of seeing a power-tripping customer go completely out of his or her tree.

Anyway, in the end, I advised Gor-man that if he wanted other books in the series, he'd have to trawl used bookstores, as almost the entire series was out of print. In fact, I expressed polite puzzlement that we had the first book in the series at all, while he expressed shock and horror that it was in the erotica section and not the science fiction section where, in his humble opinion, it belonged.

I saw Gor-man after that, of course (he was, after all, a regular). But he never asked me to help him out again. I did ring him up a few times though. His taste in reading material did nothing to dispel the kree-pee.

Anyway, if you want to be completely creeped out before bed, I highly recommend 7 year-old article from Salon about Gor enthusiasts recreating the series for real. The article is old enough that it's not tucked behind Salon's usual wall o' ads. It's totally free for the reading.

And per theantijoss_on_IJ, check out what Girl Wonder has to say about the Gor revival. Tamorah Pierce has a few choice words, too. Bellatrys_on_LJ has a whole collection of posts on Gor (scroll down to get to the really good, hard-core analysis of Gor).

In the meantime, I'll be hoping like hell that Dark Horse loses oodles of money and earns a ton of bad publicity for trying to revive Gor.

Now I must cleanse my mind. Yeeeessss. I think I will watch the 'Crossover' episode of Deep Space Nine. Evil Kira in leather. It doesn't get any better than that.

X-posted to IJ, GJ, and JF

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No no no. I totally see your point (and even agree with it). For most people, the Gor books are just one big ol' purple prose of a fantasy.

But there's that hard-core element that just gets your hackles up. This particular hard-core element has a nasty face...similar to those guys who buy "real dolls" for their masterbatory fantasies. On the surface, it seems a harmless enough kink. Until some of them open their mouths.

The thing is, there's a pretty good reason why the Gor books have been out of print for so long: they don't sell. I worked in a bookstore for more than three years, and I had one guy ask for it.

The thing is they are so poorly written, the author keeps inserting his personal philosophy in it, and the stories are not very imaginative sword and sorcery. Add to that and you also have enough people are seriously squicked by them that they just won't buy them, and that's both sexes.

Do I think there's an audience? Oh, hells yah. Do I think most of the readers will think it stupid fluff not worth thinking about? Yup. Do I think some people will get into it at first and just "grow out of it?" Yup.

It's the ones who won't and who take in that misogynistic message that I worry about.

But there's that hard-core element that just gets your hackles up.

Definitely. Most definitely.

On the surface, it seems a harmless enough kink. Until some of them open their mouths.

It's the ones who won't ... that I worry about

My issue with that, though, is which is the symptom and which is the drug? It's a fairly existential point, I realize, but these guys were like this before Gor and they'll be like this after Gor. Does Gor actually affect them so much that they have to go out and reenact it? And if so, who's to say it won't be something else that creates the same point of focus?

Again, I get what you're saying. And I'm well aware that I'm talking almost at cross-purposes, here, because I'm looking at underlying philosophy. But when I see things like this even when people aren't asking for banning -- as you and Tamora Pierce both aren't, thankfully -- I still have this reaction of whoa, wait a second. It makes me thinky.

And a little stubborn because we're a bunch of women who do not want to be treated like crap, so we tend in a general, fandom-wide sense to stir ourselves up for the choir and start making statements that aren't meant, but man, they sound good at the time.

That kind of thing bothers me a lot. So I guess I wanted to get this out there sooner.

they don't sell and add to that and you also have enough people seriously squicked by them that they just won't buy them, and that's both sexes

Which is genuinely fantastic. That this guy is exposed for exactly what he is: a freak who has no idea how to deal with women, so he creates fantasies that are terrifying and not at all worth the paper they're printed on, or the pixels that give them form.

And again, I totally agree on this point. If it isn't Gor, it'll be something else, because God knows that it isn't like violent porn is all that hard to find if you've got a computer. In fact, compared to violent porn, the Gor books are almost quaint in their depiction of female subjugation.

It's like the whole thing with underage HP characters having sex: if some pedophile is triggered by that, good chance he or she was going to be triggered sooner rather than later by something else. And God knows real child porn (again), isn't all that hard to find if you really want to find it.

But here's the thing on the other side: If you encounter speech you find distasteful, be it in the form of a book, movie, music, or internet posting — be it sexism, racism, or some other -ism — shouldn't you counter it with more speech?

I'm not talking about harshing the squee here (which is another matter entirely).

For me, this is a case of: "I think these books are really distasteful and here's why. I hope Dark Horse gets a blow-back from the market that's akin to a bitch-slap heard 'round the world."

I'm not arguing that John Norman doesn't have every single right to write those books. He does. I'm not saying that a publisher doesn't have every right to publish those books. It does. I'm not saying that no one has the right to read those books if they want to. They do.

What I'm saying is exactly what the post says: "I got a real problem with these books. Here's my problem with them. Here's why I want Dark Horse to lose their shirts when they republish."

And while I wish like hell that Norman would disavow those books and burn every copy in existence. While I wish like hell that no publisher would touch the books with a 10-foot pole. And while I hope like hell that the reading public turns its back on the books to the tune of lost sales for Dark Horse. I also would not advocate for squashing the existence of those books.

When it comes to books (and music, movies, television shows, and ideas), in the end the marketplace itself has to decide. As a member of the marketplace, I'm planting my flag on the side chanting, "Go down in economic flames Gor!"

If you encounter speech you find distasteful, be it in the form of a book, movie, music, or internet posting — be it sexism, racism, or some other -ism — shouldn't you counter it with more speech?

Huh. For me, only sometimes because I truly believe the adage that there's no such thing as bad publicity, particularly for things of this nature.

Now, there are lots of things where I think yes, speech is the best, surest, and most rational form of countering.

But in this case, given the clearly abysmal sales of the original run, why give any attention at all? It's just fuel to a fire that, to my mind, only profits the author and DH because sheer curiosity is going to prompt people to look at and maybe even buy something they may never have even been aware of before.

It's a double-edged sword, like most things in life.

Again -- completely existential because there ain't a damned thing wrong with What I'm saying is exactly what the post says: "I got a real problem with these books. Here's my problem with them. Here's why I want Dark Horse to lose their shirts when they republish."

Not a single thing :)

Oh man. Here I may be just a touch TMI, given I'm a total stranger and all, but I spend some time around a couple of kinkster communities, and we got invaded by this... well... I'm still not sure to this day if he was just a troll, or if he really did believe all the crap he spouted. It's really hard to think anybody could be that convincing of an actor when acting so stupid. Anyhow, he said he based his life philosophy off of Gor. AND he definitely based his writing style off of it. His posts were nearly unreadable sometimes. He got utterly laughed out of the group, and eventually banned when he wouldn't quit posting about what bad whores and cowardly weenie-men we were for daring to disagree with his male supremacist crap. He supposedly had a girlfriend who was his "slave" but we sort of noticed that girlfriend and gorboy both had all of the same little writing tics, so we were pretty sure his "slave" was really his right hand.

People who are into Gor usually just make me laugh. They're sad, sad, sad men who are never going to get any of the perks of having a real relationship with a submissive woman. I won't even get into what I think of women who like the Gor thing though, other than to say that so far at least it seems to be a phase, and I've yet to meet one that was sad and sorry enough to stick with it for very long. Thank heavens.

Negotiated master/sub relationships assume free will on both sides and a healthy core relationship. I'm totally down with that. I mean, even if I wasn't, it's not really any big. One person's kink is another person's squick. It what makes the world go 'round, says I. Also makes for a happy place if people just go with the thing that makes 'em happy and fuck the rest for not being able to take the joke.

But some of the people who look to the Gor books like they're the Bible are scaaaaary.

Then again, I've known scary Trekkies, scary Browncoats, and scary Supernatural fans. I don't know why Gor fans make me want to back away more than the others. I have to freely admit that it's the philosophy of the Gor-verse that scares me half-to-death.

Yeah, there's some scary stuff lurking under a lot of the Gor ideas. And heck, not even lurking in some of 'em.

I think the thing with me not being so creeped out is that I've met so MANY of them, been hit on by them, been IMed by them, etc. They're just... pathetic, really. They generally go away in a huff and/or block me when I respond sarcastically to their messages. They're profoundly juvenile and immature and generally scared stiff of women. Most of the Gor guys I know seem to be into it because they just don't know what the heck to do with a woman, so they've decided they need her to be a non-entity a tiny step up from a blowup doll.

I won't even get into what I think of women who like the Gor thing though, other than to say that so far at least it seems to be a phase, and I've yet to meet one that was sad and sorry enough to stick with it for very long.

I have. She's 37, with two children, and trolls internet Gor communities, hoping to find the 'perfect master'. I first met her on an AOL White Wolf-style horror RPG, where she was playing a vampire seductress that came across as very dominatrix...right up until a man actually talked to her, at which point she'd swoon at his feet and ask to go to a private room.

That was in 1998. Last I checked her LJ (which is mostly bad erotic poetry), she was still at it.

I feel sorry for her kids.

Oh good heavens! *shudder* The things that well-meaning BDSM people sometimes inflict on their children really make me twitch sometimes. I hope she's not like that in front of her children, but that's probably too much to ask...

I think about to join you in being a total stranger giving TMI, but this whole entire discussion is bring back memories for me, some good, some bad.

Back in the day I was on the Grey Archives, cesspool of the net circa 1999. A group of them, including me, on there did adult RPG's DnD style with play by post. This group moved around a little before settling on RPOL, Roleplay Online, in the adult section.

During these time, my ex, who was the main GM, tried to start a Gor-inspired world and campaign settings. None of us had heard of it before the game let alone read it except the GM, one woman, and her husband. Three times the game was started and all three times it failed because all the regular women players couldn't even fake being that submissive, or the males that had joined the game just because it was Gorean/barb fantasy didn't like tables being turned when one incarnation we added male slaves along with veiled freewomen to give more variation in character choices. This more equal incarnation ran the longest until my freewoman put a guy in his place in the bedroom and squicked most of the male players.

The only female player that did pull being a slave girl off was the one that had read the books before and dealt with it by faking the submissiveness in writing while snarking to other in IM as she wrote her posts on how her character strung along the poor male she got partnered with by being passive-aggressive with so many veiled underlying meanings in her word choice.

I broke up with the GM eventually and the games always failed, but that isn't the point. The point is that a pseudo-slave culture where the emphasis is on sex is still a standard male fantasy even if it is totally Gor. The concept can be turned to the opposite by women as well. There's so many slave yaoi boy stories out there it isn't funny, and most of them are by women. I've even thought of reviving the ideas of that game and turning it into a more fair world in regards to both sexes with an emphasis on who actually holds the power in such a relationship.

It isn't the idea that's inherently bad, but, like anything else, it's the ones that take it too far that give off that vibe.

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Borders-verse flashbacks: Gor

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