Jump to content

Gor Is Indeed A Silly Place


Tolya Ugajin
 Share

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 1497 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Recommended Posts

15 minutes ago, Jackson Redstar said:

"misogynistic" could easily describe the entire RLV system in Sl - but , all or the participants are consensual, so what does that say?

No, the RLV system is not centred on a load of quasi-religious misogynistic sh*te. 

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

Goreans arguing over who is more "Truly Gor" is a bit like watching women argue over which of them has the largest phallus.

It's really more like failed skydivers arguing over who had the best pavement. 

Edited by Amina Sopwith
  • Like 1
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Amina Sopwith said:

The very fact that it exists as a subculture at all is highly misogynistic. The books are not male dominant fantasy BDSM. They're not even male dominant BDSM. They're not just silly stories either. They are didactic, hateful texts that literally expound, at length, about how women are effectively subhuman, that abusive relationships are fantastic, that women all hate each other because all they care about is competing for men, that there is no such thing as lesbianism and that the only reason a woman would disagree is because she's ugly or hasn't been raped/beaten/burned enough (don't be fooled by the existence of free women and Xena Warrior Princesses, the books are quite clear that they are all just in denial). They even fetishise the real life human trafficking industry. Literally. I'm not talking about another level of interpretation for kidnap in the narrative, I mean the author explicitly references real life human trafficking on Earth and how natural and desirable it is, or how it's a cover for women being taken to Gor, mwahahahaaaa. I could go on and on.

It is a very hateful genre.

If this genre was about race, I would likely succeed in getting the entire thing knocked off of SL.

It reminds me of how The Root described Handmaid's Tale; "Slavery for white people..." Their words beyond that... would get me banned here... Basically all the shock, none of the actual horror.

Now.. SL has a LOT of sims dedicated to 'black men raping white women' so... the race angle is there... the people playing in those sims are... almost always white on both sets of avatars...
- so when I say if this was about race I'd manage to get it banned I'm not referring to those. They are racist and should be pushed out... but they don't go nearly as far as Gor with how it presents women. Despite how badly they paint black men... They're like 70% of the way there...
(search the term 'interracial' and you'll find these venues. As a mixed race person... I had presumed I would land in something very different the first time I went looking...)

 

Gor serves not only the point of noting how much of a hateful person the author is... it diminishes the actual horror of both slavery and rape by turning them into fetishes.

I've actually known people trafficked into sex-slavery... even discovered people I knew were in it, when living abroad in a situation where I was powerless to intervene... It's no fantasy... and modern sex-trafficking is mild compared to US Antebellum Slavery...

 

My last annoyance with Gor though... is how it's basically ruined erotic fantasy in SL. It's too over-present.

What about something like John Carter of Mars or Heavy Metal Magazine's Den by Richard Corben - those are both settings full of naked people running around with swords and having sex anywhere you can fit a plug into a socket...
- so they cover the same territory that draws so many of those 'naked avatars' to Gor... but without removing their agency...

John Carter's favored naked woman is not just not a slave, she's the princess and a warrior... Xena minus the wardrobe.

It drives me nuts that the erotic fantasy that took off in SL was some hate-based fantasy that reminds me a Libertarian handbook... rather than the many other potential examples...

 

Edited by Pussycat Catnap
  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Jackson Redstar said:

"misogynistic" could easily describe the entire RLV system in Sl - but , all or the participants are consensual, so what does that say?

The RLV system is non-gendered: it can be used (by men or women) to control men or women. It is not "misogynistic" unless the person wielding it chooses to employ it in that manner.

Gor, on the other, is solely predicated on the idea that women are inherently inferior to men, and not merely deserve, but actually benefit from the worst kind of abuse. In that regard, it is actually very different from BDSM, understood properly: the roles of dominant and submissive are not determined (as they are in Gor) by gender. You have male and female dominants, and male and female submissives. And women submissives very often belong to women dominants.

You are of course correct that this is all consensual. That is, however, irrelevant to the point that Amina is making: she is not suggesting that Gor in SL actually oppresses women, but rather that the attitudes that fundamentally underlie it, and that are expressed in RPing it, are sexist.

Consensual or not, it is still misogynistic, and it really doesn't matter if women are willing participants in the expression of those views. If a Jewish person expresses anti-Semitic views, those ideas don't stop being antisemitic merely because of the ethnicity or religion of the person uttering them.

  • Like 11
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Amina Sopwith said:

No, the RLV system is not centred on a load of quasi-religious misogynistic sh*te. 

RLV is actually extremely useful for posing avatars in large scenes. It's a lot easier to have whoever is directing things be able to move you into your spot...

I also use it when I log in alts together so I can do most of the work on just one screen.

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

My last annoyance with Gor though... is how it's basically ruined erotic fantasy in SL. It's too over-present.

What about something like John Carter of Mars or Heavy Metal Magazine's Den by Richard Corben - those are both settings full of naked people running around with swords and having sex anywhere you can fit a plug into a socket...
- so they cover the same territory that draws so many of those 'naked avatars' to Gor... but without removing their agency...

John Carter's favored naked woman is not just not a slave, she's the princess and a warrior... Xena minus the wardrobe.

It drives me nuts that the erotic fantasy that took off in SL was some hate-based fantasy that reminds me a Libertarian handbook... rather than the many other potential examples...

NSFW: http://www.erbzine.com/mag13/1301.html

- That's an illustrated John Carter of Mars.

https://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/NIS-Admin/www/hosted/AlanBrady/Joan_Carter_of_Mars/jcom.html

- Extremely NSFW. A flip of the John Carter story to a woman protagonist. Chapter 1. I happened to find this years ago when the entire novel was online and it was extremely erotic, naked, and well done...

And Den:

https://www.goodreads.com/series/110178-den

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/den/4005-29550/

Unlike Gor... Den actually has good reviews for it's storytelling. It's in lists of the best Sci-Fi art, and copies on Amazon go for a few hundred dollars... but if you scrounge around online you can piece it together from screenshots to a readable book.

 

Erotic fantasy is a genre much richer than just some woman-hater's miserable excuse for a 3rd grade writing project...

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Selene Gregoire said:

When we could still afford cable, I would watch it in morbid fascination, as I do with any cult. They all freak me out.

I think it's on Hulu now, and you can always sign up for the free week and binge watch it (that's actually what I did). I don't even own a television so everything I watch is on the computer. 

I worked in Hollywood for a few years right across the street from the big blue building on Hollywood Blvd. They'd stop me every day and offer the "free personality test" and I'd just laugh them off. I had no idea just how deeply evil they really were. All cults are scary, but this one I find exceptionally scary because so many do laugh them off as being harmless when they are anything but. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Amina Sopwith said:

this is why you find bajillions of places with nobody in them... because new places pop up all over the place due to the previous one being Not Truly Gorean.

I've noticed this also... you look for Gor and it's full of listings promoting how they are the one true Gor sim, not like all those other fake-news sims...

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

I've noticed this also... you look for Gor and it's full of listings promoting how they are the one true Gor sim, not like all those other fake-news sims...

 

There was a Gorean trying to push his sim in the RP board the other day (I'm taking it as a good sign that they need to advertise now). He said something like "where men are men and the vegetables are not in the stew". You what? I mean, skimming over the obvious connection between Goreans and vegetative life....what? They don't eat vegetables? What in the ever loving fark do they do with them? Or do I not want to know? Just how bored have people become over there??

Edited by Amina Sopwith
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Amina Sopwith said:

You what? I mean, skimming over the obvious connection between Goreans and vegetative life....what? They don't eat vegetables? What in the ever loving fark do they do with them? Or do I not want to know? Just how bored have people become over there??

I suspect that on his sim, you can grab them by the tomato and get away with it.

 

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Mahala Roviana said:

Some questions are best left unanswered.

Well, I do recall various kajagoogoos hanging round empty sims for hours waiting for someone to turn up so they could emote for a week about pulling a pint. I guess they needed something to do. Don't eat the stew at that tavern, that's all I'm saying. 

  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Beth Macbain said:

I think it's on Hulu now, and you can always sign up for the free week and binge watch it (that's actually what I did). I don't even own a television so everything I watch is on the computer. 

I worked in Hollywood for a few years right across the street from the big blue building on Hollywood Blvd. They'd stop me every day and offer the "free personality test" and I'd just laugh them off. I had no idea just how deeply evil they really were. All cults are scary, but this one I find exceptionally scary because so many do laugh them off as being harmless when they are anything but. 

Thanks.

I've been inside their building in Austin. I got out of there as fast as I could when I realized all they really cared about was did I have any money.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Beth Macbain said:

I think it's on Hulu now, and you can always sign up for the free week and binge watch it (that's actually what I did). I don't even own a television so everything I watch is on the computer. 

I worked in Hollywood for a few years right across the street from the big blue building on Hollywood Blvd. They'd stop me every day and offer the "free personality test" and I'd just laugh them off.

My big shocker with L Ron Hubbard's successful drunken bet of a religion was seeing the MASSIVE building they have in downtown Mexico City.

No one was going in or out of the place... but it was this huge thing taking what, if I remember right, was a whole block across the street from a restaurant I went to.

It looked like a cross between a fortress and a foreign embassy, or my memory is embellishing...

Edited by Pussycat Catnap
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

My big shocker with L Ron Hubbard's successful drunken bet of a religion was seeing the MASSIVE building they have in downtown Mexico City.

No one was going in or out of the place... but it was this huge thing taking what, if I remember right, was a whole block across the street from a restaurant I went to.

 

One of the big takeaways from the show is that they have so much money that in order to keep their IRS nonprofit status they have to spend a portion of it - so they buy land and build big empty buildings. 

It's a grotesque misuse of... well, everything really. Money, people, tax-exemptions, ethics, morals...

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

The RLV system is non-gendered: it can be used (by men or women) to control men or women. It is not "misogynistic" unless the person wielding it chooses to employ it in that manner.

Gor, on the other, is solely predicated on the idea that women are inherently inferior to men, and not merely deserve, but actually benefit from the worst kind of abuse. In that regard, it is actually very different from BDSM, understood properly: the roles of dominant and submissive are not determined (as they are in Gor) by gender. You have male and female dominants, and male and female submissives. And women submissives very often belong to women dominants.

You are of course correct that this is all consensual. That is, however, irrelevant to the point that Amina is making: she is not suggesting that Gor in SL actually oppresses women, but rather that the attitudes that fundamentally underlie it, and that are expressed in RPing it, are sexist.

Consensual or not, it is still misogynistic, and it really doesn't matter if women are willing participants in the expression of those views. If a Jewish person expresses anti-Semitic views, those ideas don't stop being antisemitic merely because of the ethnicity or religion of the person uttering them.

I'm not sure this is all quite accurate, although I'll admit in advance it's a distinction as fine as frog's hair.  The thesis isn't that women are inherently inferior (beyond physical strength, which is after all basic biology) it's a bit more insidious, actually, especially from a feminist perspective.  Free Women, in fact, are supposedly (stifles a laugh) held in high regard, even deferred to.  The idea is that women WANT to be enslaved in this manner, and that submission is natural for them.  Fighting against that nature is unhealthy for them and inevitably they relish being subjugated.  On the other hand, I haven't seen much evidence of "the worst kind of abuse."  In theory, Gorean men are not prone to cruelty for cruelty's sake (as opposed to, say, a sadist such as yours truly), and, due to the supposed (I'm trying not to laugh here) "scarcity" of slaves, they would, other than for disciplinary purposes, treat them as highly valued objects.

Although, yeah, branding is a bit much by modern standards, and hamstringing your valuable property the second time it tries to escape seems rather counterproductive.

Also, there ARE a small number of male slaves in Gor (including the books) - about ten times as rare as female slaves.  And, as in BDSM, women also own slaves and. supposedly, Free Women treat female slaves worse than the men do.  Anyone surprised by the stereotyping there?  Anyone?  Anyone at all?

Getting back to that scarcity thing, possibly the silliest thing about Gor (other than the God awful dialog) is the economic nonsense a 1 to 50 slave to free population would be given the fantasy social and cultural structure.  Any woman captured in battle would be a slave, all their descendants would be slaves, any woman convicted of a more than a minor legal violation would be a slave, random women would be enslaved on any number of pretexts, any daughter of a man who cannot pay his debts, or dies indebted, can be sold to pay those debts, let alone simple kidnapping...why would there be any free women at all?  It simply doesn't make sense.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

The thesis isn't that women are inherently inferior (beyond physical strength, which is after all basic biology) it's a bit more insidious, actually, especially from a feminist perspective.  Free Women, in fact, are supposedly (stifles a laugh) held in high regard, even deferred to.  

It's just bog standard Madonna/whore complex. Don't dignify this tosh by over complicating or overthinking it. The books are quite clear that while you "respect" a FW, you definitely don't really desire her properly and she can't fully enjoy sex. Because, you know, doing both is impossible.

It's nothing new. And yes, women are most certainly regarded as inferior in the books. They're always being outsmarted and outwitted by men (it's painful when every character is actually as thick as pigsh*t. Did you see the one about the Gorean Master who travelled through space to gather women from Earth to sell even though he knew the market was saturated and prices were dropping all over the shop? What a complete plank. It's only a shame he couldn't get pregnant, I see no other way the average Gorean could ever grow a second brain cell) and described as having less important concerns. And when a slave is not legally or morally a person (that's explicit) and all women should be slaves, well. Did you notice how much Nobhead likes the phrase "the female animal"?

38 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

IOn the other hand, I haven't seen much evidence of "the worst kind of abuse."  In theory, Gorean men are not prone to cruelty for cruelty's sake 

Frigging hell, we read different books. The torture porn was off the scale in some of the ones I read, as well as the endless babble paragraphs about how women need abuse and can't be happy without it. If women do fall over whenever Turd Kaput approaches, it's only because he's mansplained them to effing death. I've never seen anything like it. 

38 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

Also, there ARE a small number of male slaves in Gor (including the books) - about ten times as rare as female slaves.  And, as in BDSM, women also own slaves and. supposedly, Free Women treat female slaves worse than the men do.  Anyone surprised by the stereotyping there?  Anyone?  Anyone at all?

The male slaves are mere foils and it's made very clear that they are supposed to be an aberration. If they ever get a story, it's to reclaim their true place, which is of course to rape the lady of the house and then, as she falls in love with him, to sell her off at once because that's what you do. And yes, of course FW treat slaves like dirt. Didn't you read any of the babble on that? (I don't blame you if you didn't.) It's because they're jealous because they want to be slaves. They're repressed and hate other women because, well, they're women, aren't they, guv? Didn't you see any of the conversations where a woman makes an appeal to female solidarity purely so that the other can scratch her eyes out and prove it doesn't exist? No, nobody is surprised by the stereotyping there.

Don't dignify Nobhead's screed by imagining it's anything new. It's just every nasty, misogynistic stereotype you've ever come across since time began. Like I said. I don't know how the man got his knuckles far enough off the ground to write this crap. Gor is a Darwinian nightmare. 

 

Edited by Amina Sopwith
  • Like 3
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am a very curious person. One of my many alts went to see what Gor was all about.  This was probably about 2010 or so. I lasted a month.  I enjoyed wandering around naked, had some interesting conversations with some men who didn't really seem like women haters and fancied themselves "teachers". Met some others who were less intelligent more neanderthal. Did a few fun role plays; I was branded, pierced, caged and trained. Got bored, tried out serving paga and faked a crash to get away from this hopelessly challenged person with a projectile large enough to bore through 3 of me at once, who fornicated silently and when I IM'd him out of character to make conversation, huffily told me I should be busy(silently) worshiping his projectile.  That was it for me.  Never looked back.  I will say though that I saw some beautiful builds. 

As for scientology, L. Ron should have stuck to science fiction. He and his cult were and are just plain evil.

Edited by kali Wylder
as for scientology...
  • Like 2
  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

I'm not sure this is all quite accurate, although I'll admit in advance it's a distinction as fine as frog's hair.  The thesis isn't that women are inherently inferior (beyond physical strength, which is after all basic biology) it's a bit more insidious, actually, especially from a feminist perspective.  Free Women, in fact, are supposedly (stifles a laugh) held in high regard, even deferred to.  The idea is that women WANT to be enslaved in this manner, and that submission is natural for them.  Fighting against that nature is unhealthy for them and inevitably they relish being subjugated.  On the other hand, I haven't seen much evidence of "the worst kind of abuse."  In theory, Gorean men are not prone to cruelty for cruelty's sake (as opposed to, say, a sadist such as yours truly), and, due to the supposed (I'm trying not to laugh here) "scarcity" of slaves, they would, other than for disciplinary purposes, treat them as highly valued objects.

Although, yeah, branding is a bit much by modern standards, and hamstringing your valuable property the second time it tries to escape seems rather counterproductive.

Also, there ARE a small number of male slaves in Gor (including the books) - about ten times as rare as female slaves.  And, as in BDSM, women also own slaves and. supposedly, Free Women treat female slaves worse than the men do.  Anyone surprised by the stereotyping there?  Anyone?  Anyone at all?

Getting back to that scarcity thing, possibly the silliest thing about Gor (other than the God awful dialog) is the economic nonsense a 1 to 50 slave to free population would be given the fantasy social and cultural structure.  Any woman captured in battle would be a slave, all their descendants would be slaves, any woman convicted of a more than a minor legal violation would be a slave, random women would be enslaved on any number of pretexts, any daughter of a man who cannot pay his debts, or dies indebted, can be sold to pay those debts, let alone simple kidnapping...why would there be any free women at all?  It simply doesn't make sense.

This is legitimately interesting, Tolya. It unquestionably does add some nuance, fine lines, and shade to my confessedly superficial five sentence characterization of Gor -- but you'll not be surprised to learn, I'm sure, that it does nothing to convince me that I need to go back and revise my overall characterization of it, or of the way in which it differs from real BDSM.

Actually, I too find Gor mostly very silly, for all sorts of reasons. Really, I want to crowdfund some money to support Amina while she writes and produces a sort of feature-length parody of Gor: think Monty Python and the Holy Grail, except funnier, and in silks. The only danger would be the difficulty in differentiating the take-off from reality.

  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

This is legitimately interesting, Tolya. It unquestionably does add some nuance, fine lines, and shade to my confessedly superficial five sentence characterization of Gor -- but you'll not be surprised to learn, I'm sure, that it does nothing to convince me that I need to go back and revise my overall characterization of it, or of the way in which it differs from real BDSM.

There isn't any nuance. It really is as stupid and binary and hateful as that, as I explained in my previous post with regards to things like the existence of FW and male slaves. 

What does complicate the issue a little (and only a little) is that the first few books are not quite as completely deranged as the ones that follow. It's still very clear that they are not going anywhere good, though; not a wolf in sheep's clothing as much as a gorilla in a mini skirt and a blonde wig. (The later books explicitly reject some of the marginally less hateful things that are suggested in the first few. You can actually hear Nobhead thinking "ha ha, got 'em now".) When Nobhead finally gives it up and just unleashes the full psycho, it's really not a surprise. 

Like I said before, even if there was a group of people who do it solely as consensual role play and don't take any life beliefs from it, they're still propagating this, keeping it alive and don't appear to be offended by it. It's not something I can respect. 

I make light of it because, well, what else is there to do? But the truth is, reading Gor books made me angry, sad and very upset at times. They're not so bad they're good, they're not so bad they're intriguing. They're just unenjoyably bad on every level. Even die hard Goreans agree that they are execrably written, and those guys aren't even offended by the content. You have one life, dear reader. Don't waste your precious time on horrible, nasty, hateful stuff that even the fans think is s**t on an artistic level. Be a mermaid, be a pirate, watch a good film, read an exciting book, have a cheese grater massage...anything but this.

Edited by Amina Sopwith
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did some research on Gor and I think it's silly.

Quote

Gor is described as a habitable planet in the Solar System that shares the same orbit as Earth, but it is linearly opposed to Earth

In short, planet Gor in in planet Earth's L3 Lagrange point. And herein lies the rub. According to this article, https://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/336k/Newtonhtml/node126.html, L3 is intrinsically unstable. Planet Gor would have collided into planet Earth billions of years ago.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

I did some research on Gor and I think it's silly.

In short, planet Gor in in planet Earth's L3 Lagrange point. And herein lies the rub. According to this article, https://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/336k/Newtonhtml/node126.html, L3 is intrinsically unstable. Planet Gor would have collided into planet Earth billions of years ago.

It's also got tangibly less gravity than Earth and yet produces much stronger men (and only the men). 

Nobhead teaches philosophy, doesn't he? I'm not saying all philosophy is made-up, self serving bollocks with absolutely no evidence. I'm just saying that it's definitely the right discipline for you if that's all you've got.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 1497 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...