Snipe at Gor from Memepool

[lady-kat]

with the gor books, i really enjoyed the first dozen or so. that's not to say i haven't read all 25 paperbacks (lacking number 26 'cause i'll be damned if i'll buy it in hardcover)

setting that aside, i started reading them in my late teens. there was "something" appealing in them. even the later, cheezier ones where the publishers obviously knew they had a good thing going selling them as soft porn. Just look at the difference in the cover art after the first few...lol....

thinking now, i've read every book norman wrote (with exception of number 26 ;-) they are so unashamedly...."something"... just not sure what....
but... i never saw them as being anti-woman, or anything of that ilk.

i can honestly see the appeal to them as a "lifestyle" choice (for want of a better word)...... i gave it serious consideration.... albeit briefly....*grin*....

poorly written? maybe. soft core porn? oh ya. maybe that too....but there were those of us that waited for each edition as it came out. and a paperback 1st edition of number 25 will fetch as high as 75 frogskins on ebay ... ka*ching*.. there is a major audience for these with collectors, so the appeal is still there apparently.

i was never particulary embarrassd that i found them fun, and for the most part, the whole idea behind them, damn facinating..... but then i was a strange kid...lol.... i sure enjoyed them more than Story of O that i read right around the same time.

 

[Netzach]

I'm sensing a trend here...

Heyyyy I lay claim without a doubt to the former, to the latter I've never had the least connection. Poo.

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

Heyyyy I lay claim without a doubt to the former, to the latter I've never had the least connection. Poo.

LOL, ok...

 

[D's mariposa]

Not really Gor bashing but... Nico, you are the first reasonable Gorean I've ever met.

We have two Gorean guys down here in the local community. Gor Number One consistently orders other subs around, does not respect a collar and is constantly asking for D's email so that he can email him and tell him what a disrespctful wench I am, then harangues me when D laughs it off.

Gor Number Two feels that all women are infererior and that women should not be allowed to top or Dominate another. He is currently trying to form an alternate group (more power to him!) but he is having problems getting enough people to join. Form what I hear, he has about five men and no women in the club. SO is a Gorean Master still a Master when he has no slaves?

{rant mode on}

My problem with Gor is the philosphy that ALL women are natural slaves and their best and true nature is that of a slave. There is no room in the Gorean philosophy for a non slave female. Yes, I know there is a group of Amazonian type women running amock one of them, (can't remember the title, I've read about 16 of them and after a while, they tend to blur a little after the fourth or fifth). But the book in question dealt with a woman from earth accepting her slave-ish-ness and living happily ever after, after she is kidnapped by the man she loves.

This "anything he does to you is okay as long as he loves you or you love him" is also why I don't read most romance novels.

{rant mode off}

 

[Bikewer]

That's the area where ol' John got rather tiring. I forget exactly which book it was, but there was one where our hero, Tarl, gets captured by the Marsh People, and is himself enslaved.

From the tone of the book, I thought he was veering towards getting serious about the whole subject; Tarl emphasizing with the condition of the slaves, working to change the social order in some way....But no. I think it was at that point that either he or the publisher decided to pander to what they percieved as the fan base.