Tag: philosophy

What Being a Kajira Means to Me – essay by Fliss (slave of Master Eldin)

Within the House of Runo we have lessons that the slaves must complete as they advance up through the levels of Hor in Training to becoming and Elite Hor.  Sometimes a girl completes a lesson so exceptionally that it must be preserved.  What follow is an essay written by Fliss Fairport as slave owned by Master Eldin Stonecutter.  Master Gorm Runo was so impressed by this essay that he asked it be included here.

Beginner Lesson #11
—————————
Write an essay on what being a kajira means to you. This essay does not have a word count, please use however many words you feel you need to, to express your thoughts on what being kajira means. NC the essay and turn it to the Lessons Box!

Fliss Chained

 

[ K A J I R A ]

“Suddenly, the world I had scrutinised for so long was all around me, as if I had leaned forward and climbed into the television like Alice through the looking-glass. I had no idea just how deep the rabbit hole would go. ~ Simon Pegg

The idea of consensual slavery is not new to me. However, i didn’t ever think i would use ‘slave’ to describe myself. That, at the most basic, is ‘kajira’, she is slave. However, slavery, wholehearted, exquisite, beautiful slavery which seeks to please and honour and bring joy to the One she serves, is not basic.

It is not easy to be slave. It is not a decision to be taken lightly nor one to enter into without the steel to withstand the emotional roller-coaster, the descent into the rabbit hole, that it entails.

 

I choose to be kajira, i choose my slavery and that comes with a breadth of things i now need to embrace.

 

th

[ W H O L E S E L F ]
✤ Heart ✤ Mind ✤ Spirit ✤ Body ✤

“To be great, be whole;
Exclude nothing, exaggerate nothing that is not you.
Be whole in everything. Put all you are
Into the smallest thing you do.
So, in each lake, the moon shines with splendor
Because it blooms up above.”
― Fernando Pessoa

 

The pick and mix is one of the most exiting bits of a trip to the cinema. So much choice, all thrown into one over-sized, paper cup and, in the dark of the movie theatre, you never quite now what sweet you’re going to pull out. Consensual slavery, however, is not a pick-and-mix (although there’s plenty of dark mystery and excitement to make up for it). To be kajira, one offers everything to the Owner. Your thoughts, emotions, actions, hopes, body are all now His. On the plus side, you are released from the worry of editing who you present to be in order to be ‘acceptable’, or second guessing whether you are really truly wanted. You are owned. However, you retain responsibility to ensure that who you are and what you offer is now looked after and honed, to the best of your ability, in stewardship of His property.

A kajira needs to find love and confidence in herself, if only to find sufficient motivation to care for what is no longer hers to damage through neglect or self-condemnation. No amount of ownership or reassuring words will heal the wounds that everyone carries, not even the most powerful of Masters can fix a broken heart or a damaged ego. However, in trusting that ownership is complete, it is possible to practice disciplines of self-care that can heal and mend, that can recondition and make whole. If that trust in Ownership cannot be given, a girl will never be able to be the best for her Master; if she longs for a saviour to heal her wounds or save her from herself, the likelihood is she will be sorely disappointed and possibly even drag her Master down with her.

A kajira therefore needs to be ready to commit to self-improvement, to grow and flourish. Only then will the exquisite beauty she’s expected to project, inside and out, be able to manifest in her. How one flourishes is as unique as each kajira but neglecting any part of herself, her body, mind, heart or soul, will be to neglect her Owner’s property. It is not enough to be beautiful on a screen or to understand the philosophy of Gor, inside and out, if one neglects chores or body in RL. While, for many in an SL context, the Master-slave dynamic does not bridge the screen and it remains firmly between two avatars, the kajira still has a responsibility for the real person behind the keyboard, to communicate clearly with her Owner, to ensure that her availability online is supported by her self-care offline. This is no different where the dynamic shifts into RL.

Honor to please
[ T O T A L O B E D I E N C E ]
✤ Trust ✤ Submission ✤ Ownership ✤

Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”
― C.S. Lewis

Central to a kajira’s identity is the call for obedience; unquestioning, immediate obedience. The time for deciding whether you want to submit to that level passed once you entered into the dynamic you are now in. i am not role-playing being a kajira. i am not pretending that i had no choice and was brought against my will to Gor in order to be Owned by a cruel and barbaric Master (no matter what my profile and ‘journey to Gor’ says, nor how cruel and barbaric He might actually be).

I have chosen to be kajira, when that choice happened i am not sure, but in choosing to be a kajira, i am now expected to be obedient. This comes with trust. Trust that my Master will not ask me to do what will damage His property, detrimentally impact RL or push beyond what i am able to obey. I trust, when He releases me to serve another, that the honour among Gorean men that *He* trusts, will equally keep me safe from real harm.

I wear a collar. It was not a collar that was fastened around my neck against my will, though i may have been somewhat dazed by the intensity of the whirlwind, force of nature that is my Master. His collar of Ownership is an outward symbol of our invisible dynamic. So, as kajira, i submit. I submit to His owning, Body, Mind and Heart, with second dibs on my Soul. I acknowledge His right to control me, to make demands on me, to order me and to be generally bossy and i submit to the expectation that i will be unquestioningly and immediately* obedient.

As an owned slave, submitting to the will of her Owner, i own nothing, not even my name, and i may decide nothing. I am fortunate in my ability to trust the Man who owns me. I know that, in giving Him control, i am in excellent hands.

*unless it amuses Him for me to be a little defiant, on the right side of the line.

3ae06e640cf6a3506bb0f6685518530f

[ A T T I T U D E ]
✤ Service ✤ Acceptance ✤ Love ✤

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” — John Lennon

Consensual non-consent is definitely a part of the dynamic i share with my Master. We will roleplay for fun and frolics with monsters and beasts and tentacles…because it is fun, because it brings Him pleasure and makes Him laugh and growly. However, though i will defy Him and say ‘no’ to Him, my attitude must always be one of pleasing alertness.

i watch my Master. i listen to His tone, His stories, His expectations and i flex and react according to His need. my own wants and desires come second to what is pleasing to Him. One of the main reason Gor makes sense to my slave-heart is that it accepts and encourages my innate yearning to please

It is important i say, at this point, that i believe i am very fortunate, that my Owner wants me to be totally honest and unedited, to share what i hope for and what i desire. He is very present and engaged and demands the same of me. This is not always the case for a Master/slave dynamic and RL does not always allow His level of attention and care. So, while He is in charge, His needs and wants are my priority and i seek to be pleasing to Him, i do so with total security that my needs and hopes are never disregarded, as long as i am open and articulate them.

The attitude then, as kajira, is key. A kajira must strive for excellence, to be the best version of herself she can be. Ironically, in an essay full of ‘i’ statements’ i do try to ensure there is no ‘i’ in slave (that wouldn’t have worked if if i had written ‘kajira’!). Masters deserve the best a girl can offer. He is honoured in our striving to improve dance or creative writing skills, or when i work on His homestead to make it a gloriously beautiful place with places to play and sit and inhabit. i honour Him when i work hard to overcome my inclination to hide my less-than-perfect bits and am raw and open and vulnerable. i honour Him when i am alert to His needs and wants, when i am pleasing without His ordering it, when i obey, even if it is difficult. i honour Him when i take myself for a walk in RL or remember to pack my lunch.

I wear a brand. The brand is an outward sign of this inner attitude, the attitude of attentive desire to please.

Capacity to love
[ R E V E R E N C E ]
✤ Adoration ✤ Respect ✤ Honour ✤

“That love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a bandage for dirty sores. But they don’t know it. Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who’ve never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt, and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you’ve felt what it means to love as you and I know it – the total passion for the total height – you’re incapable of anything less.” — Ayn Rand

A kajira is not obligated to love every Master that she serves. She does not have to fall head-over-heals in order to bring her best to her service. However, to allow love and reverence to rise up in her, to drive her steps, the touch of her hand, the roll of hip and neck, then she soars in her submission. It is not dependent on being made to feel loved, it is a state of mind that acknowledges that she is made to offer pleasing, loving worship of the men she offers service to.

As i’ve already said, in being my best, i bring honour to my Master, so too, in allowing love and reverence to work their way through my self-perception and my actions, these light-forces become the pull that feeds attentiveness and the desire to rise above the self-centered ‘i’, the self-serving ego and they force out the darknesses, the petty jealousies and resentments that have no place in a kajira’s heart.

found myself
[ S E R V I C E ]
✤ Openness ✤ Attentiveness ✤ Pleasure ✤

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” — Mahatma Gandhi

A kajira, whatever role she is trained for, whatever her Master might order of her, is called to service. Attentiveness and desire to please obviously play a part in that, as does the striving for excellence and alertness to the whims and desires of those she serves.
Service is effortful; paying attention to external information, be they orders or the environment, slight changes in mood or the long-term gathering of information to inform your service, to serve is to take time and shape what you offer to the preferences of those you serve. It is evident when this time and effort has been taken, for example, knowing how a Master likes His paga, because you have asked and retained the information (even if it is in a notecard because your memory is notoriously bad), matters, details matter.

It is a kajira’s responsibility to be alert, ready and flexible, to gather information, to learn skills to please and entertain, to add to the community in which her Owner resides and spends time. It is not enough to have a beautiful avatar if, in turn, you don’t seek a variety of ways to offer service. This is how we are pleasing and how our beauty extends beyond the superficial, surface level of our pixels.

slave passion
[ S L A V E H E A T ]
✤ Lust ✤ Joy ✤ Surrender ✤

“I’m not in search of sanctity, sacredness, purity; these things are found after this life, not in this life; but in this life I search to be completely human: to feel, to give, to take, to laugh, to get lost, to be found, to dance, to love and to lust, to be so human.”
— C. JoyBell C.

i was very much a product of middle-class, British, protestant puritanism. Sex has been a source of angst and fear, need and want, confusion and confliction…and yet, it has been how i express love, feel connected enjoy and embrace my body, in all its imperfections and beauties. The journey of becoming kajira, and the self-awareness and exploration that has come with it, has thrown off the last vestiges of other’s expectations and allowed the primal, sexual beast to joyously spring free, without guilt, restraint or fear.

I have handed my lusts and desires over to my Master and it is pleasing to Him that these needs drive my actions and rock my hips. It is pleasing to Him that i serve with passion and bring heat to the simplest tasks. I do not need to fear others expectations and perceptions because i serve my Master.

In being released, i can now beg for the touches and attentions of a Master and as a kajira i accept their right to give or not, according to Their will. It has been a liberating realisation that *all* that i am, every aspect of who i am, creative, silly, primal, sexual, needy, inquisitive, intellectual can be used in some way to bring service and pleasure to the Free that i serve and the Owner who has claimed me.

tribe-silhouette meme
[ C O M M U N I T Y ]
✤ Gor ✤ Support ✤ Engagement ✤
“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
— Mitch Albom

One of the greatest joys in being kajira is that it is not in isolation. my Owner enjoys to spend time alone with me, as happy to beat me (for now) at Zar as He is making use of my slave-heat slickened body. However, the transition from ‘submissive’ to ‘kajira’ has happened in community. Being surrounded by the beauty of other’s service, the trustworthy honour of Gorean men, the joy of sisterhood that has come with finding people with the same heart that burns in me has been transformational, It has shaped how i understand what i have to offer, the context of my Master’s expectations and the acceptance and embracing of both.

Service then, is not only to the Free, in whom i have found friendship and support, but also to the kajira who walk ahead of me and those who will come after. As my depth of submission and love grow, so too does my desire to edify and support my slave sisters, to contribute to the community in which i have flourished to ensure others may too. My responsibility to myself, my wholeness and wellbeing, becomes doubly important, not ‘just’ as Master’s property, but as His property engaging in community with other people.

 

best self

[ F U L L Y A L I V E ]

“Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.”
— Eckhart Tolle

To be kajira is to spring forth from the restrictions of societal expectations and surrender to the whirling pull of another’s Mastery. It is to serve, effort-fully, with unrestrained fire and heart, allowing love and reverence to push out anything that might hold you back. It is to embrace all that you have to offer and refine it, appreciating and celebrating your gifts so that they might bring joy and pleasure to the Free. It is to pursue wholeness and health because you are now the steward of someone else’s property. It is about being attentive, alert and flexible to the needs and wants of your Owner and the Free they wish you to serve.

It is acceptance, acceptance that this is who you are and where you belong so that you can live your very best life in service of those who would claim it.
Fliss Fairport | March 2020

The Book Sessions – Part 1 – The Gorean Journey

These are some of Master Gorm Runo’s first classes at the Gorean Campus that were recently discovered.

Who is the Master?

The Gorean Compass is a class given every Thursday by Master Gorm Runo.  Classes are held at the Gorean Campus and are given at noon and 6pm SLT.  All are encouraged to come and join in the amazing discussions. This class was held on April 18, 2019.

Tal and greetings,

I was reading chapter 10 of Captive of Gor on my radio show this week. In this chapter, Elinor Brinton has a meeting with the slaver who had been involved in her abduction on Earth, and she learns, for the first time, the horrible reason for which she had been brought to Gor.

She has been brought to Gor to murder Tarl Cabot. However, the slaver makes it clear that if she would not have been selected for that job, she would have been brought to Gor anyway to serve as a common pleasure slave.

“I looked at him. “Why was I brought to this world?” I asked.

“We bring many women to this world, ” he remarked, “because they are beautiful, and it pleases us to make them slaves.”

I regarded him.

“Also, of course, ” he said, “they are valuable. They may be distributed or sold, as we please, to further our ends or increase our profits.”

Page 147 Captive of Gor

This would have been a useful quote to use in my class entitled, “They sell well.”

The slaver also tells her that she was first spotted when she was 17 years old, but she was watched for five full years before she was selected for abduction. This would have been another useful section to support my points in the class entitled, “You are how young?”

It was nice to see this consistency in the books. Here was a chapter I had not read for years, but it had two nice supportive sections to my overall Gorean Compass interpretation of the books.

But, the real reason Chapter 10 is important is because it marks the first point in the novels where we begin to understand the true nature of the Kur. This is obviously important to a symbolic interpretation of the conflict between the Priest-Kings and the Kur.

To me, this whole chapter reeks with symbolism. Even the slaver is not described as your typical Gorean man that overwhelms a female with his mere physical presence.

“Across the room, his back to me, bending over a shallow pan of water, with a towel about his neck was a small man. He turned to face me. He face was still the painted clown’s face, but he had put aside his silly robes, the tufted hat.”

Page 141 Captive of Gor

He was a small man, with his face painted as a clown. He is the mountebank that was displaying the Kur like a trained dancing bear for entertainment. He is the same man who tells Elinor that he engages in kidnapping young women for the noble reasons, of his own personal pleasure, and the furthering of “their ends, and the increasing of their profits.”

In another words, he is a scum bag. There are so many ways to describe this basic duality of man when you think of morality. We call things right or wrong, or good and bad, and we even acknowledge the dark side, and suggests it has cookies, to further lure us into its grasp.

The Gorean novels suggest that we see it as a conflict between the rational and the animal.

When we start out, being guided by our parents and then our teachers, we are introduced to the world of the rational first. Sure, little babies only want to eat and poop, and toddlers are little beasts, but the process begins to teach them basic human behavior.

The real dangerous animal nature is there though, inside them. In the books, Tarl goes through this process. He meets the Priest-Kings first, and comes to a full understanding of them and their nature in book 3. We first become aware of the animal side as “the others”, mysterious, but obviously evil. We know that some humans are serving them, without even understanding who or what they serve. And these humans usually come to a bad end, for example Saphrar of Turia, in Nomads.

Here in Chapter 10, the reader is introduced to the true nature of the others, and it is through the eyes of Elinor, a female slave, that it is done.

“Stop!” cried the man.

The beast looked at him, eyes blazing, its face drenched in blood.

“Obey your master! I cried. “Obey your master!”

The beast looked at me. I shall never forget the horror I felt.

“I am the master.” it said.

The man cried out and fled from the hut.

page 156 Captive of Gor

So, lets put my idea of this whole thing in its most simple form. The small man represents someone not in control of himself. He is not following a rational moral compass, and he isn’t pursing happiness by setting individual moral purposes and communal moral purposes. He is not bound by codes, and he certainly isn’t viewing his actions as having consequences that reach beyond his own selfish desires. Because of these weaknesses, he is not the master.

The idea that he dresses like a clown and he keeps the Kur in chains that the Kur can easily break when it gets into a feeding frenzy, shows how easy it is to fool yourself into thinking you are in control, when that is not the truth at all.

Those who know of what is called the “12 step” program, know that the first step is recognizing that the beast is, indeed, the Master. Until you recognize that, you can’t proceed any further down the path to recovery.

There are so many things that can be seen as “the Kur.” Addictive behaviors of all kinds are one example, and simple emotional impulses, such as anger, jealousy, selfishness, and lust are others. Even things that we normally view as positive are included in the animal side of our nature.

Love is a good example. Even though it is a non-cognitive word, we can argue that most of the emotions that we give that name to stem from deep rooted biological impulses, that were most likely evolution’s way of giving us some reason to stay as a mating couple long enough to raise this young human animal with such a large brain capacity.

So, there is a progression in the novels, as Tarl comes to understand the true nature of the Kur, and when he is in control of himself, he calls himself “Gorean”, and then he is ready to actually find common ground with the Kur, and “share paga.”

So, I wonder why John Norman chose to have this most revealing section in Chapter 10 take place in front of Elinor Brinton, and not Tarl Cabot.

I think it was because he recognized the importance of gender. We have talked about this before here. The moral Gorean compass works well for both males and females most of the time. What is the right azimuth for one, is usually the same for both, but not always.

There are times when we must look at things from the perspective of a female, and recognize the differences. This is why there were “slave girl” books in the series.

Elinor Brinton was battling her own demons in Captive of Gor, and she needed to learn some hard lessons, but she was also very much in a submissive situation. Aside from her own struggles, she was subject to the control and whims of Men. In fact, she was subject to the control and whims, in Chapter 10, of a small man, with the face of a clown, who fled in terror when he realized the beast had grown dangerous.

Here is a connection to Second Life Gor for us. Ever since the internet opened up the world of online Gor, females, much like Elinor, have been subject to the control and whims of small men. They are not always dressed as clowns, but they might as well be, and they do tend to run away and disappear at the first sign of trouble.

Here is the deal. If Gor is supposed to be a world dominated and run by males, those males need to be of a whole different type then the slaver in the hut.

I think every potential slave girl in Second Life should be required to read Chapter 10 of Captive of Gor.

The small man could talk the talk. He slapped her around, and made her lick his feet. She was like putty in his hands then, and she knew herself a slave.

But, when that beast was taking control, the little prick ran away in terror, and left her to deal with it. I know many who hear those words will be able to identify with the experience.

It really isn’t that bad a book as a Gorean morality tale. Elinor starts off as a bit of a spoiled bitch, too, but she meets real Gorean men such as Rask of Treve, and also, Tarl Cabot, himself. She learns to tell the difference between true dominance, and pretend dominance, and she is prepared to make the right moral choice when her time of testing comes.

The Men need to be able to look that snarling beast in the eye, as scary and large as it might be, and tell it that it is not the master. The females need to be watching these exchanges carefully, even if from their knees, and deciding who really is in control.

If you desire to be the slave of a Gorean man, make sure he is one, and not the kind that will flee the hut in terror when he realizes there is danger, or that everything does not happen solely to give him pleasure, or to further his ends, or to increase his profits.

In other words, hold us to High Standards. I don’t think any Kur is going to growl at me, and tell me he is my Master, and when not only my friends, and fellow Free hold me to high standards, but also the girls kneeling at my feet, that gives me the weapons I need to prove to him that, actually, I am the Master.

A Moral Purpose

The Gorean Compass is a class given every Thursday by Master Gorm Runo.  Classes are held at the Gorean Campus and are given at noon and 6pm SLT.  All are encouraged to come and join in the amazing discussions. This class was held on April 4, 2019.

Tal and greetings,

Back last September, I gave a class called “The Pursuit of Happiness.” If you missed it, or do not remember it well, you should go to the Voice of a HoR blog and read it. Here is a brief summary.

We are entitled to pursue our happiness, but we are not entitled to have someone else obligated to provide it for us. It is a very strong message that it is on us, which is a very consistent idea in the Gorean novels. “Here looking for others to do our work” the books say, “we find only ourselves and an arrow of war.”

So, if we are entitled to pursue happiness, it seems sensible to look into what exactly happiness is and how will we recognize it if we should be successful in our pursuit of it.

I have sometimes gone to “Google” to get a definition of a word, but that does not work so well with “happiness.” The definition of happiness is given as “the state of being happy.” I do recommend as a side project to actually google happiness, and read some of the other definitions that pop up. It is a interesting journey that goes from Aristotle sounding like a Gorean by suggesting that happiness is found in balance, to a lexicon of various chemicals released in the brain. The chemicals are familiar, of course, to those of us with a little experience in certain aspects of BDSM. I do not know how you will fare in this Google exploration, but it did not do much to define “happiness” in a coherent way for me.

I did find something that made a lot of sense, and seemed especially apt for our Second Life Gorean experience and our chances of finding happiness here. Surprisingly, I found it, not in a Google search, but in an actual hard cover book. Yes, there are actually still such things available.

This book is called, “The Right Side of History, How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great.” It was written by Ben Shapiro, a conservative columnist and speaker. This certainly is not a “Gorean Philosophy” text. The author takes us on a 3,000 year journey through Western philosophy ending with our boy, Nietzsche. Nietzsche, as we have seen had a profound effect on the writing of John Norman, and you can see the connection between the following quote from Shapiro’s book and the “Why so hard/why so soft” quote from Marauders of Gor.

“That structure, he believed, had held man back; it was “slave-morality,” which sacrificed strength for weakness, which celebrated poverty and powerlessness.”

Page 119 “The Right Side of History”

However, Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew, differs from the Gorean idea in a major area. He would argue that Moral Purpose comes from some supreme being, or creator, or God, if you will. I argue that the Gorean idea, while not needing to deny the existence of a creator, suggests that Moral Purpose must stem from the “hearts of men.” When Tarl talks to the High Initiate in Priest Kings of Gor, he is told that as long as we do right because of fear of punishment, and not because it is the right thing to do, we will never reach “man’s greatness.”

What Ben Shapiro and Gorean philosophy do have in common, however, is a sense of the importance of Moral Purpose in pursuing happiness. He lists four ingredients to happiness. First is Individual Moral Purpose, then individual capacity, Communal Moral Purpose, and Communal capacity. I am going to be talking about these four ingredients for happiness in the next several class sessions, and trying to relate them to our experience in Second Life Gor.

The first one is the easy one. We need a moral purpose for our participation in Second Life Gor, or we will not find true happiness here, and ultimately, our time here will be frustrating and unfulfilling. I am sure a lot of people are going to balk at that statement. We come into Second Life to have fun. We work hard in RL and Second Life is our escape. Who cares if we find our fun in purposeless activities or games?

Ah, all of those objections said, “Second Life” and not “Second Life Gor.” Certainly, there is nothing wrong with fun for the sake of fun. Goreans would be the last ones to deny anyone the pursuit of pleasure, or suggest there was anything wrong with it.

However, Second Life Gor is not an amusement park, nor is it, really, just a game.

In order to find happiness here, you are going to first need a moral purpose for being here. That is a very sweeping statement, and does not really restrict us as much as it might seem to do. What is a moral purpose? Well, it is anything that produces a positive result without doing harm to others.

We have often spoken of the myriad reasons that draw people to the Gorean experience, and we can easily see which are moral and which are not. If we come here to learn more about ourselves; if we come here to experience different kinds of male/female relationships, if we come here to find friendship and/or companionship to enrich our lives, these are all moral purposes, and pursuing them could lead to happiness.

If we come here to fuck with people; if we come here to pretend we are something totally different than what we actually are, with an underlying intent to deceive others, if we come here purely as takers, with no though of sharing or giving anything back in exchange for what we take, these are not moral purposes, and in the end, you are not going to find happiness.

The second part of this is individual capacity. If it is impossible for you to achieve your moral purpose, if is not an achievable moral purpose. Here is an example.

If your purpose, as a man, is to find out what it is like to be a female, so that you can better understand them, and better help them find their own happiness, that seems a valid moral purpose. What a thoughtful guy. However, a man can not come here, create a female avatar, fool people into thinking he is a female, and gain any insight into what a female actually feels or experiences. He does not have that capacity. And since he can not actually accomplish that purpose, all that is left is the deceit, and the dishonesty.

You can err also by directing that individual moral purpose to far outward instead of inward and going way beyond your own true capacity.. I might say my individual purpose in Second Life Gor is to change the whole culture, and to get everyone doing everything right, and make sure everyone is happy at the same time. That is not only beyond my capacity to do in the first place, it is also more concerned with the behavior of other people, than it is concerned with my behavior.

You might think I am saying, “know your limits.” when I speak of capacity, but I do not see capacity and limits as being the same here.. We are encouraged to set high goals, and to strive for not only the mountain top, but even the stars, but we can not do what is impossible to do, and our striving needs to be moderated by reality.

From the very beginning of my time in online Gor, I have been aware of purpose. My early experiences online woke me up to a lot of personal shortcomings. I felt I lacked true honor, and honesty and truth were things of utility to me, rather than sacred principles. I did not feel very comfortable in relationships, always sensing something was wrong in the dynamic. And I was not really happy , and was still actively pursuing it.

So, my individual moral purpose was self knowledge followed by self improvement. That has not changed, and it is still an on going journey of discovery. I have always been aware of those things that I had the capacity to change and a good sense of the things that I could not change.

And I can say without reservations, that my time in Online Gor has brought me happiness many times, and has encouraged me to keep pursuing it on a daily basis. It has led me to this seminar, and to relationships and friendships that now define my life, both here, and in RL.

I was very impressed with Ben Shapiro’s idea that individual moral purpose , and individual capacity were essential to the pursuit of happiness, and encourage you to think about what your purpose is here as well as if that purpose is within your capacity.

Looming beyond those thoughts is Communal purpose and capacity, and what it means to our pursuit of happiness, but we will save that for next week. For tonight, we shall leave it with individual purpose and capacity.

The Higher Order

The Gorean Compass is a class given every Thursday by Master Gorm Runo.  Classes are held at the Gorean Campus and are given at noon and 6pm SLT.  All are encouraged to come and join in the amazing discussions. This class was held on March 14, 2019.

Tal and greetings,

It is fun to take a passage from the books and try to get some understanding or symbolic meaning from it. This is not always an easy thing to do, however, because I realize that when a person does this, he sees things through the perspective of his own experiences and level of education. In other words, no two people are going to see the passage in exactly the same way, but that is the very thing that makes the process perfect for stimulating discussion.

Here is an example. In the book Nomads of Gor, there is an event that I have often thought about, and that I have used to make various points in many discussions over the years.

And yet, I am not really sure how to take it. It appears to be one of those contradictions that we hear about. I decided to give you my thoughts on it, but be aware these are “thoughts” and not conclusions, and I am going to be still digging deeper into it and eagerly hope for your thoughts on it.

It takes place in the City of Turia. Kamchak, who we learn later is the leader of the Tuchuks, is attending a banquet being hosted by a rich Turian Merchant. It is a very tense banquet because of the hostility between the Turians and the Wagon People, but Kamchak has a sort of diplomatic immunity for the event and is serving as a sort of ambassador on this night. Tarl attends the banquet with Kamchak.

The young, rich, and spoiled Free woman of Turia, named Aphris, is there, and there is a lot of interaction between her and Kamchak. Kamchak intends to enslave her eventually, and Aphris just wants to humiliate him.

In an attempt to accomplish this humiliation, Aphris summons a dancing troupe to entertain them at the feast. The dancing troupe is made up of captured Tuchuck girls that have become the slaves of the Turians. The girls come running into the banquet hall, to begin their performance, but when the leader of the girls sees Kamchak, she runs to him, and kneels in front of him. The dance Master is furious, and approaches the girl, raising his whip, but before he can strike her, Kamchak slips a hidden knife, a quiva, from his sleeve and throws it pinning the man’s whip arm to a post. Here is what happens next.

“Even I had not seen Kamchak throw the knife, Now, to my satisfaction, another of the blades was poised in his finger tips. Several of the men had leaped from behind the tables, including Kamras, but they hesitated, seeing Kamchak so armed. I , too was on my feet. “Weapons, ” said Kamras, “are not permitted at the banquet.”

“Ah,” said Kamchak, bowing to him. “I did not know.”

“Let us sit down and enjoy ourselves,” recommended Saphrar. “If the Tuchuk does not wish to see the girls, let us dismiss them.”

“I wish to see them perform.” said Aphris of Turia, though she stood within arm’s reach of Kamchak’s quiva.

“Kamchak laughed, looking at her. Then, to my relief, and doubtless to the relief of several at the table, he thrust the quiva in his sash and sat back down.

“Dance,” ordered Aphris.

The trembling girl before her did not move.

“Dance!” screamed Aphris, rising to her feet.

“What shall I do?” begged the kneeling girl of Kamchak.She looked not too unlike Hereena, and was perhaps a similar sort of girl, raised and trained much the same. Like Hereena, of course, she wore the tiny golden nose ring.

“Kamchak spoke to her, very gently. “You are slave, ” he said. “Dance for your masters.”

The girl looked at him gratefully and she, with the others, rose to her feet and to the astounding barbarity of the music performed the savage love dances of the Kassars, the Paravacci, the Kataii, the Tuchuks.”

Page 98 Nomads of Gor

One of the things we recognize about the Gorean world, and even take pride in, is it’s structure and order. I have been told many times that this is one of the attractions of it. There are rules and people know their place within the society.

Yet here are two examples of that order being challenged by a higher order.

First, Kamchak had brought a weapon into a place where weapons were not allowed. Later, he tells Tarl, that in a place where weapons are not allowed, it is wise to carry a weapon. Tarl takes this advice seriously, as we find out later in Marauders of Gor, when Tarl brings a weapon to the Skerry to meet the Kur, despite the fact it was agreed they would not bring weapons. Of course, this saves Tarl’s life on the Skerry.

There seems to be a message here. I have always been involved in this debate about a “higher order.” I remember being involved in a series of discussions on a Gorean message board with a man who insisted that right could be determined by popular vote. He often used this argument against me. He would claim that a majority of people agreed with him, therefore, that proved his opinion was the correct one. I think this is a very common belief system in our world today. I heard it expressed this morning on a newscast when a politician claimed that , “most Americans are not in favor of” some issue or another. The logic was that if most people were “in favor” of it, it had to be the right thing to do.

This way of thinking gives us way too much credit. History teaches us the danger of this method of determining right or wrong. There was a time when the majority of people in the world believed the world was flat and if you sailed to far out to sea, you would fall off the edge. However, despite the fact that a ‘poll” would have found 97% of the people believed it, it turned out to be wrong.

This whole process gives us way too much confidence in our laws and in our government, and I also think tends to take the moral burden off of us, and places it on society.

Perhaps, this is the message I should be taking from this incident. The idea of carrying a weapon where weapons are not allowed, might be the Gorean idea of personal responsibility. Ultimately, you can not rely on society or government, or rules and laws to determine what is “right”, and you also can not depend on them to protect you completely. It is always going to come back to you.

The other part of this is also interesting. The Tuchuk girl is a slave of Turians now. She wears their collar, and is subject to their control. Yet, when she sees Kamchak, she runs to his feet and kneels in front of him. Is this suggesting that their is a higher level of submission involved here that goes beyond legality and collars and ownership papers?

This higher submission is based on something more solid and real, and the Tuchuk girl is risking the whip to express it. Although nameless and a very minor character, she is one of my Gorean slave girl heroines. She was not going to listen to anyone else, or respond to any other commands or threats, until Kamchak had spoken. She knelt in front of him, and waited for his words.

 

Kamchak tells her to dance for her Masters though. I think this is important. He also puts his knife away and sits down, and claims ignorance of the no weapon rule, and apologizes.

I get the feeling that we are being given some very sound advice in this passage. First, we need to rise above the sheep level. We can’t let other people, even the majority, make our moral decisions for us. That is for sheep. I believe that there is such things as right, and good, just as surely as there are things that are just plain wrong and bad. it is our responsibility to search for them and to learn how to tell them apart., and we can’t pass that responsibility off to anyone else, or anything else.

However, we can not ignore the rules and laws completely. There is a process to effect change, and it would be just as wrong to stand alone as an outlaw defying order totally, as it would be wrong to be a sheep following along blindly and unquestioningly

Kamchak had his weapon hidden until he needed it. He only used it when a great wrong was about to take place.

And just as important, he told the girl to dance for her Masters, and she was grateful to him for doing so.

In the end, I think, Kamchak captured the city, and I am pretty sure those dancers were rescued and returned to the Wagons.

Martin Luther King once said that the arc of the moral universe curves very, very slowly, but it curves toward justice.

The Gorean world is a world of order, and structure, and rules, and laws, and customs, and traditions, and I love it for being that, but I never forget that it is also the world of reality, and truth, and a search for natural order. The structure exists to provide a framework for strong, and independent men and woman to be able to interact and co-operate with each other in a civilized manner. It does not exist to make us robots or mindless followers or minions. It does not exist to make us weaker either.

Sometimes, in a place where weapons are not allowed, we have to carry a weapon, and sometimes, despite legal papers, and the inscriptions on collars, a female must kneel in front of a Master she respects and trusts, and ask, “what should I do?”

Celebrating the 4th of July!

As a community, the villagers of Caer Cadarn enjoy a great party and celebration and the chance to celebrate the 4th of July with our family was certainly no exception!

The festivities started with several of the slave girls donning red, white, and blue silks throughout the day. The real fun began, however, during the regularly scheduled tavern night which was dedicated to the Independence Day holiday. House of Runo slaves, rhiannon and tuka, decorated the fishing docks with balloons, picnic tables, and all sorts of traditional 4th of July treats.

Jarl Zane got the party started with his radio broadcast on Gorean’s Portal Radio. He then passed the mic to rhiannon who kept things rocking with two hours of patriotic songs that kept everyone dancing – even some of the Men!



A stellar fireworks display created by the Caer’s own brewer, Master Rris, and rhiannon lit up the sky to a soundtrack of iconic patriotic tunes.


While they don’ t celebrate the 4th of July on Gor, we like to think that the Gorean culture would embrace the ideals of patriotism and pride. We certainly do here in Caer Cadarn and, no matter which country you are from, hope you will celebrate who you are and where you came from, not just on special days but every day of the year. We hope you will come out and join us in the future as we continue to celebrate our lives here in SL Gor.

All the Ways of Gor Aren’t Mine

The Gorean Compass is a class given every Thursday by Master Gorm Runo.  Classes are held at the Gorean Campus and are given at noon and 6pm SLT.  All are encouraged to come and join in the amazing discussions. This class was held on March 7, 2019.

Tal and greetings,

I wanted to talk about two slave girls mentioned in the early books today. Their stories support the idea of my premise of “Earth Sucks and Gor Sucks, but for opposite reasons.” In the very first book, Tarnsman of Gor, we are introduced to the slave girl, sana. When we first meet her, she is hooded and strapped to Tarl’s tarn as he is flying to Ar on his mission to steal the Home Stone of Ar.

It appears that sana is from the city of Thentis. She was captured in a raid, and brought to Ko-ro-ba and enslaved. Now she is part of the plot to capture Ar’s Home Stone. Now, here is the plan. The Home Stone of Ar, sitting on a high cylinder of the city is left unguarded for brief moments while the various Heads of Caste make offering to the Priest-Kings asking for their blessings on the Caste’s endeavors for the coming year. The final offering is when the daughter of the Ubar will sprinkle some grain on the Home Stone base to seek a bountiful harvest. For a few moments, she will be alone and unguarded. The plan is that at this exact moment, Tarl will swoop in, kill the Ubar’s daughter, replace her with the slave sana, wrapped in Free Woman robes, and then grab the Home Stone and take off.

The idea is that sana will fool the guards long enough for Tarl to make his escape. The body of the Ubar’s daughter will be dumped in the swamps outside Ar, and Tarl will return to Ko-ro-ba with the Home Stone of Ar. Thus, Ar’s power and prestige will be broken, and their dreams of conquering and uniting Gor into one Empire will be crushed. All and all a good plan, right?

Well, you might be able to justify the killing of the Ubar’s daughter in some way. After all, war is war, and Ar is the enemy, and there are always going to be some casualties. But, how about poor sana, the slave girl? The people of AR are not going to get a good laugh out of being fooled when they discover sana, and pat her on the back and say, “good one, you sure fooled us,” and then let her go. No, it was suggested she would be tortured a bit and then impaled on the walls of Ar.

Now, it was important to note that sana was not a volunteer. She was a slave girl on Gor, a piece of property, an animal, with no rights and completely disposable. The Goreans apparently did not think twice about sending her to certain death for a cause in which she had no interest or no stake.

However, Tarl could not accept this.

Here is what happens:

“You are free,” I said. “And we are going to Thentis.”

She sat before me, stunned, her hands unbelievingly at her throat.

“Why?’ she asked. “Why?”

What could I tell her? That I came from another world, that I was determined that all the ways of Gor should not be mine, or that I cared for her, somehow, so helpless in her condition—that she had moved me to regard her not as an instrumentality of mine or of the Council, but as a girl, young, rich with life, not to be sacrificed in the games of statecraft?”

Page 50 Tarnsman of Gor

Sana, being a Gorean female, and certainly no Gorean female suffers from an over blown sense of entitlement, immediately tries to repay Tarl. First, she suggests her father and brothers would be honor bound to give her to him, and without a “bride price.” (There is one of those contradictions that annoy us in the books…bride price does not seem to be accurate here, since the Goreans have Companionships and not marriages, but anyway.)

Then she suggests that he land the Tarn and let her “serve his pleasures.” Tarl does not accept this offer, and tries to trick her into hushing about repayment this way.

“It occurred to me that there was at least one reply which she, bred in the honor codes of Gor, should understand, one reply that should silence her. “Would you diminish the worth of my gift to you?” I asked, feigning anger.”

Page 51 Tarnsman of Gor

Tarl then detours, flies to Thentis, famed for her Tarn flocks, and lands on a high cylinder and drops her off. Sana is now free to return to her family. And apparently, security at Thentis was pretty lax on that particular day, because Tarl flies off to continue his mission minus his doomed decoy.

But, there in that story was a critical statement by Tarl. “I was determined that all the ways of Gor should not be mine.” Later, he was to express this same feeling when he says he envies the simplicities of Earth and of Gor, but would be as neither of them.

Tarl continues this practice through the early books. The Tatrix of Tharna is released from slavery and restored to her city in Outlaws of Gor. And in Nomads of Gor, Tarl wins the Kassar slave girl, formerly known as dina of Turia, in a contest of skill. He takes her back to the walls of Turia, and sets her free also.

This part of the story takes place around page 108-110 in Nomads of Gor. Tarl takes dina out alone to just outside the walls of Turia. The Tuchuks think he is taking her to sell her, but he sets her free, gives her a gold coin, and tells her to run for the city. Just like sana, dina suggests that she show her thanks by serving his pleasures one last time, and Tarl, much more Gorean now, sees no harm in this. I laughed when I thought about this change. He turned down sana, but he is apparently wising up a bit, and shares a little splendor in the grass moment, before Turian guards come out shooting arrows. Tarl hurries off and dina is again a Free Woman of Turia.

As time goes on in the books, and in Tarl’s story in Gor, he gets over this habit of freeing slave girls, and in fact, often enslaves Free Women, who all turn out to be happy slaves eventually.

I spend a lot of time thinking about this change, and I think that a lot of understanding about the Gorean process can come from examining this change. Did John Norman change? Did his attitude towards women change? Did he become a bit more of a misogynist as time went on and started to think of females as just sluts who belonged in collars rather than the glorious Free Women, he praised so highly in the earlier books?

My take on it is that as he fleshed out his Gorean world, and as Tarl became harder and more Gorean, we got a closer look at a more realistic world, but not a necessarily better one. I do not think Tarl ever backed off on his original determination that not “all the ways of Gor…would become his.” The idea was always going to be to point out the middle ground. It was a recognition that the most important idea in the whole Gorean experience was that the novels were going to focus on extremes. The softness of Earth and the failure of its Men to assume their birthright and relate to their females in a natural way that allows them full expression of their own identity was one extreme, and the books constantly remind us of that failing. The harsh non-consensual slavery of Gor with its idea that women were no more than domestic animals with no rights represented another extreme, and the ideal was going to be somewhere in the middle.

It would seem that this argument could be made to support the idea of an evolved Gor. It would be a Gor where women were considered totally equal and run around shooting arrows, and waving swords with the best of Men, and would take a completely equal role running things. In other words, we could make Gor more like modern day Earth. It would be like the Goreans had seen the error of their ways, recognized they were “too hard” and were mellowing out their society to be more like Earth.

The problem with this approach is that we are not really Goreans in need of softening. That was never the idea of online Gor. What we are is Earthlings in need of toughening up. In order to reach a balanced middle ground, we didn’t need to become bigger wussies. We were doing just fine there. The structure of online Gor, and even the role play world of Second Life Gor was going to be a platform to experiment with the process of becoming stronger and more true to the natural order of male/female relationships.

It is interesting to note that in both cases, sana of Thentis and dina of Turia, Tarl’s good deed of setting them free pays dividends to him later. Sana comes to his rescue in the battle of Ar, and ends up with his Sword Brother, Kazrak, and dina saves him and hides him out when he is trapped in Turia and in grave danger. This is always Norman’s pattern. I call it ” the good guys wear white hats, and the bad guys wear black hats, method. He shows us that Tarl did the right thing, and it was rewarded. It is sort of a morality karma method of making his point.

So, I wonder a lot about those two girls. I wonder if we have girls here in Second Life that are not meant to be slaves, or who are being treated badly or unfairly because they are slaves, and we should be setting them free and sending them on their way like Tarl did in those two cases.

And then I remember that big red X, and the consensual nature of our Gorean world. We do not force slavery on anyone here. We open the doors to it , and invite girls to come in and embrace it. And we do not have to fly them to Thentis and leave them with their families on a cylinder top, or sneak to the gates of Turia to let them go. They are free to leave at any time.

However, if they chose to stay, and they pass through that gateway of consent, we owe it to them to create this world right. We don’t need to evolve into the foolishness and weakness of Earth, and in fact, we are much better off portraying a bit more of the harshness of Gor.

All the ways of Gor will never be mine either. I will never lose my compassion for the afflicted, or my feelings of the need to protect the weak. I will treat my Gorean experience like a giant buffet, knowing some of the things available there can nourish me and make me stronger, and some of the things available there can make me a prick if I select them as my guideposts.

Perhaps, this has always been my complaint about “By the Book.” If it meant learning how to be the superior middle man…hardened by Gor, and softened a bit by his Earth experience, and occupying that middle, balanced ground, I was all for it.

If it meant being like the “too hard” Goreans, of that fictional world in any way outside of pure story line role play, I was going to resist it.