Why Would A Girl Want
To Become A Gorean Slave?
"Why would a girl *want* to become a Gorean slave?"
This question is really composed of several questions...or questions that must be answered on the way to answering the question. First is "Why would a girl want to become a slave?" Then, "Why would she want to become a Gorean slave?"
The first part is the hardest to understand. In our present culture, slavery or servitude is bad, and anyone who practices it is an evil exploiter of others. What is there about it that causes some women to wish to voluntarily give up their freedom to another? What do they gain from it?
Some women are by nature submissive. They wish to take the subordinate role. They want to do things for others. This gives them pleasure and fulfillment. They do not wish to make all the decisions for themselves. For some, it is looking for a parent they once had or never had. For others, it is the giving of themselves in service to another. Feeling needed and necessary is a part of it also. Those are the better reasons and emotions behind it. There are others that are not so positive. It can be a very low self-esteem. The person who feels that they can only be noticed when they are doing something for someone. Perhaps it is just the need for someone to tell them what to do and how to do it. Others can only find worth in themselves if others declare it as they can see none. There are women who feel so physically inferior they will do anything to get attention and notice from others, even things that are self-destructive. The BDSM world is full of these people. There are many more reasons than I can ever know, let alone list here. Suffice it to say that each person has their own reason or reasons for giving up their life to another person.
There are many people who are this way to some extent. Most of them would never wish to enslave themselves to another. So, what drives the few who do? It can be a combination and/or an excess of any of the items listed above. It might be a way for a girl to look for love who feels that she must do something extraordinary otherwise men will not be interested in her. Or, she could feel the burning desire to give of herself so totally that there is nothing left, it is all in another's hands. Just as there are many types of reasons for doing this, there are several types of submission on the way to slavery and past the point of becoming a slave.
First, there are the submissives. They give up to a point, but always hold much back. They do as they are bid until something reaches one of their internal limits and then they stop being submissive. The submissive is not a slave. She is still her own person. Many of the Free Women of Gor could be said to be submissive, but they are certainly not slaves. Often, this is a stage people go through on the way to becoming a kajira.
The next group is those who call themselves slave, but are not full time slaves. This includes those who use slavery to bring some excitement into their sexual play. I would put the BDSM subs into this category. They are slave-like when it suites them and within their preset limits. They may also reverse the role and be Doms and Dommes when it suites them. Personally, I would say that any who do that are not slaves in any true sense of the word, except they play at being one on occasion.
Another type of the part time slaves are those who are slaves online. It does not matter what type of communications are used, web, IRC, ICQ, voice or video chat. With one branch of online slave, when the computer is turned off they mostly stop thinking about or being a slave. These are the players or gamers. People who seek diversion or excitement playing at being someone else. Sometimes, that someone is a slave. This can be a way of learning about slavery, or being Gorean. It can also just be a way to get a quick and safe sexual rush. How much the person is a slave when the computer is off varies from not at all to as much as possible. There are some online slaves who work hard at being a slave when the computer is off. The net is just a means of communicating with their Master. It is also usually how they found their Master. These people I would call slaves, even Gorean slaves for some of them.
Offline slaves come in several types. I will lump them together into Gorean slaves, BDSM slaves and other slaves. The other group is simply any who live a submitted lifestyle, acknowledging another person as their Master and does not fit into the first two groups. The BDSM slaves are much more committed subs. They may be into what is called TPE or Total Power Exchange. TPE is similar to Gorean slavery. The usual limits of BDSM may not be there, such as safe words and contracts. One of the main differences between TPE and Gorean slavery, is a cultural difference. Goreans are a culture as well as people interested in a philosophy. A Gorean slave is one who submits completely to a Master who considers themselves Gorean and who follows the philosophies and practices as well as the cultural trappings of our Earth version of Goreans. This is not the Gor of the books by John Norman. They are fiction. We cannot really live as the people do in the books. We must adapt what is there to what we can do here on Earth. Some people are able to live lives more like those in the books than others, but just because you cannot bring all things Gorean that are theoretically possible into your life does not make you not Gorean. You do the best you can with what you have and the Earth life you must lead. A subset of Gorean slaves is the kajira. Kajira is the Gorean word for slave girls. So in one sense, all Gorean slave girls are kajira. But in this instance, I am using it to mean a Gorean slave who has surrendered everything to her Master without reservation, without exception. They are their Master's to do with as their Master wishes in all ways. Not everyone is capable to surrender to that level. Not everyone will agree with my distinction here. For many, submission and surrender are the same things. I see one as deeper than the other so that is the way I am using it here.
To some extent we have answered why a person would wish to become a slave and what types of slaves there are. Now we have the question of why a person would wish to become a Gorean slave? Why would they wish to add the trappings of a series of science fiction books to their lives? They don't need to do that. This is quite true, they don't need to and many, or even most who call themselves slaves do not do that. However, Gorean slaves have some things that many other slaveries lack; they have a common culture with others, an absoluteness that does not exist in some forms of voluntary slavery, especially BDSM based slavery, and Masters that are Masters all the time, not subs part of the time. The Gorean Masters generally have a much firmer control over their slaves and allow them much less latitude than other Masters do. Also, most Goreans are not into inflicting pain either to gain pleasure for themselves or their slaves. Pain is reserved for punishment and as a reminder in the slave's training of how they are to behave. Most slaves I have talked with say that they are Gorean slaves because if feels right to them. The other types of slavery just felt wrong to them.
Once again, there are many reasons a person would wish to be a Gorean slave, almost as many are there are Gorean slaves. In the end, it all comes down to the fact that in becoming a Gorean slave they have found something they were lacking elsewhere. Something that satisfied a need within them. They feel right about how they are living and what they are doing. Because...they wish to do so.
Revised 13/10/01