The Duality of Women in the Gorean Novels.
My, Personal Reflection, and My opinion on the Gorean Lifestyle. Though I understand, there is no one TRUE way to be Gorean.
Goreans, in their simplistic fashion, often contend, categorically, that man is naturally free and woman is naturally slave. But even for them the issues are more complex than these simple formulations would suggest. For example, there is no higher person, nor one more respected, than the Gorean free woman. Even a slaver who has captured a free woman often treats her with great solicitude until she is branded.
Hunters of Gor - Book 8 - Page 311
Contradicting Quote used in a group post to explain why women in reality do not deserve respect.
".....The man who respects a woman does not know what else to do with her,...." Beasts of Gor, pg 162 (new edition)
Direct Quote A person wrote in this group, NOT from the books, but them directly.
"Not a true Gorean Man" for not bowing to "boundaries"
When people talk about Gor, they often get swept up in the leather, chains, and titles, and forget the deeper contrasts John Norman painted between the roles of women on his "fictional counter Earth". As someone who has read the novels, explored the philosophies, and lived within alternative dynamics myself, I’ve often found myself reflecting on the sharp divide Norman carved between the Gorean slave and the Gorean Free Woman.
At first glance, both archetypes might seem like caricatures, written by a man with a very particular fantasy. And yes, Norman was not shy about his personal lens. But whether you love, hate, or question his work, there’s no denying the brutal clarity in how the two categories of women were treated.
The kajira, the female slave, was seen as property. Nothing more. Nothing less. In the Gorean world, she had no legal rights. No personal autonomy. She was an owned object, like a horse, a tunic, or a bowl. Her beauty was cultivated for use. Her mind was shaped through discipline and fear. She was taught obedience, trained in the art of pleasure, and expected to serve with grace, or suffer the consequences. Gorean men viewed her not as a person, but as an animal that had been tamed. And because of that, she was not "owed" respect.
Respect, in the Gorean sense, was reserved for the Free Woman.
Free Women were the elite. They walked veiled, cloaked in layers of modesty, untouchable to all but their kin and their chosen companions. A man who struck or shamed a Free Woman without cause could be punished, even killed. She was a symbol of her family’s honor, her city’s pride. She was educated, influential, and, despite her repression in other ways, held a strange power within the rigid structures of Gorean culture.
The difference in treatment wasn’t just cultural, it was philosophical. Gorean men viewed Free Women as worthy of reverence, while slaves were unworthy of even basic dignity. Slaves were often punished for speaking out of turn. Free Women could hold court, command servants, and challenge a man’s honor with a sharp tongue. The line was bold, and it was cruel.
But here’s where I personally find the contradiction.
Despite all the reverence supposedly given to Free Women, they lived in constant fear. Fear of capture. Fear of dishonor. Fear of being reduced to the very thing they scorned, a kajira in silk and steel. Because the truth is, in Gorean society, all women were seen as potential slaves. And that’s the thread that runs through every book. One slip, one mistake, one unlucky encounter, and that Free Woman could be stripped, collared, and auctioned like cattle.
So, were Free Women truly respected? Or were they placed on a pedestal only as long as they obeyed the invisible rules of Gorean patriarchy?
That’s the uncomfortable question.
What fascinates me about Norman’s world is not the fantasy of dominance, but the raw social hierarchy he constructed, and how deliberately he wrote women into it. The slave was debased and eroticized. The Free Woman was deified and contained. Both roles were cages, one gilded, one rusted.
In the end, the novels force us to ask, Is it better to be feared and revered, or used and owned? And is there any real freedom for women in a world where their value is always measured by the men around them?
These are questions I still wrestle with.
But one thing remains clear to me. In Gor, respect was conditional. And for women, whether free or bound, it was never guaranteed. Though it did exist.
Now onto the main point of this writing.
Living within the Gorean lifestyle can be incredibly powerful and fulfilling when practiced with mutual respect, honor, and integrity. For me, it represents a dynamic that
acknowledges polarity, structure, and ancient inspired roles. But there’s a dark undercurrent I’ve encountered, one that deeply troubles me and that I feel needs to be addressed.
Some individuals within the Gorean lifestyle, both men and women, seem to hold the belief that no woman is ever truly worthy of respect, unless she conforms to their rigid
interpretation of submission, or worse, unless she is Free by their approval. To them, slaves are property, no longer human, no longer deserving of empathy or consideration. And while consensual objectification can be part of some people’s kink, it should never cross the line into psychological abuse.
More disturbingly, I’ve witnessed the assertion that anyone living a Gorean life should not be allowed boundaries, hard limits, or even trauma informed protections. That if you are in this lifestyle, you’ve essentially forfeited all rights to your own peace or mental well being. This mindset isn’t just misguided, it is dangerous.
Submission, in any form, must be a choice. The stripping of limits, the denial of consent, and the mocking of mental health needs is not Gorean. It is abusive. There is nothing honorable about exploiting someone’s past pain to make them more compliant. There is no strength in dismissing a woman’s humanity under the guise of “tradition.” Mind you, "Fictional, traditions."
Gorean philosophy, at its core, reveres structure, strength, and purpose. But that includes responsibility and care, not cruelty. If your version of Gor leaves no room for healing, no room for safety, no room for your partner’s limits, then you’re not practicing a lifestyle, you’re enforcing control to mask your own weakness.
For those of us walking this path with sincerity, honor does not mean harm. Power exchange must always include consent. And consent must always be informed, conscious, enthustiastic and ongoing.
Because no matter your role, you are worthy of respect, peace, and the right to heal.
Closing Thoughts
I didn’t come to Gor looking for cruelty. I came looking for structure, purpose, and something that spoke to the deeper parts of me that longed for devotion, strength, and surrender. And yes, parts of the novels stirred something primal, something raw and alluring. But as I’ve lived and grown within this lifestyle, I’ve learned to separate informed submission from blind obedience, and honor from ego driven abuse.
Gor, for all its fantasy, is not a license to dehumanize. It is not a justification to erase someone’s boundaries, dismiss their trauma, or demand they sacrifice their mental health to satisfy someone else’s interpretation of control.
Anyone who tells you that you must suffer in silence to be “truly Gorean” is not protecting the philosophy, they are weaponizing it.
My submission, when I give it, is sacred. And so is my voice.
Because in any world, fictional or real, no woman should ever have to choose between her dignity and her dynamic.
And I refuse to let anyone convince me otherwise.
So go ahead, call me a “Disney Gorean” if that makes you feel superior. Call me “Gor-lite” if it helps you sleep at night. It doesn’t faze me. You hold no authority over how I interpret this path. You don’t get to decide what Gor means to me, and you certainly don’t have the power to define whether I am Gorean or not.