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Earthling
Posts: 21
(3/24/06 19:28)
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The Goreans Are Coming For Your Children!
My, my, my—take a break from the world of CyberGor and the Internet for a few years, and what do I find? Dissension in the ranks, even more fervent name-calling than before, and the efforts of that creaky old war-horse known as Gor to reassert itself on the World Wide Web. That atrocity known as #silk&steel is gurgling back to the pond’s surface, despite a nasty falling-out between its two founders, Zeb and Bear, which—in part—found the redoubtable Bear deleting the entire Silk & Steel message board; Zeb has established a new board, reposted the Silk & Steel website (sorta, kinda, in a way), and reestablished the #silk&steel channel on—get this—the bondage.com IRC server.
Bondage.com? #silk&steel is on bondage.com? Surely you jest. From day one, haven’t the hardest of the hardcore self-appointed Gorean lifestylers decried any connection between the Gorean philosophy and BDSM fetishes? On this very forum, not so many years ago, didn’t Gorm of Kassau state: "I suspect that you are making the common mistake of linking Gorean Philosophy, and those who practice it, with BDSM. There are some who may view BDSM as a distant relative to Gorean lifestyle, but I do not think there is even a slight connection." Yet now, the Titans of Silk & Steel have opted to place themselves in the company of #spanking_pleasures, #lesbian_torturedungeon, and #vampire_seductions.
The Gorean Public Boards are still up and running, still with much energy expended on figuring out what that pesky Gorean Philosophy is. (Hint, kiddos: read Nietzsche, Rand, or perhaps Adolph Hitler, for much better expositions on the schools of thought that Goreans have appropriated for their own.) Sardaria is still going strong, in all its pimply glory. New boards, for instance the Gorean Fellowship, have reared their heads, apparently peopled by various rejects and castoffs from other boards. Marcus seems to have returned, posting on an assortment of sites—including, interestingly, a Gorean role-play/gaming board.
A couple of years ago, it seemed that CyberGor was dying. Perusing lists of Gorean-themed websites, one found that the vast majority of links were dead. Now it appears to be well and hearty, if still not quite as active as in, say, 1998. The usual suspects are still posting away, joined by a new generation of self-doubting, progress-despising men and insecure little girls. They continue to cleave unto ideas they perceive as a true philosophy—in fact, a rickety series of pronouncements from the pages of poorly-written sword-and-sandal fantasy novels written by a man who arguably wants little to do with the delusions of this misguided "community" of childish, thin-skinned punks… aside, perhaps, from selling them new editions of his books and laughing all the way to the bank.
By the by, my children, I find indications that the Gor series is being republished. Never mind the abject failure of earlier attempts: Masquerade Press (incidentally, a fetish-oriented erotica publisher), releasing the first eleven and then bankrupting; New World Publishers, quitting after (re)releasing the first four—and let’s not forget their money-gobbling failed effort to start an illustrated Gor magazine which the government of Canada wisely chose to ban because of its depiction of women; and Wildside Press, managing only the first two (at a retail price of $15.95 no less!) then quitting. But once again, the fine folks of the Gorean Group—those who brought us a partial incarnation of the series’ last release, and an appallingly cheesy leather-bound edition of Witness at the hefty price of $195—have apparently resolved to republish all twenty-six extant novels at once. (I happen to have the Gorean Group’s editions of Tarnsman and Outlaw, and can securely state that the quality control on their paperbacks is as shoddy as the leather-bound Witness.)
So Gor has not gone anywhere. It still lurks on the outer fringes of the Web and soon, one supposes, in some of our bookstores. The Gorean lifestylers’ fascist rants still pollute a great many sites, though hardly as rampantly as before—yet still every bit as vehement in the Goreans' collective anguish over women’s rights and liberal politics. That strange and perverted little right wing of the Libertarian Party, dressed in its best SCA costuming and pompously holding forth on questions of honor and loyalty, is still among us—though they’ve somewhat cannibalized themselves over these past couple of years, kicking out some of the old-timers and continuing to back-bite and gossip about others. Some of the remaining Goreans still wish slavery wasn’t illegal in the western world.
It shall never cease to amaze me how presumably-intelligent men and women can proudly claim to live a philosophy derived from bad pulp fiction.
I was walking down the street, Ana caught my eye...and dragged it fifteen feet. |
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