I read three or four of his books. I've had bullshit revealed. I don't need to read the 25 others to learn anything about him, the world, or myself.

I don't need to read the 25 others to learn anything about him, the world, or myself.

Well, there are definitely diminishing returns in his books. The thing that's interesting to me is not the rightness or wrongness of his ideas (spoiler alert: he's wrong), but that it has so much play. There was an article a long time back in Salon about all the bondage communities built around his stuff. I was boggled to see it had endured and even thrived. That's telling. Not that he's right, but that he's hitting a nerve.

I'll also note that while he's a pretty crappy writer in general, there are some action scenes that really stick out in my mind as being particularly thrilling. The Tarn (giant falcon) race in Assassins of Gor was a total fist-pumping moment for me.

The action isn't what stuck with me.

The comments on the article have a pretty funny reprint of a "houseplants of Gor" parody that sums up so much.

The action isn't what stuck with me.

What, you couldn't past being told you were innately submissive?

I just tried to read that interview, and my eyes tried to simultaneously drift from boredom AND roll out of my head. No thanks.

(Also, never got into the Gor books, and thought they were massively silly.)

What, you couldn't past being told you were innately submissive?

I would have read just about anything for sex at that age. I found my first limit.

I read a few of those books when I was in high school (they were in the SF shelf in the school library! scandalous!), and I got bored after the sex & bondage & lectures about the inherent submissiveness of women began to leave no room for the adventure plots with giant hawks and weird insect gods. I thought the world-building was creative (if crack-addled), and I liked the adventures, but dude, they got boring.

I read a few of those books when I was in high school (they were in the SF shelf in the school library! scandalous!), and I got bored after the sex & bondage & lectures about the inherent submissiveness of women began to leave no room for the adventure plots with giant hawks and weird insect gods. I thought the world-building was creative (if crack-addled), and I liked the adventures, but dude, they got boring.

Well, that's the thing that was weird about reading them as they came out. They started off as a pretty standard Burroughs pastiche, and then just went completely off the rails. Lin Carter and Alan Burt Akers were both doing similar stuff at the same time and fantasy was in short supply back then. There were Howard reprints and such, but still there wasn't a lot of original Fantasy fiction at that time even though the market had exploded post Tolkien and Howard.

Anyway, it was probably like a kid in the forties reading Superman and Batman, and then picking up Wonder Woman with all the bondage and "loving obedience" all over the place.

Oh my god, the Gor books.

You know the whole "your kink is not my kink, but your kink is okay?" attitude (that's putatively the attitude that kinksters generally have towards one another -- you're into asshooks? I don't get it, but rock on with your bad self!, etc.)

Yeah, uh, there's pretty much a big division in the BDSM world, which is: (1) Weirdoes into Gor, and (2) everyone else.

It's not so much the books (although, really, they're crap and badly written and made me laugh) as the people who read them and Really Truly Believe That This Is The Way It Should Always Be, and then they run around trying to treat *everyone* within the BDSM world that way.

You got a partner who digs that whole kajira shit without laughing at you? Awesome. Keep her in a cage in your basement. I don't care. But try to get all the women at an event to address you as "Master" and to blow you? Yeah, you're going to be introduced to the concept of a detachable penis REAL fast.

I try very hard to not stereotype, but the people into Gor really tend to be wankers. They are to BDSM what Stinky Cat Piss Man is to comic-book stores.

I don't think I could take anyone seriously that takes Gor seriously. It so patently seemed like something that tried (and failed) to engage my teenaged sexuality that I can't imagine appreciating much of it much past 20. Much less patterning life on it.

I like Dune, but I'm not trying to be a Bene Gesserit.

I mean, it would be COOL. But also ludicrous.