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.

I don't think I could take anyone seriously that takes Gor seriously.

Bingo. These dudes who walk around events and try to get all the women (and I mean ALL women, including those who exclusively identify as dominant) to address them as "Master" get (1) shunned, (2) laughed at, and (3) often asked to leave if they don't stop the non-consensual bullshit.

I mean, really. I just want to get my freak on, and some dude by the soft drinks tells me to suck his cock because he's a Gorean Master. I actually think I pulled a muscle laughing at him.

They tend to stay on the internet, but when they come to events and get all weird (the women, who address every man as "Master," tend to piss people off, too, because, hey, he's not YOUR Master), it never goes well for them.

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

Right? *I* am not building a Bat-Signal.

YET.

I decided to put off reading any of the Gor novels until the publication of Valley Girls of Gor.

Still haven't read any.

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

I am, but so far my children have thwarted my efforts to control them with Voice.

I have never read a Gor book. Sounds like I probably shouldn't bother.

Coralie Bickford-Smith has a new designed a new series of books, Great Food: [link]

I have never read a Gor book. Sounds like I probably shouldn't bother

I want someone to write a Good Parts edition of Gor, with all the crack-addled Burroughs adventures and none of the sexism.

... it would be a lot shorter, no doubt.