The Gor books of John Norman are set on a planet far, far away, which is known as counter-Earth, or Gor. In the world of Gor, men are dominant -- or should that be Dominant -- and women are naturally submissive to the point of slavery. Slaves abound, white-silk slaves (virgins), red-silk slaves (no longer virgins), every conceivable type of slave inhabits the books, many of them captured and forced into slavery from Earth. Slave girls learn the nature of their inherent slavery and learn to love their place in the hierarachy -- at the bottom of the heap on a par with the animals.

Gor is a fantasy, which has a strict social structure, with a lot of very detailed conventions and rules, and seems to be favoured by more and more SL residents. Many Gor sims have opened up, although I have yet to see one which really reminds me of the books. The architecture in the books invariably talks of cylinders, and few of the sims have cylindrical buildings, although one or two have ... one or two.

Gor is a lifestyle for a few people, a choice in SL for others, and an effective role-playing opprtunity for yet others. People who haven't investigated BDSM and Gor sometimes consider them interchangeable, but there is really not a great deal in common between the two groups. People in the BDSM lifestyle follow safe, sane and consensual rules, and respect their partners. Gor allows one partner to assume complete control over the other, and slaves and submissives basically have no rights at all. A real-life Gor enclave was recently discovered in Darlington, of all places, reported because people feared a woman's human rights were being eroded.

Of course, in SL, no-one can make you a slave unless you consent to it, in BDSM or Gor, and so the issue of consent doesn't arise. Many people enjoy experimenting with themselves, taking on the role of slave or Master, to see how it feels, and often they have never experimented in this way in real life. In fact, that delineates the next boundary within the groups: those whose experience is only in SL, and those who follow the lifestyle outside SL. Some groups can be rather scornful of those who only practise BDSM inside the game. some people reach a mid-way point, where the relationship in SL reaches into their real life, albeit remotely.

Gor has obviously gone mainstream with the introduction of a slave goad from the people at Xcite, who produce in-world adult toys and attachments. I think the strong rules and roles in the books make it attractive for people, but it is rather unsatisfying for a woman who feels she is Domme rather than sub, or a male submissive. There are "free women" in the books - reputedly the majority of the population in the books, but they don't tend to feature very strongly -- and if they do you can be sure that someone is about to throw them over their shoulder and take them down a peg or two.

It is interesting to note, however, that Javier Puff explains on the forum, that with a shortage of hard detail, Xcite have designed the goad themselves. Thus the world of Gor is evolving in SL, and may develop far beyond the imagination of an author who many think is in dire need of a long course of therapy.