Gorean

What is a Gorean?

A Gorean is someone who lives BDSM or a whole lifestyle by the fictional world Gor from the novels of John Norman. A Gorean keeps to set forms of address, positions and rituals, and takes a role as master or as slave. In real life that is voluntary and bounded, unlike in the books.

How a Gorean behaves

You usually notice a Gorean by the manner, not the clothes. There is a set way of addressing each other, a posture that goes with who holds which role, and a string of unwritten rules the two agreed on beforehand.

An example from practice. Alice, one of the women journalist Helen Meriel Thomas spoke to for Vice, describes her day like this: “I do have rules which were agreed upon with my husband.” No abduction, no force. A set of agreements between two people who both want this. Another woman, Jill, simply says of her role: “I am always a kajira.” For her, Gorean is not a costume that goes on and off, but who she is.

Where the term Gorean comes from

Gorean is the adjective for Gor, and the people who call themselves that form a subculture that largely grew up apart from John Norman. According to the description of the Gorean subculture, a fandom grew around the series and developed further after the publishers stopped reprinting the paperbacks. The forms of address, the postures and the words come from the invented Gorean language in the books; the community around them was built by readers themselves.

The underlying idea does come from Norman. His fiction paints worlds in which, according to Wikipedia, male-led bondage relationships are natural and culturally respected. A Gorean takes on that frame, but decides for themselves how literally.

Why someone calls themselves Gorean

The anchor of a worked-out identity is the big draw. Someone who calls themselves Gorean does not have to work out afresh each time how things go. The role, the language and the ranking are ready-made, and that gives a clarity that loose arrangements rarely reach.

What you get out of it depends on your role.

• For you, if you choose the slave role, the label can bring calm: there is a place, a way of doing things, and a word for what you are. That can anchor you in a way that a vague “being submissive” does not.
• For the one taking the lead, the Gorean frame offers a role with responsibility and not only power. The master is meant to care for and protect the slave, even in the fiction.
• For a couple, the shared language becomes a private world. Outsiders see nothing of it; inside the relationship every word means something.

The label carries a heavy history. The source material is regarded as misogynist, and part of the BDSM scene wants nothing to do with the term. Someone who calls themselves Gorean can expect to explain, and sometimes to meet resistance. For some, that simply comes with it; others prefer a more neutral term like D/s.

How Goreans fill it in

The biggest dividing line runs between two kinds of Gorean.

The lifestyler lives it through the week. The division of roles sits in the household, in the greeting, in who sits where. This resembles total power exchange and often runs 24/7.

The roleplayer picks it up and puts it down again. That can happen at a table, in bed, or online. A large part of the Gorean community arose in virtual worlds, where people play their role without endorsing the philosophy. Between these poles there are strict and loose variants, roughly the way high protocol and lighter manners sit side by side in the rest of BDSM.

What a Gorean is not

“A Gorean obeys blindly.” Not in real life. The obedience is an agreement, not force, and it rests on boundaries named in advance. Vivienne, also from the Vice piece, keeps her own limits and uses a safeword when she needs to.

“Anyone who calls themselves Gorean is a woman-hater in real life.” That does not follow. The books are sexist, but the people who take on the aesthetic mostly do so with a lot of care for consent. Borrowing the form is something other than endorsing the morals.

“Gorean is just a fancy word for dom or sub.” No. A dominant or a submissive can work in any frame; a Gorean specifically chooses the worked-out system of Gor, with the language and the rituals that come with it.

What I see of it myself

I’m Victor, a gigolo, active in BDSM for twenty-five years and trained as a psychotherapist. The women who call themselves Gorean with me, or lean that way, rarely look for roughness. They look for a role that is complete.

They take the forms of address dead seriously. One word at the wrong moment can break the whole mood, and that is exactly the point: the language carries the role. I also notice that the label often sounds heavier than it is meant to. Behind “I am Gorean” there is usually no manifesto, but the wish to be allowed to disappear fully into something.

More about Gorean

On this site, Gor gives the world this identity springs from, and kajira explains what the slave role within that world involves exactly. If you are after the bare power dynamic without the setting, you will find it at M/s.

Beyond it, the Wikipedia page on the Gorean subculture gives the factual overview of how the community came about and where the split between lifestylers and players comes from.

Where this fits on this site

If you recognize yourself in the wish for a role that is fully fixed, and you want to try it once rather than move straight into it, an evening can explore that calmly. The page on the BDSM date sets out how we agree beforehand what does and does not happen. An ongoing Gorean relationship is not something I offer, but tasting the role is possible.

Sources

• Gorean subculture. Wikipedia. Provides the rise of the fandom apart from Norman, the distinction between lifestylers and roleplayers, the virtual origin of a large part of the community, and the resistance among feminists and in the BDSM scene.
• John Norman. Wikipedia. Provides the real name John Frederick Lange Jr., his professorship in philosophy, and his premise that male-led bondage relationships are natural and culturally respected.
• Meeting the 24/7 Sex Slaves Inspired By a Sci-Fi Series. Helen Meriel Thomas, Vice, 2018. Provides the voices of women who call themselves Gorean, with agreed rules, their own boundaries and a safeword, and the line “I am always a kajira”.

Related terms

• Gor. The invented world a Gorean bases themselves on, and the one this page keeps referring back to.
• Kajira. The slave role a Gorean woman usually chooses.
• Master. The title a Gorean slave gives the other person.
• M/s. The master-slave relationship without the Gorean setting around it.
• High protocol. The strict manner a strict Gorean will find familiar.
• Total power exchange. What the lifestyle Gorean works toward.