The books may have represented an attempt by the patriarchal school of thought to create a space, a fantasy world in which feminism didn’t exist, equality was not a concept and man was a stronger animal, born to rule over a woman. Perhaps it was the need to fight back against the perceived ‘free speech’ sanctions driven by liberal political correctness.

I considered what might have led to the writing of the books in the first place. It was graceful, it was sensual to say the least and liberating in a very different way than I had felt before. Perplexingly, however, the sexual slavery these books present was simultaneously intimidating and appealing in a very raw way. It is not possible to imagine a world in real life, where women are killed and thrown to carnivorous animals only because they tried to eat something, or because they spoke out of turn in the presence of a man.

Of course, the books are science fiction. A world with inter-planetary racism, misogyny, abuse, non-consensual sexual slavery and everything else that appeared evil to feminists and liberal-minded people. Reading Chronicles of Gor transported me to Counter-Earth, a place with a sexually uninhibited, sensuous, graceful, simple order of life.

In the Gorean world, there were very few women capable of being free mostly they were considered ‘frigid’ or outcasts. It was about men being masters and women being slaves – powerful men taking from women what they wanted. So, what is this ‘true nature’ that Norman was talking about? Well, according to this amazing and (at one time) inspiring work, it was the ‘natural order’ of things on Counter-Earth where the novels are set:men ‘being men’ and women ‘being women’. I don’t know which author would be angrier at the comparison. When the books were published in the US they caught the public’s attention it was almost a revolution.It was a great a phenomenon at one time, as Fifty Shades of Greyseems today. Norman,a professor of philosophy, claimed that the books followed the philosophy of exploration and discovery of one’s true nature. in a BDSM chatroom and explored deep enough to land upon some chatrooms which focused on role play and philosophical discussions based on these books. I had discovered various alternative lifestyles like BDSM, Gor, Polyamory, Swinging etc. My formative years in BDSM were heavily influenced by a series of books called Chronicles of Gor written by an author called John Norman. By Asmi Categories Fiction and Sexuality Review September 15, 2017

Gor series by john norman