STRAIGHT TALK

The Terrible Sci-Fi Novels That Started A Worldwide Sex Cult

Around 25,000 people worldwide live a lifestyle based on the badly written series of fantasy novels known as The Gor Chronicles. In the books, women are treated as “lowly beasts for men to do with as they see fit,” and followers do the same. Women live as slaves, and go so far as to be branded like cattle. One English Master was arrested when his neighbors believed his slaves had been genuinely kidnapped. While many Goreans claim their lifestyle is safe and consensual, it’s been linked to cases of kidnapping and torture. As for the author, he claims to “know nothing” about the thousands of people that based their entire existence on his work.

John Norman’s Gor novels are set on a planet not dissimilar to Earth. The books tell of an insectoid race of super-intelligent beings that control the planet and have created a society of human beings they transplanted from Earth. There, they have formed a society that most people would consider highly distasteful.

While the books began as adventure stories, they soon became “extremely sexist, sadomasochistic pornography involving the ritual humiliation of women” as described by the Encyclopedia of Fantasy. In Gorean society, women are kept as slaves and are whipped, chained, and beaten accordingly. This is portrayed as an ideal society, and any feminist Earth women that end up on Gor soon realize that being a slave owned by men is the role they truly desire in life.

The women slaves are known as kajira, a moniker that has been adopted by the thousands of women that have submitted to be “lowly beasts for men to do with as they see fit,” as the books describe them. Kajira are branded in the books, and many women follow suit in real life.

This wince-inducing photo series shows a Gorean slave named Khaos Wolfcat having a stylized “K” burned into her leg (the letter can be seen in the photo above, part of Marcus J. Ranum’s “The Gor Project”). The process uses metal that’s been heated with a blowtorch being pressed into the skin, 18 times. It’s also possible see the slave collar around her neck, and the slave bells around her ankle that jingle as a constant, soothing reminder of her place.

While adherents claim their lifestyle is entirely consensual, they’ve attracted plenty of controversy. A man named John Hauff Jr. kidnapped a woman, and claimed he was a Gorean master. The woman was a sex worker, and Hauff had agreed to pay her $100 to let him use a sex toy on her. On the way to his house he told her all about the Gor books, and when they arrived Hauff put a collar on her before beginning torturing her with electrodes for several hours. When he was arrested, police found the Gor books in Hauff’s house, and the detective included a quote from the first Gor novel in his report: “The Perfect Bondage is said to be one man and one woman, the complete master, the complete slave, ideal and perfect for each other’s needs.”

In 2006, a Gorean slave master named Lee Thompson came to the attention of police in Teesside, England. Relatives of a 29-year-old Canadian woman advised that she was being held against her will. The father of an 18-year-old also contacted police, but they found the young man was there of his own will and they could do nothing. He gained notoriety and press attention after parading his slaves around town on a leash.

At the time, Thompson said “We don’t hurt anyone, we don’t damage anyone, everyone’s consensual.” The press coverage, however, caught the attention of one of Thompson’s former slaves, and in 2013 he confessed to forcing her to have sex with other men against her will in order to make money.

John Norman himself has little to do with the subculture he created. “I know nothing about ‘real-life Gorean slavery among some people in the BDSM community,’ ” he said in an interview, “BDSM is not Gorean. If something is not beautiful, it is not Gorean.” He adds, “women are wonderful, and precious. It is a delight to own one; why would one hurt her?”

Of course, a slave should be aware that she will be disciplined physically if she is “not pleasing.” To avoid this, “she need only be obedient, submissive, and found pleasing, wholly, and in all ways.” This ownership should be done out of love, and not be confused with cruelty, which is a different thing altogether.