SL GOR

John Fredrick Lange Jr. might be better known by his pen name, John Norman, who is the author of the well known Gor series that gives a backbone to the Gor subculture in Second Life. In- game zones where role playing according to the Gor philosophy, are some of the largest factions within SL. The books themselves can follow the primal instincts of man dominating over obstacles that stand in his way. As the Gor series became popular people took the books to the gaming world especially SL.

Players who enter into a Gor role playing area are welcomed into the mind of John Norman. Norman’s basic outline of his Gor series was to instill an assumed hierarchy based on talent, mainly strength of man. As man conquers the obstacles of everyday life according to Norman woman are the helpers of the male race in there everyday race to triumph over all. Woman must do whatever the man needs and create this psychological god-like role for the man. Multiple depictions of men enslaving woman are found in the Gor series and propose a gender difference between men and woman. The Gor books suggest to many readers that it is a natural way of life for a man to overrule a woman in every facet of life.

After getting a basic summary of what John Norman’s philosophy was in the Gor series I reached out to Jessica Holyoke, an experienced writer and player within SL Gorean, to get fundamental knowledge of Gor’s on SL. To my surprise Gorean’s on SL cannot be put into one certain group according to Jessica Holyoke, “…its near impossible to define as Goreans on SL are comprised of at least four different sub-groups; those who engage due to a following of RL Gorean philosophy, those who engage as a more involved form of BDSM role play, those who engage in the role play as a form of historical/tribal recreation, and those who engage in the combat recreation.” All four of these sub- groups follow the novels written by John Norman in some type of fashion with the emphasis on gender roles. It is both to my amazement that these different sub cultures can co-exist and also to Jessica’s as she states, “Amazingly, all four groups can co-exist to some extent, even if sometimes there are tensions between the four types.”