What is Gor and being Gorean?

Okay, I'm going to tackle a huge mouthful today: What is Gor, and what does it mean (to me) to be Gorean.

First, let's start with the basics.
Gor is, literally, a fictional world highlighted in a series of books known as the "Chronicles of Gor" or the "Chronicles of Counter-Earth." The novels are very much like Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series, in which, in most of the books, a human is transported to an alien world and "goes native" over time.
The main character in most of the books is a man by the name of Tarl Cabot, who discovers his family ancestry originates on Gor.
The novels highlight a world based on a Nietzsche-esque natural order, meaning the most talented to do something is the best one to do it. It also emphasizes taking hold of the vitality of life and all its experiences. It deals with such things as honor, respect for home, true friendship, and the true nature of humanity. One of the probably most known, and harped over, aspects is that of gender. In the Gor novels, the people of Gor have accepted that men are naturally dominant and women are naturally submissive. It also postulates that when we don't resist our inner nature we live healthier, happier lives. Therefore, in general, most women on Gor are happier, more vital, and more content being submissive to men. However, what most casual readers do not get is that the books also clearly state that individuals have different needs, desires, wants, and strengths, and nobody can be placed into one mold. In at least two instances in the Gor books a woman is ruler of a city and widely respected, loved, and in many cases, obeyed, by the men under her rule.
The books are filled with swordfighting, rescuing princesses, wars between nations, treachery, and aerial combat by buff, spear-chucking guys on giant birds, but, intermixed with the pulp action, is a pretty detailed, intricately woven philosophy on life and how it can be (perhaps should be) lived.
One thing you must know about the Gor books to understand a bit about them is who wrote them.
The author on the covers is John Norman, however, that is a pen name for Dr. John Frederick Lange, Jr., who teaches at Queens College in New York. Lange is a Doctor of Philosophy, a degree he earned at Princeton University. So the man's no slouch in the nature of humanity.
The books were written from the 60s to early 80s, and have been driven off shelves by an organized letter campaign to publishers from feminists. Guess Free Speech isn't a part of their philosophy. Note: Whenever someone wants to control what you read and what ideas you are exposed to, worry. But I digress.
The books touch deeply on numerous philosophies besides the genders.
First and foremost is this: Be what you are. Be what you are with pride, with gusto, and without shame. Life is to be lived to the fullest. You can only do that by knowing yourself and being true to yourself.
The books also are EXTREMELY pro-environmental. A Gorean warrior is proud to be able to identify every flower and tree in a garden. A gorean woodcutter plants two trees for every one he chops down. Nature is allowed to run free outside the cities, even if it means travel is a bit more dangerous. It's a better alternative than a tame world, devoid of nature.
Also, despite the war and sword-swinging and wench-capturing, intellect is highly, highly prized. In fact the most rabidly adored sport on all of Gor is The Game, which is very similar to chess. Players of The Game are like superstars, despite the fact many of them couldn't even lift a sword. A battle-hardened, seasoned warrior could be brought to near tears by a masterful manuevering of Ubara to Ubar's Scribe Three.
Another aspect strongly espoused in the Gor novels is respect for your home. This means your nation/city and your individual quarters. This is often represented in the books by an object known as a Home Stone. A, sometimes simple, at other times complex, stone that represents the heart of a city (which on Gor are like nation-states). Men are extremely proud of their city, certain their particular homeland is the best, most beautiful on Gor, and will fight to the last defending it. Raze their city to the ground, and if the Home Stone can be preserved intact, they will simply start rebuilding the next day.
Finally, there is the gender aspect. In the books a lot is talked about regarding what I call the "pussification" of Earth men. Lange postulates, through these books, that earth men have been emotionally castrated and don't know it. What's more, women, in a strive for equality, have somehow decided that being equal means being like men, thus going against their very inherent nature.
So you get a world where men are not allowed to be men and women are trying to be men, thus nobody is being themselves and nobody is truly happy.
I feel this has merit. Look around you. Turn on the television for half an hour. Watch a few commercials with couples. Find a commercial where the husband isn't the bumbling buffoon to the wife's clever witticism. Sex and the City highlighted women being women and running wild in their femininity. Can you imagine a show where men were shown being men, saying what they truly say and think amongst their buds and how they approach relationships and what they want? An uncensored show on HBO that was the opposite of sex in the city? They'd burn HBO studios down for airing something like that.
Why?
We've been raised to be ashamed to be men by society in general. One of the things that Rae says attracted her to me is that I was both extremely and unabashedly masculine, and yet at the same time intellectual. I asked her why one would assume the two concepts to be mutually exclusive, to which I do not recall her having an answer.
But think about it.
You can be geek or jock. But society doesn't want to allow you to be both. Somehow, masculinity has been linked to stupidity and buffoonism, and the heavy-handed "hint" from television, movies, schools and the like is that to be a real man you must not at all be man-ly.
Why should you not admire a woman's body? Doesn't nature dictate that it's designed for the opposite sex to admire? And what about all those comments women are allowed to publicly make regarding a man's body? Why is that okay in the office, but not a comment about a woman's legs?
Why is your love of a good fight in a hockey game frowned upon? Your enjoyment of football made into a joke? The attention to your car is poo-pooed as "boys and their toys?"
And for women, why is a woman ridiculed for actually WANTING to be a housewife, or submissive to her husband? Why is a woman told that not being interested in a career, but wanting children instead, is "wrong"? Wasn't equality about choice? if so, why are choices that go against a woman emulating a man frowned upon?
Also, why are the concepts of dominance and submissive considered inequal? Who told you that because someone is submissive they are "less" of a person than someone who is dominant?
Would you dare tell a marine that has no desire to be an officer that he's a weak, inferior submissive? I dare ya to try it...
Lange's philosophy in the Gor books specifically point out on several occasions that women are the equal of men, but they are different. We've only been at this "gender doesn't matter" idea for a couple decades. That's compared to 1 million years of evolution, learned behavior, and bred tendencies.
Let's run the clock back a few hundred thousand years to when we were still using stone tools.
Do you think that every man got to breed with any woman he wished? Or vice versa?
Of course not.
Now, who got first pick? The strongest man, obviously...be that through physical strength, or natural intelligence and an ability to lead or a combination thereof, it is undeniably true that the strongest and brightest got their pick of mates before the founding of civilization as we know it. Now, you're this impressive male and you've got your pick of the pack. Who are you going to go for? The most attractive woman that's likely to keep the cave clean, put out, and cause the least amount of problems. She'll probably strong internally, lots of intestinal fortitude so when the crapola hits the fan, you know she'll stand tall.
In all likelyhood, in most cases, the strongest and brightest men bred with the submissive, intelligent, strong women. Over, and over and over again. For a million or so years. Heck, some would argue that it was like that until about 1960.
Even in the 50s if you picked up a woman's magazine it was chocked full of articles on how to keep a good home for your man.
Now, this isn't to debate the rightness or wrongness of that. What I'm pointing out is that 50 years of women's lib doesn't have a chance in hell of erasing a pavlovian, bred, response that's been rampant and encouraged since some man-ape in africa first chucked a bone into the air.
That's not to say every woman would be happier being submissive to her man, nor would every man be happiest dominating his woman, mind, body and soul. Humanity varies. So if you're first mental response to this is "my girl doesn't fit that mold!" or "I'm no man's slave!" you need to stop, go back up to the top, and read again.
There is a tendency in the human male to desire to be dominant to his woman. There is a tendency in the human female to be submissive to a dominant man. If a man and a woman were raised, isolated from cultural input, on a desert island, in all likelyhood the male would be dominant and the woman submissive to him. That's what the theory postulates. However, that doesn't take into account television, movies, social upbringing, schoolmates, your parents and their beliefs, your religion and a whole host of other factors that make us what we are.
BUT, if you are capable of stripping all that away, and looking at yourself at your core (which very few of us can do), then, as a man, you'd likely find within yourself a strong desire to truly be dominant in your relationship, and if you are a woman, the reverse is likely to be true.
I think, for women, it's harder, because we've been taught that being submissive is bad. It has negative connotations like "doormat."
People who espouse the Gorean lifestyle have, ideally, accepted this natural part of themselves and embraced it. Gorean men, again, ideally, try to live a life of honor, and one made rich with experience and an enjoyment of life. In their relationships with women they take a strongly dominant role. Sometimes this is a Master/slave relationship...but not always. At other times it's the role of Free Companion, in which the woman takes a much less submissive role than a true slave, but still defers to the man as head of household.
One might ask, what do Gorean men look for in women?
First and foremost, intelligence. A Gorean man enjoys little more than he does talking with an intelligent woman. A Gorean man loves when an intelligent woman catches him up on something. He finds her that much more appealing. A Gorean man lets his woman's thoughts be expressed fully, encourages her imagination and learning. He obviously enjoys a beautiful woman, but defining beauty amongst Goreans is little different than among any other men. However, Gorean men do have a tendency to like their women a little more curvy than current societal emphasis. Given a choice between an underfed Kate Moss and an Anna Nicole Smith who could stand to lose a few (just going on body type in this example) most gorean men would go with the girl with more curves than less. Most men who actually have had a woman in his arms tend to agree with us, I believe.
So, we're not looking for ditzes. In fact, we usually can't stand them.
Slave or Free Companion, the girls that tend to be highly sought after, and who seem to flourish and do well in a Gorean lifestyle is one that is INTELLIGENT.
Now, if you explore around you'll find that there is an online gorean community.
Unfortunately, we don't have any control over who calls themselves Gorean.
You'll more than likely run into an idiot who calls himself Master this or Master that, claims to be a Warrior Caste, believes all women should be enslaved tomorrow and then will send you scurrying to fetch him a goblet of "ka-la-na" at room temperature. This obviously thrilling experience will end with him offering you his online collar, which will consist of you putting his intials in brackets behind your name and waiting around alot faithfully online while he's signed on under a different name cybering some other slave whose most likely a man in cyber disguise.
Can ya tell I've had my fill of online Gor?
First and foremost, Gorean philosophy dictates life is to be lived. Therefore, if you find someone who spends 20 hours a day in an online Gor chatroom with his online slave drinking online drinks, think carefully before you consider that man Gorean.
When I was writing my novel, I got roped into it for a while, simply because I was at home all the time writing, and the same for when I was freelancing and only needed to work a couple weeks every three months. What I discovered was this: There are quite a few intelligent, truly submissive women out there who are itching to be in the hands, and possibly collar, of a true Gorean man, but they are few and far between.
I once had a girl who was originally trained by one of the authors of the book Different Loving visit me to see if a possible Master/slave relationship might work. For several reasons, it didn't work out. But she told me that her mentor said there may be a dozen true Masters in the country and she thought I was one of them. I was the only one she'd met in her search after over a decade. Now, I can't tell you if she was right about her assessment of me, and I don't want the above to stand as some testament to my abilities as a Master or a Gorean. I only say it to point out that men who've found, and are comfortable, with that place in themselves are rare. They are likely more rare than the women that seek them.
Women, being in general more attuned to their emotions, often are able to come to terms and fall into that submissive side of themselves, despite the fact that at the beginning it is a harder concept for them to consider. Men tend to resist it. They don't want to be seen a chauvanistic, misogynistic (which is as far away from Gorean as you can get...if you hate or dislike women, Gor isn't for you), or simply as being thoroughly, and unabashedly, male.
And, in a way, that's okay.
It's one reason that, through the years, I've had my pick of the litter....

For me, this encapsulates much of my thoughts and feelings on Gor. Ask someone else and they'll tell you a slightly different variation. That should come as no surprise. There are 6 billion human beings on this planet, and I strongly believe that, albeit sometimes the nuances are lost, that there are 6 billion distinctly different views on every subject under the Sun.

The above views are mine.
Your mileage may vary.