Slavery on Gor is an ancient tradition, going back millennia, which is to say for Gorean history: to the founding myth of their culture.

“Long ago, a terrible war was waged between men and women, threatening their survival. The victorious men wanted to kill all the women. In their wisdom, the Priest-Kings intervened to save the women. But they would pay for this gesture by being forever subjugated to men, in exchange for which the women of Gor would become the most beautiful women imaginable”.

It’s logical, then, that the slaver caste exists, and despite being a sub-caste of the merchants, is so respected and specific. In fact, just as Gor’s world couldn’t run without Free Women, it couldn’t function without the institution of slavery.

Reminder: I’m French and I write and translate my own articles. So I hope you’ll be sympathetic to my possible English mistakes. It’s by no means my native language.

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1- The nature of Gorean slavery.

So, as a refresher for those of you who may or may not have missed your history lessons, it’s important to know that slavery and serfdom still existed universally on Earth two hundred years ago. And the last French ex-colony to renounce customary and de facto slavery was in 1950. So the idea that man cannot be enslaved and treated as a possession is very recent, and very modern. This notion still existed in the early 19th century. And there are still several million enslaved people in the world, in more or less customary or legal ways, even if this awful idea is slowly disappearing. Like everyone else, I’d prefer it that way; slavery is, well, berk.

But then, slavery isn’t something surprising in a world whose civilization is based on Gallo-Roman antiquity, where a daughter is often more a mouth to feed in a family than a precious asset.

While there aren’t that many slave girls, the lot of them don’t come from capture or breeding farms: they’ve been sold by poor families to raise money and survive. Children sacrificed, therefore, to raise others.

Despite Gor women’s easy access to effective contraception, there are still many births on a regular basis, due to a relatively high average infant mortality rate. And therefore girls, who become commodities and a means of settling debts. Even if Goreans love their children, whom they consider sacred during their infancy, well, often the poor simply have no choice.

Gorean-style slavery

What makes Gor different from historical slavery is its very ritualized, quasi-scholarly nature, and the ways in which a woman is made into a slave, a Kajira. First of all, through millennia of cultural conditioning and genetic selection, most women in the world of Gor are physically and mentally predestined to submit to the force of men, and for many, to accept enslavement. They’re beautiful, but they’re much smaller, and weaker, than Gor men. This doesn’t help them to dominate, or even to defend themselves individually.

I’m sorry to disappoint so many players of female Outlaws and Panthers in Gor SL, but you shouldn’t dream; in theory, in Gor’s world, the best female fighter is just a little better than mediocre against the most banal of trained warriors. Her speed can’t compensate for male strength and vigor. She’s better off using her brains and cunning, because in terms of opposing forces, she’s lost.

Secondly, the enslavement and upbringing of a slave girl according to Gorean standards has nothing to do with anything that ever existed in the Gallo-Roman world, or even after. In fact, I’ve searched long and hard for sources and references of slave training in history that would resemble what’s done in Gor’s world, and it appears that the only reference that can compare is that of forced sex workers in certain modern slave-trading circles. Gor slavery and its norms have specificities that have never existed in history. Less cruel than the horrific slave trade of the triangular commerce in the 18th century, but immensely more cruel than anything done in ancient China, Rome or the Muslim empires of the 12th century. Gorean slavery is really a unique thing, whose main inspiration-sorry, Norman, I know you refute it, but assume it-is a hardcore, non-consensual version of the total power exchange of BDSM culture.

But what are we talking about when we talk about Gorean bondage? It’s a documented process, with methods as crude as they are tried and tested, that leads to the captive girl totally renouncing her identity as a free woman, abandoning her pride and individuality as a human being, and assuming a femininity and heightened sensitivity that can only be fully expressed in her status as a possessed and degraded animal of pleasure and servitude.

For a Gorean, the only true “woman” is a slave. A Free Woman exists as a housewife, a work force, a companion, a mother, an honored member of a city, even a woman of high responsibility, but she is not a “woman.” Femininity, i.e. sensitivity, fragility, emotionality, sensuality, charm, sophistication, grace, self-giving, the ability to give pleasure, and live it to the full, can only be the prerogative of a slave-girl.

Nota bene: if your Free Woman shows these traits, she may not be free for long, firstly because she will attract the lust of a greedy man or one who sees a good excuse, and secondly, because she dishonors her Free Woman status.

If you’d like to know more about free women, I invite you to read this article on their nature, and their life.

“Slaves love compliments. In fact, according to a Gorean proverb, any woman who loves compliments is, in her heart, a slave. She wants to please. Almost all Goreans don’t hesitate to put a collar on women who respond to compliments with a smile. The enslavement of a natural slave is considered a right.”

(Gor’s Monsters)

How many slaves on Gor?

There are very few slaves in the world of Gor (OK, there are plenty in Gor SL sims, that’s just the way it is). The proportion differs, however. In a village or small city, it will be 2-3% of women. In big city-states like Ar, Turia or Schendi, it’s a whopping 20%. And among the Torvis and Panis, it’s around 5-6%. Yes, they have more slaves than the average Gorean…

But if we take a general average, hardly more than 3-4% of Gor’s total population is enslaved, i.e. 20 million people out of the approximately half a billion Goreans. And to bust a myth once again, Terran women are incredibly rare: less than 5,000 in the whole of Gor! Yes, the Goreans who kidnap people from Earth only pick up a few Earth girls at a time, and they’re pretty damn rare! I’ll talk about them in detail in this article.

Goreans NEVER enslave the free women of their city, except as punishment for a serious crime and after judgment! Yes, I know, the books, yes I know, on SL Gor sims, but: NO! That’s the way it is. A Free Woman is a citizen protected by laws and customs, and you can’t touch her with impunity. Only her family can decide to enslave her without going through the courts and magistrates. And well, you’d better have a good reason, because it’s a blow to lose honor.

The only real exception is when it comes to children sold by their families in order to pay off debts or simply escape from ruin. It’s not uncommon, and I apologize in advance to those who are a little sensitive to morality, but these children are often sold between the ages of 13 and 15 (which Goreans consider to be the end of childhood, in fact), and slavers set up public stalls offering to buy the surplus children of these impoverished families! It’s perfectly legal and tolerated! And awful, I know. But it wasn’t uncommon in history either…

The most sought-after slave-girls are panthers, as they are wild and rebellious, and their character, once subdued, will often be flamboyant. And, of course, the daughters of powerful men: an Ubar daughters captured in an opposing city is worth a treasure. Earth girls are coveted because of their fragile temperament, gentler than that of goreans, their great sensitivity, their natural ability to express their femininity, and their propensity to love their master more easily.

A slave girl is a luxury (and also, often, a source of income). A man can rarely afford to own more than one slave. Having two or more is therefore a clear sign of wealth. As for the price of slaves, I’ll talk about that in this article, but we’ll come back to it later. Just know that, as in the Gallo-Roman world or ancient China, owning slaves is a commodity that 95% of people can’t afford! Only prosperous craftsmen and littles merchants can own one, only wealthy notables have two or three, and only master merchants, the heads of large financial companies, the highest civil or military officers and city or war chiefs, can have a whole stock or a complete harem!

That’s why I used to sneer at certain descriptions in the novels, of hordes of slaves massed here and there like worthless cattle. But it’s a paradox found in the Gallo-Roman world: a slave was worth the price of two years’ wages for a soldier, but there were hundreds of thousands of them, belonging to a few thousand people, out of a total population of Rome in the 3rd century that happily exceeded one million. Wealth was concentrated in very few hands, so slaves were the property of this ultra-minority, wealthy elite. It’s not incoherent that things are quite similar on Gor.

Which, incidentally, also explains the propensity of Gorean men to go on raids, razzias, duels, etc. to obtain one, for want of having the means to buy one: owning a slave is an outward sign of social success! What’s more, you can sell her when you need money!

A slave girl’s education is often sketchy, and to have one who is fully educated will be very costly. The requirement of masters that their kajira represents them and satisfies them in everything is a standard of importance. A desirable and desired slave girl, docile and intelligent, helpful, educated in the arts, and conversational, increases the pride and honor of the man who owns her. And above all, the investment in her education and improvement will make her a highly prized kajira, with a very attractive financial value.

2- Gor’s slavers

Now that we’ve cleared the ground, let’s get to the heart of the matter: slavers. And let’s dispel a common misconception: it’s not glamorous. And let me digress for a moment:

The problem of the role in Gor

The role of slaver, in Gor SL’s role-playing sims, is surely one of the most overused and thankless roles you’ll ever play. In fact, I consider it to be the most difficult role to learn and play, above that of the pleasure kajira, which is difficult enough.

Overused, because this role tends to attract idiots eager to express their more or less sexist domination and their freedom to humiliate and hurt, or who want to create their own little personal harem. Which of course is the worst reason to play a slaver, and the best way to fail, creating drama and disappointment.

Ungrateful because, for slavers whose interest really lies in showcasing the intense, exhausting work involved in training and managing apprenticed slaves, and ensuring their reception, trade and all the roleplay and OOC complications that go with it, they’ll have to deal both with slaves who don’t want to understand or learn their role, and with masters who will want to impose their whims and decisions on them.

A bad slaver exhausts, disgusts and drives away female kajirae players. A good slaver is exhausted and disgusted by bad kajirae and masters players. In short, as far as you’re aware, this is a role where you’re really going to have to impose limits and barriers in the way you manage your role and the players in your care… and a word of personal advice: never accept more than five slaves to train at a time. You’ll have a hard enough time of it as it is, and more than five is a recipe for failure through overwork or an inability to share your time and effort.

End of parenthesis!

The slaver caste

The slaver is a slave trader; his business assets is a commodity, a product, livestock, in fact, with costs for maintenance, training, transport and food. Every slave has to be profitable, and the aim is to make a margin on them. So the romanticism of slavery quickly takes its toll.

And to add to the complexity of the business, the slaver is selling a product that needs to be damaged as little as possible, and tends to want to damage itself quite quickly. Delicacy or thoughtfulness on the slaves is more a risk of financial loss than anything else. An oversight of safety, a thoughtful weakness, and the slave injures, maims or kills herself, or causes an accident or kills another. And we’re not even talking about the health risks: one case of cholera, one girl with tuberculosis, and an entire cage, or even the whole farm, is condemned, and risks spreading the contamination.

Very quickly, then, the slaver must assume that if a slave has to be destroyed (the deliberately demeaning term used for putting to death), there’s no quibbling about it. And even less so to subdue and break every captive who is not yet docile, to ensure that she is no longer a danger to anyone or herself, and will prove trainable, educable and saleable.

The obvious pragmatism of the situation leaves slavers no choice. If a gorean likes to subdue and train her slave girl himself (all goreans know the basics of training, it’s part of their upbringing), will take his time, and appreciate her rebellion which he may let last as long as it amuses him before breaking her, the slaver doesn’t have this luxury. He has to do things quickly, and well. Time is money, and the more time passes, the greater the risk of losing it. That doesn’t make slavers cruel or sadistic. A girl who has been mistreated, abused or raped is likely to end up insane with fear – it’s very common for this to happen to Earth girls, who are more fragile – and then she’ll have to be destroyed. Dry financial loss. Not good for business. Not good for reputation. On the other hand, it makes for tough, ruthless men. In any case, even less so than the average gorean, and especially within their business.

We can distinguish, although it’s not striking in the novels, a few main types of slavers:

The wholesale merchant: this is exactly what’s described above. He works in a corporation with employees, colleagues and trainers, will probably do without Educatrice slaves, and deals in large quantities. He’s an outfitter, often close to hunters, with his own dealers, seams and networks.

The luxury trainer: owns, or is a member of a guild that owns, a House of Slaves, with all the refinements and means to train and educate slaves, most often Pleasure slaves. Within these walls, the most beautiful girls on the market are treated better than in any other type of enclosure, but subjected to the cruelest, most rigorous and demanding apprenticeships, which will turn them into prized slaves, trained by renowned Educators, and instructors in science and the arts.

Village slavers: any small town or large village can be home to high castes and people who can afford to buy slaves. Village slavers are the poor relation of the first two, without this being pejorative. Their profession is indispensable for training and ensuring the health and well-being of slaves who, sick or unhappy, would be useless. Village slavers manage few girls, sell few, and won’t earn fortunes, but their profession is respected and their activity necessary, rewarded and in demand.

City cage slaver: employed by the city, he manages the public cages and kennels and the slaves that belong to the city’s public services and that private individuals can rent for various uses. He is also in charge of welcoming slaves placed in cages by their traveling owners. He doesn’t really do training and education work, but mainly stock management.

The breeding master: pedigree breeding slaves have existed for millennia, and breeding houses are highly reputed. Their description can be found as early as the third novel (Assassins of Gor). The master breeder is an entrepreneur who manages the reproduction, breeding, selection and training of a precious herd of varying size.

The Acquisition Trip intermediary: very rare, this is a slaver in contact with the agents of the priest-kings (or, much more rarely, the kurii), who supplies himself with Terran captives. He’s well acquainted with this trade, undoubtedly knows Earth to a greater or lesser extent, a few Terran languages, has even been there, is versed in a small part of what’s known as the Third Knowledge and protects this secret well. It’s a rank highly regarded by slavers, but with a mysterious aura, and viewed with suspicion by the rest of the profession.

Solidarity and brotherhood among slavers is strong. From guild to guild, from city-state to city-state, every slaver guild protects, respects and helps its own, and even between slavers from competing cities, reputation and respect are the norm. The slavers of the biggest corporations have armadas and whole armies if need be, but war doesn’t concern them, and they’ll always prefer to avoid it. It’s not good for business. Unless, of course, you’re not involved and you’re harvesting catches to sell.

For the record, the color of the slavers, which is a sub-caste of the merchants, though practically independent, is blue and yellow. Slavers don’t necessarily wear these colors, but they do on their standards and in their ceremonial dress.

Slavers’ equipment

The slaving trade requires a great deal of investment, which is why members of this caste always work together in guilds, with a strong caste fraternity. They have their own investors and transport networks, all subject, of course, to the control of the merchant caste.

A slaver needs space. He needs a slave house: a building capable of housing his live stock, cages sheltered from the elements, training rooms, a showroom, offices, kitchens, baths, dormitories and bedrooms for his staff. That’s why slavers never work alone. Only private slavers who work for a wealthy notable don’t need all this, as the means are provided by their boss.

But for everyone else, we’re talking about an investment of tens of gold coins, not to mention stock! That’s why slavers band together to share the cost, and why a slaver often starts out as an assistant, or hunter, then stock trader, before gaining enough fame and influence to find an investor. Only then can he open his own slave house, where other slavers will work for him, hoping, in turn, to become slave house masters.

Women slavers

The slaver caste includes women in its ranks. They are not simply the wives of slavers; some are single or widowed and run their businesses like the men. They are few in number, never part of capture expeditions, and always surround themselves with men they can trust to make sure the people they enslave don’t get into trouble. Finally, they train relatively few pleasure kajirae, but rather service and companion kajirae for women, fighting slaves and gladiators. However, there are a few examples, such as those of the Ladies Gina and Tima, renowned and almost revered in their profession, who have no qualms about training kajirae for pleasure at terrible prices.

It’s still a difficult role… forget the domina look and the pants with the whip, thank you! Slave women are even more careful about their modesty and honor than many High-Caste women! They’re also very tough and always cold, their social role requiring them to stand up to men, whether free or slaves.

Some quotes:

– Open your mouth,” said one of the women.
I opened my mouth. She pushed up under my upper teeth with her thumb. The dresses and veils she wore were graceful, with silky highlights. They were mostly blue and yellow in their colors, which are the colors of slavers. As the ravishing sleeve of her dress fell back, I saw, on her left wrist, a heavy black leather bracelet, studded with metal. Her eyes were dark and ominous, shrewd, fierce. They assessed objectively and ruthlessly. I had little doubt that, in her own field, she would be as formidable, if not more formidable, than Dame Gina. I’d never met her eyes. She, like Dame Gina, when she decided to be stern, frightened me. Such women, I knew, would treat me with the utmost rigor. They would pay no heed to men who were so miserable as to fall under their yoke as slaves.

…

 I saw many women looking at Dame Tendite almost breathless, enraptured by her beauty. It was then that I realized just how brilliant the slave driver who was my mistress really was. The women in the stands, almost overwhelmed with excitement, identified with Dame Tendite. Although it was she who stood there, it was they who, in their imagination, exposed the shameful Ta-Teera and stood on the planks the slave dais.
Lady Tendite smiled and raised her hand to the crowd. Perhaps it was only then that she realized that her beauty had not been an accessory in her hiring by Dame Tima. I looked at the women in the stands…. Later, they clearly identified with Dame Tendite, and her beauty, as the slave wearing the collar. The Lady Tima appealed to this impulse, she exploited something deep in the women that she, as a slave, understood well: the intimate, throbbing desire, deep in women, to be the slave of a strong man, to be mastered and to find herself under the yoke of obedience.

Fighting slave of Gor, page 8

 Most women slavers, by the way, are not involved in field captures. It is, on the whole, too dangerous for them. Plus, there’s always the danger that they’ll end up being added to the catch by their men. Most women slavers are therefore based in towns, where they own or manage houses. There, they buy and sell slaves, board or rent them, train them, and so on. Statistically, there are very few women slavers. Most Gorean women tend to be attractive, and most Gorean men tend to be strong, for example. Therefore, in an enterprise such as slavery, it’s not unusual for a female slaver, sooner or later, to somehow find the collar on her own neck. Thus, she is as helpless under the whip as any other woman.

Players of Gor, page 86-87

3- Slave training

I’ll start with an absolute sentence: “A master trains, an educator educates.”

This sentence sums it all up. The bulk of the training, the harshest part, falls to the slaver. But the subtlety of long-term conditioning and education, once the slave is ready to receive it, is the task of specialized, educated slaves: the Educator. I’ll come back to them later.

The first step in training a captive is to subdue her, to crush any hint of rebellion. There are several methods of doing this, and every slaver has his or her own. In many cases, no more than a cage and a few days of harshness and patience are required. A Gorean woman knows, and understands, that to stay alive, she must submit and endure her enslavement, the first step towards acceptance and education. But sometimes it’s useful to have to use much harsher methods.

Common techniques soon emerge:

Branding: this is virtually systematic, and takes place in the hours or days following capture. However, branding may be the final event in the slave’s training, once she has been exhausted and made docile. Obviously, having a sign – usually the Kef, the stylized letter K of kajira, but this is not automatic – branded prominently on the left thigh is not only terribly painful, but also terribly psychologically damaging. The kajira is kept tied to a cross, board or stand provided for the purpose, sees the iron heated to white, is shown it, and then it is placed on her skin, for about five seconds, before a bowl of cold water, once the burn is complete, is thrown over the live wound, sometimes followed by the slave-driver who comes over and traces the mark with his thumb to remove the burnt parts and refine it neatly. Yes, it’s excruciating. Occasionally, on rare occasions, the wound becomes infected, and the slave ends up destroyed if it cannot be healed.

The cage: another compulsory step, the cage is a sure-fire way of isolating a slave and, once chained and locked up, protecting her from herself. The cage restricts movement, and quickly leads to profound isolation. The slave will often come to know the cage, and will have to accept it naturally. A slave who is locked up, deprived of food or water, or simply undernourished, will quickly give in.

Deprivation of food and hygiene: within a few days, a slave who is dying of hunger and thirst and can only relieve herself underneath her, in the straw of her cage, will agree to eat from the master’s hand. Undernourished, exhausted by the cage and its infamous living conditions, she will eventually get down on her knees and allow herself to be fed obediently.

The slave box: a terrible way to break a slave is a closed, isolated box, only ventilated so that the slave doesn’t suffocate. Small in size, she lies prostrate in the dark and silence, dirty and soiled, and only comes out on a leash and on all fours to be fed and watered. It doesn’t take long before, by dint of howling, rebelling and crying, she unresistingly submits.

Drowning: another violent method, requiring great control, is drowning, to subdue the slave and show her that her life can cease at any moment. After a few days of drowning, she learns the fear of dying so forcefully that she is quickly subdued.

The whip: also violent, the method consists in whipping her almost systematically, the rest of the time locked up in a cage. Every slave will be whipped at least once. Each rebellion leads to a whipping – a flat whip, or slave whip, so as not to damage her – the first time the whip is given long and hard, as a first gratuitous act that teaches her pain, and the fear of reliving it. Rarely, the snake whip may be used, but it’s terribly painful, and easily tears the skin, leaving scars that won’t go away. It’s rarely used, and it’s the most violent and considered barbaric method of breaking a slave.

The slave goad: also often used by educators (like the whip), the pain is terrible, and a slave goad can kill with long, painful shocks that cause terrible spasms. But it has the well-used advantage of not damaging the slave, and is often even more cruel and frightening than the flat whip. The only problem is that it’s not a widely available weapon, and it’s expensive.

Humiliation: in front of an audience, or even in the middle of the street, in a square, on the deck of a ship, and therefore under the gaze of a large number of men, the slave is stripped, outraged and humiliated, or even taken by force or forced by the whip to surrender herself to the men. Stripped naked, exposed, palpated and touched, devoured by the gaze, mocked and commented upon, she sees her honor and pride shattered. Few resist, especially in conjunction with other harsh methods.

In all cases, the aim is for the slave to lose her dignity as a free woman, and to understand the inevitability and hopelessness of her fate. The more harshly and cruelly she is treated and abused, the sweeter her comfort will be when the first gestures and acts of reward come. She must fear, scream, rebel, weep, beg and finally give up begging, but accept her fate and understand that it is no longer in her hands, but in those of her Master. And that she therefore has one, who disposes of her and her life.

A Gorean free woman understands this in two or three days. She’ll fight out of pride and honor, out of principle – with a bit of luck, she’ll have bought enough time, perhaps, to be released for ransom. A Panther understands this in little more, except in rare cases. She’ll fight harder, and be treated all the more harshly. An Earthwoman, on the other hand, often unable to speak Gorean, may not understand it for one or even two weeks, and will only give in exhausted to the last degree, unless she is lucky enough to be able to speak her native language (and given the number of languages on Earth, this is not always easy, especially as Goreans are reluctant to use them). Often, too stubborn and blind, more fragile than the women of Gor, or trained by a slaver with little patience, she will die. On average, one to two in five do not survive. That’s why there are slavers specializing in earthwomen.

Yes, it’s atrocious when you put it that way. And, yes, it’s the reality of training on Gor. Cruel, primal and brutal, this training must break the slave, until she no longer has the courage, and the strength, for a time, to rebel. Once subdued, she’ll drop to her knees, head bowed, gaze down, as soon as she hears the command: Nadu, which will often have been used to teach her the first of the rules: always kneel before your master. And she will obediently eat from his hand without using her fingers. These are the signs that her docility has been acquired, and that she has probably given up her freedom. Her education can then begin, under the watchful eye of the slavers.

If you want to go further, here’s an article that describes in detail how a gorean trains a slave, with steps and methodologies.

4- Slave education

At this stage, out of twenty captives, at least one has died. Illness, exhaustion, madness or enough willpower to manage to mortally wound or kill themselves, but that’s reality too. And it doesn’t amuse the slaver, who loses money in the process. A good slaver is one who loses as few slaves as possible at this stage. If this were a batch of Earth women, the slaughter would be far more serious. One Terran woman in 5 dies in the first year of captivity on Gor.

Matured and trained slaves earn their first rewards. She’ll be able to sleep on a mat, or even with a blanket, and her wrists will no longer be tied behind her back to prevent her from harming herself or others. She will still be kept on a leash for several days, and still firmly attached to a ring. She’ll also be able to wash herself. In general, and for several more days, she will only be fed by the master, or in his presence. And she’ll never be fed more than tasteless porridge, and possibly a little fruit.

This is where the Educator’s task begins. She is there to teach the perfection of the slave’s first gestures and postures, and to supervise and ensure his conditioning. I’ll let Norman’s quotes speak for themselves in describing this education:

“The conditioning was subtle as well as crude, for it was not limited to the combination of a system of punishments and rewards; the young women were also inculcated with an image and conception of themselves. This began, in rudimentary form, in the first two weeks of their education. During the first week, curiously enough, the pupils did nothing but remain on their knees, in the position of the Slave of Pleasure, for several ahns a day, in front of a large mirror. During this time, they wore only their collars and, in the case of Phyllis and Virginia, their left ankle rings. The purpose of this exercise, or so Elizabeth and I assumed, was to accustom the young women to thinking of themselves as slaves. During the second week, kneeling in the same way, they had to repeat the ritual phrase: “I am a slave. I am a slave. I am a slave.” Virginia and Phyllis, by necessity, did so in English and Elisabeth in Gorean. During the third week, the teaching became a little more subtle; Flaminius visited the young women during class and expounded, first in English and later in Gorean, certain points of history, natural rights, categories of human beings and relations between the sexes. The aim of these speeches was, of course, to convince them that what had happened to them conformed to certain laws of competition between species, of conflict and domination, of the justified order of nature. They were the wives of inferior men who had proved incapable of protecting them; such men could be defeated if one wished; their wives belonged to those who could take them, to the victors; consequently, they were slaves by nature; this type of enslavement had always existed and always would; it was right and good that, as slaves by nature, they should devote all their energy and intelligence to providing pleasure for their masters; there was also a strong dose of male superiority and a widespread Gorean conception, justified by many arguments, according to which women are, by nature, slaves, deserve their fate and are only fully satisfied, happy, when considered as such. ”

(Gor’s Assassins)

.” Slave education continued. After a period devoted entirely to exercises, it came to elements such as attitude, gait, kneeling, lying down, eating and drinking. Grace and beauty, according to Sura, and I won’t question her competence in this field, are above all a question of expression of the body as well as the face.”

(Gor’s Assassins)

.” I was pleased to note, however, that Elisabeth was learning many things that, from my point of view, were far more necessary for a slave, including numerous dances, dozens of songs and an incredible amount of different caresses and kisses. The various techniques in her repertoire, which theoretically made her capable of providing delectable pleasures to anyone from the Ubar to the Peasant, are far too complex and elaborate for me to outline here. However, I don’t think I’ve missed a single one.”

(Gor’s Assassins)

In a few weeks, the slave girl, exhausted and pushed to her limits, is conditioned to accept and assume what she is: a Kajira, pet, property and object of her master, dedicated to pleasing and doing so with all her might. She is conditioned to accept, as an object, that she can be sold, given away and exchanged, and that whichever master she serves, her only and greatest desire is to please him.

For pleasure slaves, the education may end with a long, exhausting and complex initiation to pleasures and total sexual and sensitive disinhibition. She will no longer be able to hide her emotions, and will have learned not to be able to hold back tears, sadness, pleasures and sorrows. So any man can read an open-book slave simply by her body, her face and her eyes. Even more than never lying, she can hide nothing.

In any case, even if the slave-girl is well treated after her terrible training and relentless education, and even more so if she is destined to be sold at a high price, she is subjected to an iron discipline. She is rarely allowed to frolic (a privilege she must earn), to talk to other slaves, and is constantly reminded of her status. Slavers and Educators will show her no tenderness whatsoever that is not strictly necessary for her education. The aim is to make her want to fight and learn so that she can have a better life, owned by a master who may be less implacable, more patient, gentler or more magnanimous. Unluckily, it won’t always be for a better life, while this conditioning, in itself, encourages her to easily love with devotion and timidity the master who will buy her.

The stimulation cage, the luxury of education

Once this stage of education has been reached, the last stage generally takes place, but it’s not very common, and can be considered as a last luxury training, the Stimulation Cage:

The stimulation cage is a comfortable, low cage, richly adorned with furs, fabrics and cloths, beautiful and pleasant, open for all to see, but where the slave-girl cannot stand up without having to lower her head considerably, and where she is forbidden both to speak and to look up at anyone. There, an educator feeds her, further initiates her into pleasures, and teaches her to use make-up, beauty products, combs, hair and body oils, perfumes, to enhance her beauty and give her a love of refinement and pomp, while accentuating solitude, isolation, and the desire to be placed in the hands of a man and offered to him.

Usually, within a few weeks, her shyness, desire and restraint turn her into a slave as gentle as she is beautiful and desirable, quivering at the slightest breath, her body totally and permanently awake. However, the stimulation cage remains the prerogative of the richest and most luxurious slavers, and so few pleasure slaves achieve this refinement of training, before beginning the general culture training necessary to raise their price.

A luxury pleasure kajira will spend between three weeks and three months in this cage, carefully trained and educated, but isolated and solitary most of the time. It’s a final form of sophisticated conditioning that will produce a submissive, timid kajira, with an alert body, eager for gentleness, tenderness and submission, and, above all, totally imbued with her state as a pleasure animal.

5- The educated slave

On Gor SL, it’s not uncommon to see kajirae become Free Women or Panthers, adapting to their new role in a day or two. Or slaves acting rebellious long after they’ve been trained and educated with great care (at least in appearance). Clearly, it’s hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone who’s undergone such training. It’s ruthless conditioning, which is truly an elaborate form of brainwashing, very comparable also to the way we train animals, like dogs.

But I hope that after reading this story, you’ll have understood that, in the end, a slave-girl remains one forever, and that she can’t change at the snap of a finger. It will be almost impossible to break such conditioning, because the slave-girl is totally dependent on the feeling of belonging to a master, of being a possessed animal. A well-educated slave girl is first and foremost completely conditioned to feel inferior, to be an animal, to be timid and docile. She is trained to obey without thinking, to express desire, to let the most exacerbated femininity and sexuality speak for itself.

Somehow, despite her intelligence and autonomy, her condition is a necessity. Slavers and Educators have taught her to shed all control, modesty and inhibition. Her sensuality is so intense, she can be on the verge of orgasm with a simple glance, a breath or a kiss. She needs sex, she can’t do without it, and depriving her of it is the worst punishment of all. She’ll do everything in her power to be used sexually, without ever daring to provoke a Master into using her.

(…) These devices, incidentally, are sometimes used by slaves who hate their masters but whose bodies, trained for love, cannot withstand the absence of male caresses. These women, despite their hatred, sometimes offer larma, furious with themselves but powerless, prisoners of their slave desires, forced to beg on their knees for the caress of a rough master who enjoys the horror of their situation; will he satisfy them? If he will, yes; if he will not, no. These women are nothing but slaves.

(The Tribes of Gor)

It’s hard, if you’re willing to consider the true weight of this conditioning, to become proud again, cold and frigid in appearance, or rebellious and hateful of men, when you fall to your knees under their single, steady gaze, your body trembling with fear and mixed desire. It takes a lot to break such a powerful and intimate hold, which is almost like a drug.

And that hold soon reappears. A trained and educated slave girl remains so forever; her heart can never be the cold, hard, proud heart of a Free woman. It’s much more by virtue of this reality, than for questions of honor or principle -even if no Gorean will admit it- that the adage circulates: “only a fool frees a slave.” Quite simply, because it’s often a terrible punishment rather than a gift.

6- The sale of slaves.

Now that the slaver has finished his work, he needs to sell his product, so let’s talk money and sales. It’s pretty clear that, depending on the level of education he’s provided, he’s had plenty out of his own pocket, and expects to pay back his expenses. Especially since it’s not uncommon, even belatedly, to see a slave who was thought to be well-trained die or be seriously injured. A final burst of rebellion sometimes reappears, a risk that can endanger the other slaves, including the Educatrices. And sometimes it ends badly.

I’ve done a quick calculation for you, and taking into account labor time and expenses, a fully-educated pleasure slave costs the slaver around 15 to 16 silver (ZcS standard, so at least 1,5 silver in the decimal system). And a summarily trained slave? Around 2 or 3 silver (ZcS) or 3 coppers (decimal). These are not small sums, and the slaver has to get the best possible price for them to make his business profitable.

No slave is ever sold at a fixed price. We always haggle, and always with the slave present and exposed naked, who must show herself completely and without modesty, as ravishing and desirable as possible.

There are lots of ways to sell, so I’m only going to mention the two most public ways:

Stage sales: the first case is akin to selling livestock. Except that the cattle are human. The slave is on his knees, head bowed, in the posture of pleasure slaves, raising his head to say to the potential buyer: “Buy me, Master.”

Traditionally, the interested buyer then calls the seller, and the girl is shown and examined in detail, along with her medical papers, and pedigree if she comes from a breeding. During this time, the price is discussed. The price is rarely displayed on the girl. On the other hand, basic information about the girl is often displayed on a wooden or slate plaque: her role, her education, her age, her origin, for example.

Note that, depending on the buyer’s face, the slave will have said the ritual phrase more or less loudly, with more or less passion, to avoid being bought by a guy with a vicious look, for example. Slave, yes, but not stupid…

The “Curulean” sale: named after Ar’s prestigious slave auction house, this is an auction. Slaves are paraded around a sawdust-covered dais, where the girls on display are the highest-priced slaves. Depending on whether the sale is for the general public or reserved for a party of wealthy guests, the slaves are often made to dance, frequently the whip dance.

There are no descriptive signs around the slaves’ necks, only numbers. Leaflets are distributed to spectators and auction participants, describing, often in detail and with many compliments, each kajira, which is thus recognized by its number.

In these auction rooms and on these stages, bidding can reach fever pitch in an electric hubbub of passion and desire, with males driven mad by the slave-girls stoking their lust. That’s why there are always henchmen, as fights are not uncommon. And while a pleasure slave is generally worth 5 tarsk of silver (25 according to the ZcS meter), it’s not uncommon at these auctions for their price to happily exceed one tarn of gold!

There are also cases of very reserved private sales, for distinguished guests, where finely-trained pleasure slaves are offered for sale at prices that defy the purse of most men.

Goreans prefer a deflowered slave to a virgin, who will inevitably be less initiated into the pleasures expected of a Kajira sold for this. However, Norman still contradicts himself from time to time, and on the face of it, many Goreans could pay a lot of money for a luxury pleasure slave who is still a virgin.

The price of slaves

To better understand the prices below, I urge you to read the article on ZcS prices for products and services. For the prices that follow are all in reference to the ZcS meter monetary system.

Prices are for slaves auctioned at their base price. Slave prices can soar to astronomical sums. The most expensive price mentioned in the novels is 1,000 tarn gold, but prices for kajirae of pleasure at 10 or 20 tarn gold are not even exceptional.

As a reminder, breeding slaves are carefully selected with genuine pedigrees that can go back generations. These slaves are inevitably the most expensive on Gor, but the sale of the daughter of a high enemy dignitary represents, by virtue of its prestige, a sum that can sometimes become insane.

You’ll note that the price list doesn’t mention any of the “silk” colors I’d come back to, nor any of the specific slave types often discussed on Gor SL. For good reason:

1- Silk colors don’t exist. It’s an onlinism. We only distinguish between virgin slaves (white silk, which is a nickname for slaves) and deflowered slaves (red silk). Color means nothing, and a slave girl doesn’t wear red to signify her condition. In a pinch, it’s common for a virgin to wear a little white ribbon on her collar to signify that she’s White Silk, and therefore not supposed to be used sexually.

2- Except for kajirae of passion and exotic kajirae, a slave is bought for a function. And just because she was an expert and educated pleasure slave, doesn’t mean she won’t end up as a lathe girl or laborer. If her new master doesn’t recognize her talent, he can do whatever he likes with her.

Prices are piling up. A pedigree pleasure slave from a breeding farm is easily worth 60 S. Women with red hair, and especially auburn, are sought-after, as are women with jet-black hair. A high-slave is a kind of luxury pleasure kajira for the wealthiest high castes, often trained in the arts, dance and music. An exotic is a slave with rare physical or mental traits, such as the ignorant virgins of men in Assassins of Gor, albinos, or slaves with poisoned saliva or zebra skin, as in Prize of Gor.

(S: silver tarsk, G: gold tarn). For prices according to the classic decimal system, divide by 10.

• Barbarian (non-Terran) without training: 2 S
• Pedigree breeding slave (passion slave): 40 S
• Combat slave: 35 S
• Exotic: 1 G
• Panther woman: 25 S
• Coin girl: 5 S
• Kettle Girl: 5 S
• Farm girl: 3 S
• High-caste daughter: 50 S
• Daughter born of Ubar: 5 G
• Forçat: 4 S
• High slave: 1 G
• Kajira of pleasure: 20 to 25 S
• Kajiru of pleasure: 30 S
• Tower Kajira: 15 S
• Terran: 25 S

Some other modifiers:

• Juvenile slave or virgin: juvenile slaves and virgin girls always command a lower base price, as goreans don’t attribute virtue to virginity, except for certain particular tastes.
• Exceptional beauty: inevitably sought-after, exceptional beauty can vary according to regional desires, tastes and expectations, but a girl of great beauty will inevitably be fiercely envied and easily double the price of the kajira.
• Red or black hair: Goreans are attracted to girls with red hair, and especially auburn or jet-black hair. Of course, we’re talking about natural hair coloring; it’s highly frowned upon, even illegal, to dye a slave’s hair to sell it.
• Second-hand/wholesale slaves: slaves for the simplest labor, either too old or young for other uses, or sold wholesale following massive raids or destocking. They’re usually worth half the price.

7- Resources & tips

If you want to play the role of a slaver, you need to know the role of kajira! It sounds silly to say it this way, but I’ve come across a number of players who want to play the role of slaver who know nothing about the role of Gor’s slave girls.

So, my advice is simple! Learn what a kajira is, and the role as played, to understand it! Talk to players who play Kajira, and experienced players who can help you get into the role of slaver and understand the stakes and responsibilities. Yes, it’s difficult, yes, you’ll have to read a lot. Welcome! It’s the same for kajirae, believe me.

And if you want to play a slave driver because you like humiliating and being sadistic, or you want to have your own harem… change your mind. Please don’t spoil the fun for other players, who are trying to share their game and their fun with everyone, in a consensual and respectful way.

Here’s a list of articles to read to find out how to learn your role as a slaver:

• Gor’s slave-girls, principles & game guide
• Slave training & education
• Slave’s rules
• Commands and postures
• The Slave’s Heart
• Slavery gear and attire