Understandings...

As I have continued in my search to understand masculinity, I've come to realize that people who come to have natural control don't need to create it artificially.  To those who have natural control, control isn't an objective.  It's just a part of life, like the color blue is part of a beautiful tapestry.  They don't have to look for people or things to control, they influence people, things, and the environment without really making it a conscious effort.

Control and influence are a part of man's nature.  Men who haven't discovered natural control crave the control they don't have.  Some men have found that creating artificial control appeals to that craving.  That artificial control becomes a conscious objective for them because they crave it and don't have it.

So if you find a man who is consciously pursuing control, chances are he doesn't have it.  The man who has natural control doesn't need to pursue it; it flows to him because it is natural for him.

Looking for someone who will obey you is an effort to create artificial control.  Discovering that someone is obeying you is natural control.

I just saw the film Twelve Thirty.  It was a very weird film—it didn't follow the Hollywood formula at all, and I didn't really understand where the movie was going... until I heard the song playing during the credits (Shape Shifter by Keri Noble—play here: Shape Shifter ).  It's a film about how different real women (who are complex) are from the unnaturally ideal woman (who is simple) sought by some men.  The characters in the film were portrayed so complex that the complexity became their only character trait, and so the characters became shallow, but that's part of the creator's effort to make the point.  Unfortunately, when women try to become the unnaturally ideal woman, they stop being real, and they stop being themselves.

So these men that are looking for someone to artificially control, the only ones they find who are willing to submit to them are the ones that don't have a healthy sense of self, who are willing to become what someone else wants them to be, rather realizing the incredible value that is already within them.

So the non-control (and therefore unrealized) men find the unhealthy (and therefore unrealized) women.  They both try to become something they are not.  They become Shape Shifters.  What kind of fulfillment does that relationship create?

The song describes a man seeking artificial control.

The way for these men and women to find fulfillment?  To realize that who they are is not who they think they are, and to start discovering who they really are.  You can't find what really fulfills you until you find out who you really are, until you really understand yourself.

For the man who does not know natural control, simple women are easy.  Complex women are scary.  Just ask Jeff.

I Did Not Know Myself

Because I am still not clear on what is going on myself, this post is unapologetically scattered and written more in a stream-of-consciousness style than with any particular strategy.  Enjoy the mess.

The past two weeks have been riddled with emotional upheaval.  I wrote recently about my search for a Torvaldsland Experience, my quest to become a Gorean Man.   The search hasn’t been an idle one, and a short while ago I came across a little piece of work called No More Mr. Nice Guy, by Robert A. Glover.  Listening to the audiobook has been like traversing an emotional mine field; I was thrown into a hall-of-mirrors maelstrom as I came to see myself, my soul, my persona, my psyche, my personal id, ego, and superego in raw and painful new ways.

Listening to the audiobook had a profound effect on me.  Like someone peering into a long forgotten, musty old attic, the journey uncovered things in my soul that I had no idea were there, but were immediately recognizable once they were brought into the light of day.

In various places throughout the Gorean chronicles, John Norman laments the negative and corrosive effects that society’s effeminate training of men has had on individuals and on society as a whole.  In No More Mr. Nice Guy, Dr. Robert Glover (completely unaware of anything to do with Gor, I’m sure) delves briefly into this trend, explaining concisely what aspects of society have contributed to the change in how boys are brought up to be men.

More importantly, Dr. Robert Glover explains the impact of self-deception and self-destruction this trend has had on the masculine psyche and ultimately, how to move beyond the destructive training.

I have heard a lot of people talk about how a master is not made, he is born.  I have always felt that this wasn’t accurate, that almost all men are masculine by nature.  I have always felt that, in general, every man has a masculine soul, and that if he found a way to uncover and encourage it, he could realize that mastery of his own life.  But the whole process of gaining that mastery was quite nebulous.  This work has clarified quite a bit of the process for me.

This book did not show me what it is to be a man.  As I was digging through my frustration with that fact, I came to realize that this is a good thing.  Each man is an individual, with unique characteristics and qualities.  What it did explain is what man is not.  Once I have removed everything from me that man is not, everything that is holding me back from being a man, I am left with the freedom to be myself.  To be the man that I am.  For I am a Man.

When I was a boy, I was a Mr. Nice Guy poster child.  I did not know myself.  By the time I discovered Gor 15 years ago, I had made some steps forward out of the illusion that being a Nice Guy was a good thing.  But I was still mostly blind.

My first contact with the brusque men of the #Silk&Steel channel on DALnet resonated strongly within me.  For the first time in my life, I felt the raw edge of confident masculinity.  I wanted to be like these men.  I wanted to be with these men.  So I started hanging around the place, learning what it meant to be a man.  I have continued that roller-coaster journey with varying degrees of intensity since then.

With the soul-stirring discoveries I’ve made as I’ve experienced No More Mr. Nice Guy, I have decided it’s finally time to step away from Gor and the whole master/slave dynamic.  Gor has a very particular flavor of masculinity; my understanding of my own nature is critical enough to me that I want my discoveries to be unbiased by artificially constructed paradigms.  And as close as the Gorean philosophy may be to human nature, it remains an artificially constructed paradigm.

I want to find my true self.  Once I really find myself, I may be back.  There may be a place for Gor in my life at that time.  Then again, there may not.  Until then, farewell.

Penned by

Jennen

The Shriveled Belly Part II: The Uncollared Slave

This is one part of a several-part piece written to help women understand what to expect as slaves.

The Uncollared Slave:  The key thing to remember here is that you have not surrendered.  Until you have surrendered and taken a collar you do not have the priviledge of abandoning your judgement when you interact with a man.  You are responsible and accountable for your own well-being.  The man does not take on that responsibility until you surrender, until you take on his collar.

There are a wide variety of men that engage slaves, online and off, in and outside of Gor.  Among these men, even among the noble men of Gor, there are those that would be healthy for you to surrender to, and those that would be unhealthy for you to surrender to.  Part of that is a function of who you are, and part of it is a function of who they are.  One woman might thrive and flourish under a man who humiliates her; another would absolutely be destroyed.  It is up to you, and no one else, to discover whether serving a particular man is fulfilling, healthy, and joyful for you.

As an uncollared slave it is your right to refuse, to say "No" at any time.  You have not surrendered your will to a man's collar, and cannot abdicate that right until you do so.  When a man instructs you to do something that you feel would be a negative experience for you, you must think about what that would do to you, and whether it would be healthy for you to continue serving this man.

You may choose to acquiesce (in fact you will likely do so), to obey to see where this instruction takes you, but your alarm bells should be ringing and you should be very sensitive to how the relationship develops.  You may find, when you have completed the questionable instruction, that you have discovered a new part of yourself, a deeper, more lovely part of you that lay dormant before.  If this is your experience, then you may find a deeper trust in this man.

Or you may find that the experience has distanced you from your belly, that you feel less of a woman, less of a slave, that your emotions are dulled or that your life has become more stressful.  These signals are definitely red flags that should be heeded when evaluating service under a man.  These should also be red flags for the man you serve as an uncollared woman (unless the man is one who enjoys destroying women, in which case they would be green flags).

It is your responsibility to voice your experience of obeying his instruction.  An experienced, responsible man will make an effort to learn whether something works for you or not.  He will want to know how to keep you healthy.  Regardless, if you don't tell him what you are feeling, he can't respond to it, and it will be harder for you to discover whether he is healthy for you or not.    Don't expect him to apologize if the experience was negative for you.  Do watch to see whether he shifts his expectations of you to take this into account.

The fact that you have the right to say "No" doesn't mean that you should respond that way to every instruction you feel less than excited about (although there may be men that you decide to completely refuse interaction with, because of their destructive influence on you).  In fact, one would hope that your refusals would be very rare.  A man, even one who wants you to be healthy, wants to know that he is your first priority, that you are willing to sacrifice on his behalf.  He wants to know that you are willing to do something that is difficult for you in order to please him, that your desire to please, to please him specifically, is deep and abiding.*

Beyond the need to please a particular man, I would hope that in your nature as a slave you would be fulfilled by serving men in general, more so than refusing men in general.  And if that means every once in a while you end up with a dull man or one that just rubs you the wrong way, you serve him with a giving heart, even if he doesn't make your belly throb with lust and need.  Because that is who you are.  No, you wouldn't pursue time with him, because he's not right for you.  But in the common, everyday engagement, you'll be willing to bring him a bit of pleasure with all the others.

When you do find yourself thriving at man's feet, you'll discover that you feel safe allowing your walls to slip away.  You'll understand that the relationship moves forward at the will of the man you serve, and you will be willing to allow him to put you where he wants to.  You'll be surprised that some particular part of your life matters to him, because most men don't pay attention to it.  You'll find that he's establishing boundaries, rules and guidelines to bring you closer to the woman that you and he both want you to be.  He's keeping you on task, pushing you to follow through with things that you find difficult to complete on your own.

With this man there will be times when you feel uncomfortable, because he'll be pushing on your boundaries, on those things that are holding you back from being the most you can be.  There will also be times when you are thrilled beyond belief that you are pleasing this man, when your soul is vibrating, resonating with the power of the soul of this man.  As you let down your walls, and let him deeper into your soul, these are the types of questions you'll want to be asking:

• Does my well-being matter to this man?  What about the well-being of my loved ones?
• Is this the type of man that might take me away from my home?  If so, is this the type of man that would abandon me without means to care for myself?
• What is this man like at his worst?  Will he put me into the hospital?  Will he make me mentally or emotionally unstable?  Am I scared of him?
• Is this the type of man to get involved with my finances or my employment?  If so, does he care about my financial well-being?  What about my well-being in the workplace?
• Does this man have what it takes to take care of me and my unique needs?  Does he have the resources to do so (time, money, know-how, availability), or does he arrange for my needs to be met by others if he doesn't?  Are those arrangements healthy for me?
• Do I find the rest of my life suffering when I serve this man?  Or does it thrive?  Am I a better woman to all when I serve at this man's feet?
• Has this man owned other slaves?  What was their experience of him?  

You'll want to be asking these questions, because unless you and he have some agreement restricting his control, when you take on his collar you are giving him power over all these areas.  He will have the power to make you sing, and to make you sob.  He can take you to unbelievably incredible heights of passion and joy, and he can utterly destroy you and your life.  Whether he uses it or not, you surrender this power to him when you take on his collar, so know him very well before you beg for it.

Overall, the experience of an uncollared slave serving men is similar to an intricate dance.  The master exploring the slave, the slave exploring the master; touching, sensing, drawing together, drawing apart.  The man leading if and how he chooses, the woman choosing to follow, or abandoning the dance.  And if the woman follows the man to the end of the dance, she ends on her knees, begging him, "Master, this girl begs your collar."  If he decides to take her, she surrenders herself to him, body and soul, utterly and completely.  If she has truly played her part, has danced her dance, and really knows the man that now owns her, then she glories in her collar and in him.

(Continued)

*On a side note, I have often been disappointed by a slave who displays no emotional challenge in doing something that would usually be difficult for her.  If two women really like me, and I send them both away, I get more pleasure from the one that is sad to leave me, than the one who is excited to get back to the furs and her sisters.  And if I have a woman clean my boots with her tongue, it is a deep pleasure to have her do it willingly and with joy; it is also a deep pleasure to have her do it even though it really grosses her out, because she wants to please me.

The Shriveled Belly

Time and again, I've come across women who are struggling as slaves.  Some struggle with feeling lost, unfulfilled, dull, and listless, despite the steel around their neck.  Others are wounded—burned, because in seeking for a collar, they followed a man down a path that really, really hurt them.  And a few are feeling disillusioned, wondering if Gor isn't all it's cracked up to be, wondering if all that comes from Gor is pain and heartache.

As I've listened to these women share their stories, it's become more and more clear to me that a lot of the pain is coming from unfulfilled expectations.  A woman expects a particular experience to meet her needs, to fulfill her, to bring her joy, and it doesn't.  Often she casts around for a reason and may pick one from the variety that is available to her, but what she doesn't realize is that the experience she signed up for was never designed to meet her expectations in the first place.  She was doomed for pain at the outset.  By picking that particular experience, she was unwittingly picking a space of suffering.

I really don't like suffering.

So, in the interest of vanquishing suffering and sundry other unpleasantries, here are a few words on what women should expect from various common experiences they may encounter as they move forward. (Okay, so it's more than a few words.  I've split it into several posts.  It seems I get rather verbose when I'm on the soapbox.)

Her Surrender Still Haunts Me

She was my first slave, and the last one I ever loved.

She opened my eyes to what it really meant to be a Gorean slave. Her utter surrender was intoxicating. It caught my soul; its smoky fingers slipped in and tangled themselves into the fabric of my consciousness.

---

"A man? What kind of man are you?" An uncollared slave, she scorned me when we first met. I was new to Gor, still raw and unknowing.

But she was slave, and I cared little for her scorn. I used her just the same.

Over time, her vision shifted and she came to see something that she didn't see before. Not that she knew me better, but that she knew men better. And she started loving me.

---

Her surrender still haunts me.


I was her world, her Master. Her family, her work, her health, her life; she laid it all at my feet.

---

"Master, may I yield tonight as I think of you?" She wasn't mine, yet she had already given me her body, her heat, her desire, her use, her release. It was mine to command.

---

"Master, my son refuses to go see my ex-husband." She was mine, and I talked with her 18-year-old son about what it means to be a man. He acted as a man and stood by his decision.

---

"My boyfriend and I fight all the time, Master." I forbade her to argue with her boyfriend, to raise her voice. She was slave. He ended up knocking her down the stairs. I ached because my lack of experience put her in a bad situation. She bore the brunt of my mistake, my lack of understanding that drastic change in a relationship, without communication about that change, creates fear and often anger. I've never forgotten the role of communication again.

---

"Master, may I have permission to marry my boyfriend? He proposed to me yesterday." Even this intimate, lifechanging, intensely personal moment was given to me. We talked about the kind of man he was, and whether she wanted this type of man raising her six children. She didn't marry him.

---

"You may go now." She had announced her departure without begging leave, and was being disciplined for it on her belly, at my feet. She was there for a half hour before I released her. To go pick up her kids. They waited in front of the school for her, and she waited for me without saying a word.

---

"Master, my back hurts so bad..." She was crying because of the pain; her pain meds hadn't kicked in yet. We talked about how she wasn't getting an operation because the doctor said it was risky. So she scheduled an appointment to see just how risky it was.

A short time later I released her.

I didn't hear from her again, ever. Except one brief note, a while later.

"I'm going in for my operation today."

Damn the day I sent her away.

Wearin' the Robes

What is the deal with women who get their hearts broken running to the Robes of Concealment?

I spoke with a slave today.  She had developed an attraction towards a man, and he had broken her heart.  She was determined that she wouldn't get hurt again, so she got a capitalized nick and adopted the role of a free woman.  I've seen this happen again, and again, and again.

Unfortunately, the protection that comes with the Robes of Concealment is only an illusion.  Taking the role of a free woman won't keep her or any other women from broken hearts or pain.  At the very least, she still is a woman, and she still is attracted to strong men, and they can still break her heart.

But the issue goes deeper than that.  What this slave came to realize as we talked is that there is absolutely nothing that she can do to avoid getting hurt.  Zero.  Loss is an inevitable part of life.  Conflict is an inevitable part of life.  Misunderstanding, and change, and mistakes are all an inevitable part of life.  And more often than not, these things carry with them pain.  Pain is an inevitable part of life.  It cannot be avoided.

What we can do, however, is choose to experience joy and love and passion in our lives in between and occasionally even during the pain.  We can enjoy sweetness with the bitterness.

Running away from life doesn't take the pain from us.  Our fleeing does take us away from joy.  Pain is a given, joy is a choice.

For a slave, joy and fulfillment come from living as a slave to the best of her ability.  Serving men, pleasing them, enjoying their pleasure in her.  What opportunity does a free woman have to do these things?  If anything, she must hide, must do them in secret, begging for discretion lest her dalliances be discovered.  What joy, what fulfillment is there in this?  Little, if any, and only mixed with bitterness at that.

By taking on the Robes of Concealment, this slave was unwittingly barring herself from her greatest source of joy, her slavery.  She realized this as we talked, and followed my suggestion to drop the case of her nick and go enjoy the world as she was meant to.  She was much happier as she left to go please men.




P.S.  By the way, there is a way to shift some of the pain out of a slave's relationship with men.  If she continues to serve and please many men as she becomes attracted towards one, it will season her attraction, drawing out her exposure to that man.  The more exposure she can have to a man before she begs his collar, the better she will know whether that man will be one in whose collar she can be fulfilled.  The better she knows this, the more her choices in that collar will lead to joy rather than pain.  Although the depth of each woman's surrender depends on her own nature, for each woman, "the shorter the pursuit, the shallower the collar."

How Should One Live?

Somehow, in the north, in Torvaldsland, I had changed. This I knew. There was a different Tarl Cabot than ever there had been. Once there had been a boy by this name, one with simple dreams, naive, vain, one shattered by a betrayal of his codes, the discovery of a weakness where he had thought there was only strength. That boy had died in the delta of the Vosk; in his place had come Bosk of Port Kar, ruthless and torn, but grown into his manhood; and now there was another, one whom I might, if I wished, choose to call again Tarl Cabot. I had changed. Here, with the Forkbeard, with the sea, the wind, in his hall and in battle, I had become, somehow, much different. In the north my blood had found itself, learning itself; in the north I had learned strength, and how to stand alone.

In the north I had grown strong. I suddenly realized the supreme power of the united Gorean will, not divided against itself, not weak, not crippled like the wills of Earth. I felt a surge of power, of unprecedented, unexpected joy. I had discovered what it was to be Gorean. I had discovered what it was, truly, to be male, to be a man. I was Gorean.

p439, Marauders of Gor [Gor Series Book 9]
John Norman

Nine books. It took nine books for Tarl Cabot to become a true Gorean. Four years living among Goreans (10,119-10,122 Contasta Ar) before he found himself. It took four years of living directly among them, even with Tarl's incredible capacity to learn, to discover the his true Gorean Nature.

I am taking that journey. And while I likely will not find myself in Ko-Ro-Ba or in the Sardar Mountains or in Port Kar, I am following in Tarl's footsteps. I look forward to the day of my Torvaldsland experience.

When Tarl first arrived on Gor (Tarnsman of Gor) he was taught by men who knew Gor. His father Matthew Cabot, the Scribe Torm, and the Warrior Older Tarl. These men provided Tarl with an excellent foundation of skills for, and knowledge and understanding of how to live as a Gorean Warrior. They taught him how to interact with others, what others expected of him, and how to function successfully as a Gorean in Gorean society. They trained him in the skills necessary to do so.

He continued to be taught by others in the nuances of warfare skills in their particular culture. Among the desert tribes (Tribesmen of Gor) he learned to fight with the scimitar. Here, in Torvaldsland he learned to fight with the axe.

And others taught him in the nuances of being a man, as well.  The Forkbeard teaches Tarl about being a man as they play Kaissa.

"You should not have surrendered your Ax," said Forkbeard.

"In not doing so," I said, "I would have lost the tempo, and position. Too, the Ax is regarded as less valuable in the end game."

"You play the Ax well," said Forkbeard. "What is true for many men may not be true for you. The weapons you use best perhaps you should retain."

I thought on what he had said. Kaissa is not played by mechanical puppets, but, deeply and subtly, by men, idiosyncratic men, with individual strengths and weaknesses. I recalled I had, many times, late in the game, regretted the surrender of the Ax, or its equivalent in the south, the Tarnsman, when I had simply, as I thought rationally, moved in accordance with what were reputed to be the principles of sound strategy. I knew, of course, that game context was a decisive matter in such considerations, but only now, playing Forkbeard, did I suspect that there was another context involved, that of the inclinations, capacities and dispositions of the individual player. Too, it seemed to me that the Ax, or Tarnsman, might be a valuable piece in the end game, where it is seldom found. People would be less used to defending against it in the end game; its capacity to surprise, and to be used unexpectedly, might be genuinely profitable at such a time in the game. I felt a surge of power.

pp95-96, Marauders of Gor [Gor Series Book 9]
John Norman

But Tarl didn't have a mentor, a guide for his journey of self-discovery. He made this journey into his nature on his own. He learned from other men; he listened to them, evaluated and weighed their advice, and chose to heed some and ignore others. But he had no mentor for his crusade of self-discovery. It was one he had to take on his own.

There were no maps for me.

I, Tarl Cabot, or Bosk of Port Kar, was torn between worlds.

I did not know how to live.

I was bitter.

But the Goreans have a saying, which came to me in the darkness, in the hall. "Do not ask the stones or the trees how to live; they cannot tell you; they do not have tongues; do not ask the wise man how to live, for, if he knows, he will know he cannot tell you; if you would learn how to live do not ask the question; its answer is not in the question but in the answer, which is not in words; do not ask how to live, but, instead, proceed to do so."

I do not fully understand this saying. How, for example, can one proceed to do what one does not know how to do? The answer, I suspect, is that the Gorean belief is that one does, truly, in some way, know how to live, though one may not know that one knows. The knowledge is regarded as being somehow within one. Perhaps it is regarded as being somehow innate, or a function of instincts. I do not know. The saying may also be interpreted as encouraging one to act, to behave, to do, and then, in the acting, the doing, the behaving, to learn. These two interpretations, of course, are not incompatible. The child, one supposes, has the innate disposition, when a certain maturation level is attained, to struggle to its feet and walk, as it did to crawl, when an earlier level was attained, and yet it truly learns to crawl, and to walk, and then to run, only in the crawling, in the walking and running.

The refrain ran through my mind. "Do not ask how to live, but, instead, proceed to do so."

But how could I live, I, a cripple, huddled in the chair of a captain, in a darkened hall?

I was rich, but I envied the meanest herder of verr, the lowest peasant scattering dung in his furrows, for they could move as they pleased.

I tried to clench my left fist. But the hand did not move.

How should one live?

pp18-21, Marauders of Gor [Gor Series Book 9]
John Norman

How should one live? This question reverberates through my own soul. As for Tarl, there are no maps charting the path to my Torvaldsland Experience.  Moreover I have no father, no Scribe, no Warrior to teach me.  To train me in the understanding and the skills of living as a Gorean Builder in my day-to-day life, to teach me how to function successfully as a Gorean in society, among those unGorean people that I come in contact with.

What is left to me? To take the journey of understanding, of skills, of self-discovery on my own; and "in the acting, the doing, the behaving, to learn." The wounds and the scars and the victories will be dear instructors.