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Gorean Book Quote Requests
Requests 1-173 were asked and answered back when there were only 25 books.
Also, some of the early questions were unintentionally truncated and cannot be restored. However, the answers are shown in their totality.
[ Quote Request ]
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Q # | Question |
2 | "I need quotes that describe [Norman's view of] the nature of man as the master and woman as the slave. I believe he described this in terms of genetics and evolution."
Answer This is certainly not every reference to the word genetic but these quotes should give you the idea of what Norman had in mind.
I wish you well,
Fogaban
As I thought of our primeval ancestor standing in the mouth of his cave one hand gripping a chipped stone and perhaps the other a torch, his mate behind him and his young hidden in the mosses at the back of the cave I wondered at the genetic gifts that would insure the survival of man in so hostile a world, and I wondered if among them would not be the strength and the aggressiveness and the swiftness of eye and hand and the courage of the male and on the part of the woman - what?
What would have been the genetic truths in her blood without which she and accordingly man himself might have been overlooked in the vicious war of a species to remain alive and hold its place on an unkind and savage planet?
It seemed possible to me that one trait of high survival value might be the desire on the part of the woman to belong - utterly - to a man.
It seemed clear that woman would, if the race were to survive, have to be sheltered and defended and fed - and forced to reproduce her kind.
If she were too independent she would die in such a world and if she did not mate her race would die.
That she might survive it seemed plausible that evolution would have favored not only the woman attractive to men but the one who had an unusual set of traits - among them perhaps the literally instinctual desire to be his, to belong to him, to seek him out for her mate and submit herself to him. Perhaps if she were thrown by her hair to the back of the cave and raped on furs in the light of the animal fire at its mouth this would have been to her little more than the proof of her mate's regard for her, the expected culmination of her innate desire to be dominated and his.
Priest-Kings of Gor Book 3 Page 205
I had no objection to earrings. Indeed, if I could find an attractive pair, or pairs, I was confident I could wear them to my advantage, to please a master, to perhaps obtain my way, to perhaps help me dominate him. If I could engage his affections, I would have him then, would I not, at my mercy? I would bend my efforts to do so, and when I had done so then I might, by granting, or refusing to grant, my favors, or the fervor of my favors, control him and, though I wore the collar, own him! How else could a woman fight on Gor? She is not as strong as a man! She is at their mercy. The entire culture puts her at his feet. Well I was beautiful enough, and intelligent enough, to fight, and surely to win! I was truly a slave girl, and that I knew, but my master would learn that a slave girl could be a dangerous foe. I would conquer him. So I mused. The only thing that I did not take into my considerations was the Gorean male. He is unlike the men of Earth, on the whole so weak and pliable, so reasonable, so compromising, so much in need of recognition and affection, or its pretense. The only thing I failed to take into my calculations was that the Gorean male, whether by culture or genetic endowment, is unlike the typical man of Earth. He, unlike the typical man of Earth, though not unlike all, is a natural master of women. There was a time in my life when I would not have understood this, or how it could be. There was surely a time in my life when I could not have believed this, when I would have found it preposterous, absurd, incompressible, false. But at that time I had not been brought to this world. At that time I had not been in the arms of a Gorean male.
Captive of Gor Book 7 Page 167
I moaned with misery, for suddenly I understood the foolishness of my fantasies in the pens of Ko-ro-ba, and in the caravan of Targo, that I would conquer, that I might, by the withholding of my favors, or the fervor of my favors, reduce a master to bondage, turning him into a needful slave desperate for my smiles and pliant to my will. I realized with a blaze of misery, and self-pity, that to such a man it was only I who could be the slave. He was totally and utterly masculine, and before him I could be only totally and utterly feminine. I had no choice. My will was helpless. I suppose that a woman, like a man, has buried instincts, of which they may not even become aware, but these instincts lie within them, dispositions to respond, dispositions locked into the very genetic codes of her being, instincts awaiting only the proper stimulus situation to be elicited and emerge, overpoweringly, irresistibly, sweeping her, perhaps to her astonishment and horror, in a biological flood to her destiny, a destiny once triggered as incontrovertible and uncontrollable as the secretion of her glands and the mad beating of her heart.
I knew then that he was dominant over me. This had nothing to do with the fact that I lay stripped before him, wrists and ankles lashed, his prisoner. It had to do with the fact that he was totally masculine, and in the presence of such a stimulus, my body would permit me to be only totally feminine. I wished that he had been one of the weak men of Earth, trained in feminine values, and not a Gorean male.
Captive of Gor Book 7 Page 264
In Gorean thinking man and woman are natural animals, with genetic endowments shaped by thousands of generations of natural and sexual selection. Their actions and behavior, thus, though not independent of certain long-range environmental and sexual relationships, cannot be understood in terms of mere responses to the immediately present environment.
The immediate environment determines what behavior will be successful, not what behavior is performed. Woman, like man, is the product of evolution, and, like man, is a complex genetic product, a product not only of natural selections but sexual selections. Natural selections suggest that a woman who wished to belong to a man, who wished to remain with him, who wished to have children, who wished to care for them, who loved them, would have an advantage, in the long run, as far as her genetic type was concerned, of surviving, over a woman who did not care for men, who did not wish children, and so on. Female freedom, of a full sort, would not have been biologically practical. The loving mother is a type favored by evolution. It is natural then that in modern woman certain instincts should be felt. The sparrow does not feed her young because the society has fooled her into playing that exploitative role. Similarly, sexual selection, as well as natural selection, is a significant dynamic of evolution, without which it is less comprehensible. Men, being stronger, have had, generally, the option of deciding on women that please them. If women had been stronger, as in the spiders, for example, we might have a different race.
It is not unlikely that men, over the generations, have selected out for breeding, for marriage, women of certain sorts. Doubtless women are much more beautiful now than a hundred generations ago. Similarly a woman who was particularly ugly, threatening, vicious, stupid, cruel, etc., would not be a desirable mate. No man can be blamed for not wishing to make his life miserable. Accordingly, statistically, he tends to select out women who are intelligent, loving and beautiful. Accordingly, men have, in effect, bred a certain kind of woman. Similarly, of course, in so far as choice has been theirs, women have tended to select out men who are, among other things intelligent, energetic and strong. Few women, in their hearts, despite propaganda, really desire weak, feminine men. Such men, at any rate, are not those who figure in their sexual fantasies.
Goreans believe it is the nature of a man to own, that of a woman to be owned.
Hunters of Gor Book 8 Pages 311 - 312
"Only in a collar can a woman be truly free," I said. It was a Gorean saying. History on Earth, long ago, had taken a turning away from the body, from nature, from the needs of men and women, from genetically linked psycho-biological realities; this turning away, ultimately and inevitably, had produced an unloved, exploited, polluted planet swarming with miserable populations of unhappy, petty, self-seeking, frustrated animals; the human being of Earth had no Home Stone; this turning away had never taken place on the planet Gor.
Tribesmen of Gor Book 10 Page 75
I supposed, further, that the rare event had here taken place of a girl meeting her true master, and a man his true slave girl. The girl, one among thousands less fortunate, had encountered a male, surely, too, one among thousands, who could be, and was, to her and for her, her absolute and natural master, the ideal and perfect male for her, dominant and uncompromising, who could, and would, demand and get her full, yielding sexuality, which a woman can give only to a man who owns her totally, before whom, and to whom, she can be only an adoring slave. This happens almost never on Earth, where the normal male/female relationship is the result of a weak, pleasant male's releasing of the female's maternal instinct, rather than her usually frustrated instinct to submit herself fully to a truly dominant male as a held and owned, penetrated, submissive female; it does occur, however, with some frequency on Gor, where girls, slaves, are more frequently traded and exchanged. One tries different girls until one finds she, or those, who are the most exquisite, the most pleasing; one tends then, to keep them; this tends, too, to work out to the advantage of the women, the female slaves, but few, except themselves, are concerned with them, or their feelings; men, it is clear, have a need to dominate; few deny this; none deny it who are informed; in the Gorean culture, as it is not on Earth, institutions exist for the satisfaction of this need, rather than its systematic suppression and frustration; the major Gorean institution satisfying this need is the widespread enslavement of human females; the master/slave relationship is the deepest, clearest recognition of, and concession to, this masculine need, felt by all truly vital, sexual males; but, in the Gorean theory, this masculine need to dominate, which, thwarted, leads to misery, sickness, and petty, vicious, meaningless aggressions, is not an aberration, nor an uncomplemented biological singularity in males, but has its full complementary, correspondent need in the human female, which is the need, seldom satisfied, to be overwhelmed and mastered; in primitive mate competitions, in which intelligence and cunning, and physical and psychological power, were of biological importance, rather than wealth and status, the best women, statistically, would fall to the strongest, most intelligent men; it is possible, and likely, that women, or the best women, were once fought for, literally, as well as symbolically, as possessions; if this were the case then it is likely that something in the female, genetically, would respond to dominance and strength; most women do not, truly, want weak men; they wish their children to be born not to an equal but a superior; how could they respect a man who in stature and power was no more than themselves, the equal of a woman, a prize; given the choice to bear the child of an equal, or a master, most women would choose to bear the child of a master; women long to bear the children of men superior to themselves; it is a defeated woman whose body grows fat with the child only of an equal; just as evolution, at one time, selected for strong, intelligent men, capable of combat, because they were successful in mate competitions, so, too, correspondingly, in the transmission of genetic structures, it would be selecting for women who responded to, and yielded to, such men, women who were the biologically specified and rightful property of such men, our ancestors The dominant male is thus selected for in mate competition; the undominant male tends, statistically, to lose out to his stronger, more intelligent foe; correspondingly, evolution selected for the female who responds to the dominant male; she who fled such men either mated with weaker men, her children then being less well adapted for survival, or, perhaps, fled away, and her genes were lost, for better or for worse, to the struggling human groups; the female who was excited by such men, and longed to belong to them, to masters, and keep by them and serve them, had the best chance of survival; she was the best protected; her children would be the best protected; further, her children would be more intelligent and stronger, being the offspring of more intelligent and stronger men; her lusts, and her love of being owned by such men, and her pride in their possession of her, would contribute substantially to not only her survival but that of her children; too, the woman would, over generations, become more beautiful and desirable, and sexually exciting, as vital males exercising their masculine prerogatives selected among the daughters of the daughters of such women; men chose for mating women who pleased them, and women who pleased them were not the ugly, the gross, the belligerent and stupid, but the intelligent, loving, desirable and beautiful; the twin dynamics of evolution, natural and sexual selection, thus formed over thousands of years the biological nature of the human female; originally there might have been only random tendencies to respond to masculine domination, but those who had them had the best chance of survival; such tendencies were then transmitted, becoming pervasive genetic characteristics of women; owned women lived, the most beautiful and best of these were selected by the strongest, most intelligent and powerful men; it is from such intricate workings of nature that has come the intelligent, beautiful, sensitive woman, the feminine woman, with full complement of normal feminine hormones, who longs in her heart to lie lovingly, obediently, excitedly in the arms of a strong man, his woman; beyond this, one might note that dominance and submission are genetically pervasive in the animal kingdom; among mammals in general, and primates universally, it is the male who dominates and the female who submits; this is not an aberration; the aberration is its conditioned frustration, possible, interestingly enough, only in an animal complicated enough to be subject to extensive conditioning regimes, where words may be used to induce counterinstinctual responses, to the detriment and misery of the individual organism, though perhaps subservient to a given conception of economic and social relationships. We are bred hunters; we are made farmers.
Tribesmen of Gor Book 10 Pages 163 - 165
"To see you is to want you," I told her, "and to want you is to want to own you."
"Own!" she cried, in horror.
"Yes," I said. "Every man wants to own his woman, completely. He wants to have her in his absolute power. He wants to have absolute control over her, in every respect, however, minute. Dominance is genetically dispositional in his nature. Males are divided into those who satisfy their nature and those who do not. Males who satisfy their nature are vital and joyful, and, statistically, live long; those who deny their nature are miserable and, statistically, shorter lived, their tortured body chemistry falling prey frequently to hideous diseases."
"Men want women to be free!" said Vella.
"Men, sometimes," I said, "will accord small freedoms to women, thinking that these will make them more pleasing. Surely you are familiar with the master who, at certain moments, permits his girl to speak her mind. And at these moments she does so, well and boldly. But she knows that these permissions may, at his whim, be withdrawn. This torments her with joy, and she revels in his strength. He gives her what she most deeply desires, in the female genetic depth of her, the delicious feeling of her own domination, the subjection of her beauty and weakness to the will of a strong male."
Tribesmen of Gor Book 10 Pages 316 - 317
"Man has a genetic disposition to dominance," I said.
Tribesmen of Gor Book 10 Page 318
"Luscious and beautiful women," I said. "And what must be the genetic dispositions of these women, beneath the overlays, the encrustations, the conditionings of impersonal, mechanistic, industrial societies, to which sex is an embarrassment and human beings a puzzle?"
Tribesmen of Gor Book 10 Page 319
It gave me pleasure to assume this posture before my master, who had full body rights to me; it gave me less pleasure, in the beginning, to assume it before free men generally; yet, eventually, I did it naturally, and pleasurably; it is a position that not only makes the girl more attractive to the man; but, too, subtly, psychologically, by its effect on the girl, by intensifying her sense of openness, vulnerability and exposure, it makes men much more attractive to her, she thus kneeling, and opened, before them; the girl who finds many men attractive is likely to find the master attractive; the girl who finds few men attractive is to that extent the less likely to find the master attractive; the pleasure slave, so submissively and vulnerably positioned, so helpless and opened before men, cannot help herself but become curious and excited, and heated, about them; in becoming excited and heated by men in general she naturally becomes excited and heated about the master in particular; after all, it is to him that she actually belongs; he is the one who is her master; in pleasure slave passion is not an accident; inhibitions are simply not permitted; beyond this, instincts are triggered and intelligently released, and then allowed, untrammeled, to take their natural course; biology's dominance/submission equation is genetic; the most perfect satisfaction of that equation for complex, acculturated psychophysical organisms is the institutionalized bondage relation; this exists on Gor, where girls may be the legal slaves of strong men, capable of mastering them. I was such a slave. I had no doubt the man who owned me was capable of mastering me. He had already done so. I was his slave.
Slave Girl of Gor Book 11 Page 77
No more swiftly could I run. It was not merely that I was encumbered by the robes. I knew that I could not, in any case, outrun the men. They were stronger and swifter than I. I was only a girl. Nature, whatever might be her reasons, had not fitted me to outrun males. I was frightened suddenly that it had not been her intention that women escape men. Then I realized how foolish this was, to so personalize nature, to ascribe to the cruel, blind processes of the world deliberate intentions. Rather it had been the selections of nature which had determined this. Women who had escaped men would have been lost to the gene pool. Caught women would have been led back to the caves, to suffer the indignities of impregnation by their captors, being forced to reproduce their kind. Similar considerations may have a bearing on the smaller size and strength of women. Yet matters are far more complicated than these considerations suggest. For, in the intricacies, and interplay of both natural and sexual selection, not merely a swiftness, a size and strength would have been selected for in women but an entire set of genetic dispositions; it seems inconsistent to suppose that evolution would select only for the outside of an animal and not for its inside as well, that only matters such as external configuration would have a bearing on its survival or desirability and not its dispositions to respond in certain ways. Surely the same evolution which has selected for the fangs of the lion and the speed of the gazelle has selected as well for the disposition to hunt and the disposition to flight, that has selected for the strength of the male and the weakness of the female has selected as well for the disposition to conquer and the disposition to surrender. We are, to a large extent, one supposes, the products of environments, but it is well to remember that the maximum, shaping environments in which our nature was stabilized and forged are ancient ones; the sense in which environment determines endowment is the sense in which it determines which endowments are to be perpetuated.
With misery I suddenly realized my genetic heritage was that of a type which could be caught by men. The hands of a man seized me. "Hold, Lady," said he.
I gasped, and shook, held in his arms.
Slave Girl of Gor Book 11 Page 119
Sex in a woman, I think, is a more complicated phenomenon than it is in a man. She, if properly treated, and by properly treated I do not mean treated with courtesy and gentleness, but rather correctly treated, as her nature craves, is even more helplessly in the grasp of its power than a man. Sex in a woman is a very subtle and profound thing; she is capable of deep and sustained pleasures which might be the envy of any vital organism. These pleasures, of course, can be used by a man to make her a helpless prisoner and slave. Perhaps that is why free women guard themselves so sternly against them. The slave girl, of course, cannot guard herself against them, for she is at the mercy of her master, who will treat her not as she wishes, but precisely as he wishes. Then she yields, as she must, and as a free woman may not, and her will is yielded in ecstasy to his. The needs of a woman, biologically, are deep; it is unfortunate that some men regard it as wrong to satisfy them. The correct treatment of a female, which is only possible to administer to a girl who is owned, is adjusted to her needs, and is complex and subtle. The least girl contains wonders for the master who understands her. Two things may perhaps be said. The correct treatment of a girl does not always preclude courtesy and gentleness no more than it always involves them. There is a time for courtesy and gentleness, and a time for harshness. The master must remember that he owns the girl; if he keeps this in mind he will generally treat her correctly. He must be strong, and he must be capable of administering discipline if she is not pleasing. Sex in a woman, as in a man, is not only richly biological but psychological as well, and the words suggest a distinction which is somewhat misleading. We are psycho-physical organisms, or better perhaps, thinking, feeling organisms. Part of the correct treatment of a woman is treating her as you wish; she has genetic dispositions for submission bred into every cell of her body, a function of both natural and sexual selection. Accordingly, what might seem brutal or quick to a man can be taken by a woman in the dimensions of her sentience as irrefutable evidence of his domination of her, her being owned by him, which thrills her to the core for it touches the ancient biological meaning of her womanhood. He simply uses her for his pleasure, because he wished to do so. He is her master.
Beasts of Gor Book 12 Pages 9 - 10
The relation of master and slave, of course, in a psychophysical organism, of a high order of intelligence, such as the human being, is a beautiful and profound expression of the fundamental and central truth of animal nature, that of order and structure, and dominance and submission. It is merely the articulated, legalized expression, to be expected in rational organisms, of the biological context in which human sexuality developed, a context which can be betrayed but can never, because of the ingrained nature of genetic dispositions, be fully forgotten or, in the long run, successfully denied. In denying it we deny our own nature. In betraying it we betray no one but ourselves. The master will never be happy until he is a master. The slave will never be happy until she is a slave. It is what we are.
Explorers of Gor Book 13 Page 159
In an elegant, civilized context, one of beauty and music, it makes clear and bespeaks the raw and essential primitives of the ancient, genetic, biological sexual relationship of men and women, the theme of dominance and submission, that man is master by blood and woman is slave by birth. Neither, too, as say the Goreans, will know their fulfillment until they become true to themselves. We can be conquered, but nature cannot. In attempting to conquer nature, we defeat only ourselves. True freedom and happiness, perhaps, lies not in denying and repudiating our nature but in fulfilling it.
Rouge of Gor Book 15 Page 191
The culture is a setting which transforms and enhances the simplicities and rudenesses of nature, ennobling her and exalting her, lending her glory and articulation, refining her, fulfilling her, rather than a sewer and a trap, in which she is kept half-starved and chained.
An example of this sort of thing is the institution of female slavery. It is clearly founded on, and expressive of, the order of nature, but what a wonder has civilization wrought here, elevating and transforming what is in effect a genetically coded biological datum, male dominance and female submission, into a complex, historically developed institution, with its hundreds of aspects and facets, legal, social and aesthetic. What a contrast is the beautiful, vended girl, branded and collared, desiring a master and trained to please one, kneeling before her purchaser and kissing his whip, with the brutish female, cowering under her master's club at the back of his cave. And yet, of course, both women are owned, and completely. But the former, the slave girl, is owned with all the power and authority of law. If anything, she is owned even more completely than her primitive forebear. Civilization, as well as nature, collaborates in her bondage, sanctifying and confirming it.
Guardsman of Gor Book 16 Page 68
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