# Did the success of the Gor novels influence 80s sword and sorcery flicks?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [June 14, 2004, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391 "2004-06-14T23:48:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2004, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/1 "2004-06-14T23:48:41Z")
Back in the 70s and 80s John Norman wrote a series of fantasy novels set on the planet Gor that successfully combined sword and sorcery fantasy and softcore bondage porn. They were a huge hit in the SF and F marketplace, running to a series of 24 novels and outselling all the other titles published by DAW combined.
In the 80s we had a spate of sword and sorcery B movies that were fairly successful: Barbarian Queen (I and II) Amazon Queen, Deathstalker, etc. that featured some fairly strong bondage scenes. When you look at how truly piss-poor representations of female bondage are in earlier sword and sandal films, the sword and sandal films of the 80s do represent a definite upward blip in the radar for bondage content. The logical assumption would be that they are influenced by the Gor novels, but I have heard and read nothing about that.
(And yeah, I know about the two films based on the Gor novels, but perhaps not-so-amazingly, they show little sign of having been influenced by the contents of the Gor novels – Dino de Laurentis just bought the rights to the title and spewed out a couple of mediocre sword and sorcery flicks without any notable bondage themes. They also weren’t all that successful – imagine that!)
Does anyone know the extent that the Gor novels influenced the spate of bondage-friendly sword and sandal movies that came out in the 80s? I’ve asked this question of some Gor fans, they didn’t know, but I figure this board might have some heavy duty movie fans that might know.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2004, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/2 "2004-06-15T01:21:28Z")
Probably very little.
I seriously doubt anyone in Hollywood ever read Gor (evidently, the screenwriters of the Gor movies didn’t).
The people who were reading Gor were not making movies and the books were not popular enough to be more than a blip on the Hollywood radar.
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### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2004, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/3 "2004-06-15T02:17:48Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> Probably very little.
>
> I seriously doubt anyone in Hollywood ever read Gor (evidently, the screenwriters of the Gor movies didn’t).
>
> The people who were reading Gor were not making movies and the books were not popular enough to be more than a blip on the Hollywood radar.
If no one in Hollywood read the Gor novels or heard of them, you have to wonder why de Laurentis paid out hard cash to buy the rights to make a couple of Gor movies. He apparently heard of them, and what he heard motivated him to spend cash. And why did female bondage scenes spike in 80s sword and sandal movies? Coincidence? A general cultural influence toward bondage?
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2004, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/4 "2004-06-15T02:50:02Z")
Softcore bondage/humiliation was a pretty common theme in the 1970’s sexploitation films, particularly in the WIP subgenre. It’s not hard to go from that to some producer coming up with the idea that Conan the Barabarian + House of Whipcord ( to name one typically substandard example ) = boxoffice…errmm…well…silver-plating, at least.
It may be the Gor novels had _some_ influence, but I rather doubt they were a necessary inspiration.
- Tamerlane
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2004, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/5 "2004-06-15T13:21:56Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#):
>
> If no one in Hollywood read the Gor novels or heard of them, you have to wonder why de Laurentis paid out hard cash to buy the rights to make a couple of Gor movies. He apparently heard of them, and what he heard motivated him to spend cash. And why did female bondage scenes spike in 80s sword and sandal movies? Coincidence? A general cultural influence toward bondage?
He heard of them, but it’s clear he hadn’t read them. Basically, he (or one of his underlings) probably knew that it existed as a popular SF series and figured it was worth cashing in on. Note the OP: “Dino de Laurentis just bought the rights to the title and spewed out a couple of mediocre sword and sorcery flicks without any notable bondage themes.”
But, though popular with a certain coterie of fans (most SF fans hated them and even the most evenhanded considered only the first couple of books any good at all), that was just a blip compared to what Hollywood usually considered “popular.” I think you’d be hard pressed to come up with a connection.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2004, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/6 "2004-06-15T14:29:25Z")
I suspect that Conan the Barbarian and Tolkien had more to do with sword-and-sorcery becoming popular than John Norman.
Interest in Conan had been building since Gnome press started collecting the Robert E. Howard stories in the 1950s. In the 1960s Lancer books started putting out paperback editions, with additions by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, and Bjorn Nyberg. They assembled the stories into a 12-volume chronology of the career of Conan of Cimmeria. (Lancer only succeeded in publishing 11 of these volumes before they enrtered a weird sort of bankruptcy. Sphere books in Britain continued to publish them through the 1970s, until Ace books finally re-published them in the US in 1977, adding the missing 12th volume) In 1970 Marvel comics started putting out Conan the Barbarian as a comic book, and published Savage Tales with an “adult” version of Conan (you got to see some skin, including nipples). Savage Tales morphed into Savage Sword of Conan.
Ever since the 1960s there were imitators and followers – Fritz Leiber’s Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser, Lin Carter’s Hadon of Opar, etc. DC comics started Sword of Sorcery with Leiber’s heros, pretty obviously in imitation of Conan. Any SF bookstore in the late 1960s (and onward) would’ve been filled with books about barbarian fantasies. When the movie Conan the Barbarian came out in 1982, it had a ready-made audience, and focused public attention on the idea.
Tolkien’s heros aren’t barbarians, but they were the same sword-swinging fantasy genre, if more literary and genteel. Tolkien, too, had been published in hardcover in the 1950s and in paperback in the 1960s – you couldn’t find a collegwe campus without those posters based on the Ballantine book covers, or grafitti reading “Frodo Lives!” Again, there was a rush to fill this desire for Tolkien asnd things similar. The Brothers Hildebrand published their Tolkien calendars in the 1970s, and got into other S&S painting. Publishers reseurrected old fantasy novels in paperback to meet the demds – Peake’s Gormenbghast series, Eddison
's Worm Ouroborous, Cabell’s stuff, etc.
Norman’s struff was in the wave of Conan-followers, and his S&M style (after the first couple of books of generic Sword and Sorcery stuff) fulfilled some sector’s interest.
But the films that started the wave of S&S films were, I think, the aforementioned Conan and its sequel Conan the Destroyer, Red Sonya, The Sword and the Sorceror (blatantly ripped off from Conan), Bakshi’s Wizards, and his Lord of the Rings.
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### Author:  [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2004, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/7 "2004-06-15T16:38:09Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Ever since the 1960s there were imitators and followers – Fritz Leiber’s Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser, Lin Carter’s Hadon of Opar, etc.
I take minor exception to the characterization of Lieber as an “imitator and follower.” Lieber’s Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser series was an affectionate parody of the genre, while at the same time being a pretty good example of the genre.
Also, Tolkien’s books kind of stand on their own. The roots of the S&S tree go back to Howard more than Tolkien, it seems to me. Howard cranked the stuff out for pulps. Conan, Bran Mak Morn, and various other series. I really can’t remember them all, although obviously the Conan stuff was the most successful.
Norman’s books (I read one or two in my science fiction/sword & sorcery phase, back in high school) were pretty bad, and they were a dead end as far as influencing the genre. Oddly, I saw one of the movies mentioned above, based (extremely loosely) on Norman’s books on late-night cable a few weeks ago. It was horrible. And the bondage stuff (which was much more the point, I suspect, for Norman fans than the actual sword & sorcery) was deleted pretty much entirely.
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### Author:  [@DaddyTimesTwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaddyTimesTwo)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2004, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/8 "2004-06-15T16:58:21Z")
I remember reading a few Gor books in the late 70s early 80s, I was still in grade school (the same period that I discovered the Burroughs Barsoom novels). Mostly I read them because of the scantily clad slave girls on the covers. It’s interesting that the S&M angle is mentioned as a possible influence because as an especially unworldly adolescent, those themes went right over my head. I remember really liking the books, but I only read the first three or so.
I remember \* The Sword and the Sorcerer\* from cable, also in the early 80. Lee Horsley was the star, and I don’t remember the female star (“love interest”?), but I remember thinking she was a hot number (OK, I looked her up, [Kathleen Beller](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000898/), who apparently hasn’t done much (anything!)in the last 12 years). It was also pretty funny, on purpose, that is, as opposed to the scores of silly fantasy movies that are only funny by accident.
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2004, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/9 "2004-06-15T20:19:59Z")
I ran through some of the Gor stuff in ebook format, and while the first few books actually have some interesting and engaging parts storytelling wise, the slave humilation and bondage themes (and discussions of slave bondage equipment and methods used) are so relatively lengthy and lovingly detailed, that they are off putting to readers who aren’t all that into the slave bondage sub-cultures.
You’d be reading along, and the S&M stuff just kept popping up like pesky whack-a-moles. At times you could practically sense him flogging the weasel with one hand while he was typing the story with the other, which was a bit oogifying.
What the stories _did_ have a major impact on were certain people into the S&M culture (esp where it intersected with the biker culture) who crafted entire lifestyles and relationships based almost verbatium on the slave-master models described in his books. I’ve seen a few magazine articles over the years on these people. They’re _different_.
See [A personal view of Master/slave relationships](http://www.tanos.org.uk/MSarticle.html) for a general discussion of the Gor themes and how the relate to the sub-com culture.
> [@](#):
>
> Those Gor books!
> There is one series of Master/slave books which stradle this divide between popular culture (in the form of pulp science fiction) and the BDSM scene. This is John Norman’s notorious “Gor” series and I really must mention them because of the influence they had on me, and on a large number of other people interested in Maledom/femsub relationships. Set on the planet Gor, a preindustrial world with widespread and well developed slavery, the books have been a magnet for those interested in Master / slave relationships for thirty years (and like a magnet, sometimes they attract and sometimes they repel …)
>
> Twenty five Gor books were published between the late 1960’s and 1980’s, before they were banned from normal distribution by the book trade. Up until about 1991 they had very wide circulation, and I remember buying Gor books even in small town branches of W.H. Smith’s (a business founded by stalwart Quakers who had participated in the campaign to abolish slavery, ironically enough.)
>
> The Gor books get attacked from both sides: vanilla critics merely had to say “they’re sadomasochistic fantasies” to get their politically correct friends into book-burning mode. Criticism from within the BDSM scene usually centres on the later books’ repeated advocacy of the naturalness of Maledom / femsub and Master / slave relationships in particular (but as Pat Califia has suggested, finding sticks with which to beat heterosexual Maledoms and femsubs is a favourite sport among some sections of the wider BDSM scene, and yes, that was Pat Califia the leatherdyke icon speaking.)
>
> It’s true to say that the Gor books are flawed - if nothing else, the later ones contain page after page of verbose attacks on feminism, and excessive repetition is a flaw whatever you think of the material being repeated. Personally, I have developed more and more “problems” with them over time, and the casual way Norman tosses the word “rape” around has finally ruined them for me.
>
> Worse still, they have become the focus for an online fantasy style of M/s which claims its superifical approach to slavery is a model for real world relationships.
>
> Nevertheless, many of the ideas Norman presents are worth discussing; a few are even well worth adopting (he even advocates the keeping of a slave diary to improve communication between Master and slave.)
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### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2004, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/10 "2004-06-16T04:11:36Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#):
>
> Softcore bondage/humiliation was a pretty common theme in the 1970’s sexploitation films, particularly in the WIP subgenre. It’s not hard to go from that to some producer coming up with the idea that Conan the Barabarian + House of Whipcord ( to name one typically substandard example ) = boxoffice…errmm…well…silver-plating, at least.
>
> It may be the Gor novels had _some_ influence, but I rather doubt they were a necessary inspiration.
>
> - Tamerlane
Hmmm. I am not familiar with how Hollywood types come up with ideas for movies, or what gets them green-lighted, but from what I’ve read it really helps if something is successful in another genre. And the Gor novels were HUGE in their time – showing up in supermarket and drugstore racks as well as bookstore racks. That doesn’t happen with your run-of-the-mill title. So I think some note might have been taken by folks less clueless than de Laurentis and crew.
In my opinion, the guys who bought the rights to the Gor novels were clueless idiots who didn’t understand that the sexual bondage theme was central to the success of the novels, so they made generic sword and sorcery movies with little or no bondage themes, and what there was, totally messed up. The read the Gor novels, but WITHOUT COMPREHENSION.
I do think you and Cal Meacham have an excellent point about the Conan movie being the instigator of the spate of sword and sandal B movies in the 80s – I checked the dates in the IMDB, and the Conan movie came out in 1982, followed by Deathstalker in 1983 and all the rest 1985 and thereafter. Obviously, it led the way. But there was NO female bondage in the Conan movie at all. The female bondage that showed up in the subsequent movies weren’t inspired by Conan.
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### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2004, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/11 "2004-06-16T04:21:36Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> I suspect that Conan the Barbarian and Tolkien had more to do with sword-and-sorcery becoming popular than John Norman.
As I indicated in my response to Tamerlane, I atgree you’ve got a strong point about the Conan movie being the actual instigator of the sword and sandal fantasy glut since all of them follow it by a year or three – just what you’d expect from a spate of B-movies emulating a success. But I don’t agree that Conan led to the increase in female bondage and slavery imagery. There was a strong slavery theme in the Conan movie, but it was all about Conan himself.
> [@](#):
>
> Norman’s struff was in the wave of Conan-followers, and his S&M style (after the first couple of books of generic Sword and Sorcery stuff) fulfilled some sector’s interest.
Initial publication of Norman’s books may have owed in part to the success of the Conan novels, but you can hardly characterize Norman as just another Conan-follower. For one thing, Norman clearly owes a lot more to Edgar Rice Burroughs than to Robert E. Howard. For another, Norman was a huge success in the marketplace on his own – when your stuff shows up on grocery store and drug store racks, it means you’re a top seller in the field.
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### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2004, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/12 "2004-06-16T04:24:15Z")
> [@LMM](#):
>
> Norman’s books (I read one or two in my science fiction/sword & sorcery phase, back in high school) were pretty bad, and they were a dead end as far as influencing the genre. Oddly, I saw one of the movies mentioned above, based (extremely loosely) on Norman’s books on late-night cable a few weeks ago. It was horrible. And the bondage stuff (which was much more the point, I suspect, for Norman fans than the actual sword & sorcery) was deleted pretty much entirely.
The bondage elements were’nt deleted from the Gor movie, they were never there in the first place. There were a couple of brief shots of slavegirls being auctioned in chains, and that’s about it. As I said, the guys who read the Gor novels to write the script were reading without comprehension.
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### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2004, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/13 "2004-06-16T04:27:32Z")
> [@DaddyTimesTwo](#):
>
> I remember reading a few Gor books in the late 70s early 80s, I was still in grade school (the same period that I discovered the Burroughs Barsoom novels). Mostly I read them because of the scantily clad slave girls on the covers. It’s interesting that the S&M angle is mentioned as a possible influence because as an especially unworldly adolescent, those themes went right over my head. I remember really liking the books, but I only read the first three or so.
Well, the first six books were published by Ballantine, and the editors there apparently kept Norman on a short leash wrt the sexual bondage elements (heh). So you might not have missed all that much. From book seven to book 24 Norman was published by DAW, and the reason he moved to DAW was, they let him move the slavegirls front and center where they belonged.
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### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2004, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/14 "2004-06-16T04:41:32Z")
> [@astro](#):
>
> I ran through some of the Gor stuff in ebook format, and while the first few books actually have some interesting and engaging parts storytelling wise, the slave humilation and bondage themes (and discussions of slave bondage equipment and methods used) are so relatively lengthy and lovingly detailed, that they are off putting to readers who aren’t all that into the slave bondage sub-cultures.
I’m not calling you personally on this astro, but I simply do not buy the notion that the tremendous success of the Gor novels in the marketplace came about purely because they appealed to card-carrying BDSM fans. It sounds way too much like all those guys who used to buy Playboy “because it’s got such good articles” and the ones who now buy the Sports Illustrated magazines “for the swimsuit fashions.” In short, it’s bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, and very obvious bullshit at that.
In fact, I think the success of the Gor novels is analogous to the success of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition – the Gor novels had enough sword and sandal fantasy plot to give a decent cover to the sexual bondage elements. Guys could buy them and read them without feeling like they were admitting to any taste for sexual bondage.
> [@](#):
>
> You’d be reading along, and the S&M stuff just kept popping up like pesky whack-a-moles. At times you could practically sense him flogging the weasel with one hand while he was typing the story with the other, which was a bit oogifying.
I have formed the habit of skipping the anti-feminist rants which always precede a sexual bondage scene in Gor novels, going straight to the good stuff, and moving on. Theyre very predictable and easy to skip and contribute next to nothing to the story. Also, I think some of Norman’s very best bondage scenes were very briefly described, done with a real economy of words but having a really nice erotic frisson because of it. Frex, the scene where the protagonist ducks under a wagon to take shelter during a rainstorm, and finds a slavegirl tied there. He takes her there, still tied to the wagon, then slips a coin in her mouth to compensate her master for her use before going on his way after the rain lets up. Short and sweet, and more details would have been a waste.
> [@](#):
>
> What the stories _did_ have a major impact on were certain people into the S&M culture (esp where it intersected with the biker culture) who crafted entire lifestyles and relationships based almost verbatium on the slave-master models described in his books. I’ve seen a few magazine articles over the years on these people. They’re _different_.
I think they’re people who have a lot of fun living out their fantasies. No need to demonize 'em.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2004, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/15 "2004-06-16T06:56:18Z")
> [@LMM](#):
>
> I take minor exception to the characterization of Lieber as an “imitator and follower.” Lieber’s Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser series was an affectionate parody of the genre, while at the same time being a pretty good example of the genre.
I take major exception to it. The first Mouser stories appeared in _Unknown_ in the early '40s. (I can look up the exact issues if anyone cares.) The Tuck Encyclopedia mentions an issue of _Fantastic_ entirely devoted to them in 1959. This was long before Conan was popular except in fandom. I actually like Conan, but I like Lieber’s stuff better - he was far the better writer.
As for Gor, I always considered them more along the lines of a slavery fetish than a bondage fetish. Norman published a book of sex fantasies for Daw called _Imaginative Sex_, which was mostly along the lines of haughty woman being subdued and enslaved by haughty man and learning to love it. The bondage in these was rather light.
I found the fantasy elements run of the mill and derivative, the sex not my cup of tea, and while I have 3 or 4 of them, it was one of the few series of the time I made an effort not to collect.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2004, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/16 "2004-06-16T11:55:45Z")
You fellas can take exception to my calling Leiber’s srtories dependent upon Conan (and I debated saying this with myself), but it’s true – Howard’s stories preceded Leiber’s in the pulps, and I can’t believe that Leiber wasn’t strongly influenced by them. And, while I’ll admit that Leiber is a better writer, I _like_ the Conan stories a lot more. But this isn’t a popularity contest – the OP was asking about what started it all, and Howard’s very popular tales very definitely did, I think.
As far as movies go, **The Sword and the Soreceror** preceded the first **Conan** film, but not by much, and it’s pretty clear to me that it was a bit rushed to hit the screens before Conan did, especially since S&S pretty clearlt ripped of several Conan stories without attribution.
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2004, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/17 "2004-06-16T12:23:03Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#):
>
> I’m not calling you personally on this astro, but I simply do not buy the notion that the tremendous success of the Gor novels in the marketplace came about purely because they appealed to card-carrying BDSM fans. It sounds way too much like all those guys who used to buy Playboy “because it’s got such good articles” and the ones who now buy the Sports Illustrated magazines “for the swimsuit fashions.” In short, it’s bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, and very obvious bullshit at that.
>
> In fact, I think the success of the Gor novels is analogous to the success of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition – the Gor novels had enough sword and sandal fantasy plot to give a decent cover to the sexual bondage elements. Guys could buy them and read them without feeling like they were admitting to any taste for sexual bondage.
>
> I have formed the habit of skipping the anti-feminist rants which always precede a sexual bondage scene in Gor novels, going straight to the good stuff, and moving on. Theyre very predictable and easy to skip and contribute next to nothing to the story. Also, I think some of Norman’s very best bondage scenes were very briefly described, done with a real economy of words but having a really nice erotic frisson because of it. Frex, the scene where the protagonist ducks under a wagon to take shelter during a rainstorm, and finds a slavegirl tied there. He takes her there, still tied to the wagon, then slips a coin in her mouth to compensate her master for her use before going on his way after the rain lets up. Short and sweet, and more details would have been a waste.
> I think they’re people who have a lot of fun living out their fantasies. No need to demonize 'em.
The books were decent sword /sci-fi pot boilers, but after awhile the “woman is a natural slave” angle infuses everything, and unless it’s really your cup of tea, the extended discussions of bondage craft and other fetish elements clutter up the story after awhile. While the stories initally had a “forbidden fruit” appeal, not everyone gets a mental or physical chubby of the whole master/slave dynamic, and after awhile it just gets a bit tired and a tad silly.
Plus (I believe) reading this stuff when it first came out in the 70’s would have been a lot more of a forbidden thrill and a different experience than reading it currently (I read it about 2 years ago), where it comes across less a part of the sexual revolution, and more of a fetish lifestyle manifesto, woven into what was actually not that bad storytelling.
If calling people who want to pattern their lifestyle on this “different”, I guess I’m a demonizer, or someone’s sensitivity meter is set way too high.
see [Gorean Lifestyle](http://members.aol.com/LrdDelamos/Lifestyle.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Gorean Lifestyle
>
> Tal is the Gorean equivalent to Greetings or hello and its use is reserved to Free Persons only on AOL Gor. Tal is also used as a form of farewell, because they wish the other person to know that they hope to greet them again in the near future.
>
> Be Well or I wish you well is the Gorean equivalent of farewell.
>
> Goreans sit on furs on the floor, the reason why Gorean tables are low. Chairs are not thought to be comfortable and they have special significance. They do not often occur in private dwellings and tend to be reserved for significant personages such as Administrators and Judges. The Gorean male, at ease, usually sits cross-legged. The female kneels, resting back on her heels. The kneeling position of a slave differs from that of a Free Woman only in the positions of their thighs and wrists. A Free Woman kneels in the Tower Slave Position, thighs modestly kept together and her wrists are never crossed.
>
> The Gorean woman carries herself well. She is both splendid and beautiful. Considering the culture, the Gorean woman rejoices in being a woman. She is often an exciting, magnificent, glorious creature. Outspoken, talkative, vital, active and spirited.
>
> The Gorean male, who seems to think so little of women in some respects, celebrates them extravagantly in others. The Gorean is keenly susceptible to beauty; it gladdens his heart and his songs and arts often speaks of its glory. Gorean women whether slave or free, know that their simple presence brings joy to men and this knowledge pleases them.
>
> Gorean men sleep in great stone couches, sleeping pelts and silken sheets. A slave ring is set at the bottom of each Gorean couch. Its purpose is simple. It is the Gorean way of reminding every woman, free or enslaved, that she is a woman and thus to be dominated, to be subject of men. Should any woman be tempted to forget this basic fact of Gorean life, the slave ring set at the bottom of each Gorean couch is there to refresh their memory that Gor is a man’s world.
>
> The Gorean slave girl sleeps at the foot of the Master’s couch, often on a straw mat with only a thin, cotton like blanket, woven from the soft fibers of the Rep Plant, to protect her from the cold. If a slave girl has not pleased the Master as of late, she may be, as a disciplinary measure, simply chained nude to the slave ring, without the benefit of the blanket and mat. The stone floors are hard and the Gorean nights are cold, and it is a rare girl who, when unchained in the morning, does not seek more dutifully to serve the Master.
>
> This harsh treatment, incidentally, when she is thought to deserve it, may even be inflicted to a Free Companion, finding herself precisely as though she was a lowly slave girl, in spite of the fact that she is free and usually much loved. According to the Gorean way of looking at things, a taste of the slave ring is thought to be occasionally beneficial to all women, even the exalted Free Companion.
>
> The Gorean Master, though often strict, is seldom cruel. The girl knows, if she pleases him, her lot will be an easy one. She will almost never encounter sadism or wanton cruelty, for the psychological environment that tends to breed these diseases is largely absent from Gor. This does not mean she will not be beaten if she disobeys or fails to please her owner.
>
> Of custom, a slave girl may not ascend the couch to serve her owner’s pleasure. The point of this restriction is to draw a clearer distinction between her status and that of a Free Companion. At any rate, the dignities of the couch are reserved for the Free Companion.
>
> When a master wishes to make use of a slave girl, he tells her to light the lamp of love, which she obediently does, placing it in the window of his chamber, that they may not be disturbed. Then he, with his own hand, throws upon the stone floor of his chamber luxurious love furs, perhaps from the larl itself, and commands the girl to them.
>
> Slave girls are usually clad in the brief, diagonally stripped slave livery of Gor, a sleeveless, briefly skirted garment terminating some inches above the knee, a garment that contrast violently with the heavy, cumbersome Robes of Concealment worn by Free Women. It is known that some women, actually envy their lightly clad sisters in bondage, free, though wearing a collar, to come and go as much as they please.
>
> The purpose, incidentally, of the brief garment of the female slave is not to simply mark out the girl in bondage but in exposing her charms, to make her, rather than her free sister, the favored object of raids. Whereas, there is a status in the capture of a Free Woman, there is less risk in the capture of a slave.
>
> As written in the Gor Series by John Norman.
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### Author:  [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2004, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/18 "2004-06-16T12:31:02Z")
Well, in defense of the OP, a lot of the sword and sorcery movies were poorly written, with awkward dialogue, so who knows? 🙂
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2004, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-success-of-the-gor-novels-influence-80s-sword-and-sorcery-flicks/250391/19 "2004-06-17T21:55:33Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> You fellas can take exception to my calling Leiber’s srtories dependent upon Conan (and I debated saying this with myself), but it’s true – Howard’s stories preceded Leiber’s in the pulps, and I can’t believe that Leiber wasn’t strongly influenced by them. And, while I’ll admit that Leiber is a better writer, I _like_ the Conan stories a lot more. But this isn’t a popularity contest – the OP was asking about what started it all, and Howard’s very popular tales very definitely did, I think.
Okay. Placing Leiber’s stories in the '60s made it sound (to me) like he was cashing in on the popularity of Conan. He definitely knew about them - I’m sure he read Weird Tales, and weren’t Howard (as well as Leiber) correspondents with Lovecraft. I’m sure none of them ever dreamed that Conan would be as big as he is today.