Gor

The most extensive literary exploration of Androcracy that I have seen is John Norman's series of novels set on the fictional planet Gor.

Gorean culture has many defects, such as militarism, lechery, and condoning male slavery. Still, much of Norman's narrative accurately describes the duality of sexes as the proper basis for female subjection, and his popularity (achieved in spite of poor style, cursory plotting, and Feminist pressure that denied him publication for a decade) illustrates the latent recognition among the public that that culture is a useful, albeit exaggerated, corrective to our own. Much the same is true of those branches of the "bdsm" lifestyle that reflect Gorean influence.

Incidentally, I know not whether John Norman advocates real-world Androcracy, as his fiction suggests. In the only relevant quotation I have seen, he seems to emphasise that he is only defending consensual slavery. But maybe he was hedging for fear of the consequences of so "outrageous" a challenge to Feminism.

Here are some samples. In all these, the speaker is the story's narrator, either Tarl Cabot or Jason Marshall.

"No woman is truly happy until she is owned and mastered."

"Men are the natural masters. This is obvious in the study of primate biology."

"Women dream not of equals but of masters."

Fighting Slave of Gor (1980), Chapters 2, 4, 7.

"I had little doubt but that somewhere on Earth, in spite of censorship, media control, manipulated education and outright political suppression, and the almost nonexistent channels for expressing alternative viewpoints, some males remained men."

Rogue of Gor (1981), Chapter 30.

"The institution of female slavery ... 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. It is no wonder that the institution of slavery provides the human female, in all her sensitivities and vulnerabilities, in all her psychophysical complexity, with the deepest fulfillments and most exquisite emotions she can know."

"High intelligence is highly valued in a female slave. One of the great pleasures in owning a girl is listening to her. It is a great pleasure to become intimately acquainted with her expressions and thoughts, from the most casual and trivial to the most delicate and profound. She must always, of course, be kept strictly in her place. ... What a fortune, and joy, to own such a woman! He will want to watch her, to observe her least movement, to know her smallest thought. He will want to talk with her and listen to her, and know her with a depth and fullness far beyond anything that might be accorded to a mere contractual partner. She is not merely a person who is living with him. She belongs to him, literally, and he prizes her."

Guardsman of Gor (1981), Chapters 8, 18.

"It is not a healthy world in which civilization is nature's prison. Nature and civilization are not incompatible. A choice need not be made between them. ... Each can be the complement and enhancement of the other."

"Female slavery is the institutionalized expression, in a civilization congenial to nature, of the fundamental biological relationship between the sexes. [Here] we find this basic relationship recognized, accepted, clarified, fixed and celebrated. A civilization ... need not inevitably be a conflict with nature. A rational, informed civilization can even ... refine and improve upon nature [and] bring nature to fruition. [Indeed, it] might be the natural flowering of nature itself, ... a stage or aspect of it, a form which nature itself can take."

Savages of Gor (1982), Chapters 3, 13.

The acceptance of her womanhood, and her submission to men, and surrender to them, in her heart, is a pivotal thing in the psychic life of a female.

There is no full and adequate substitute, of course, given the dominance/submission ratios and the order of nature, for the uncompromised, and full and total bondage of the female. Once this is institutionalized and legalized, as it is on Gor, we have, then, the union of nature and civilization, a union in which civilization no longer functions as a counter biological antithesis to nature but rather, perhaps, as an extension and flowering of nature herself, a union in which natural relationships are fulfilled and furthered.

Blood Brothers of Gor (1982), Chapters 13, 28.

"Women, although they may occasionally function as artifacts [sic], or symbols, or mystical objects, or something along these lines, seldom release the following instinct in men. Men, accordingly, do not on the whole, care to follow them. In doing so they generally feel uncomfortable. It makes them uneasy. They sense the absurdity, the unnaturalness, of the relationship. It is thus that normal men commonly follow women only unwillingly, and only with reservations, usually also only within an artificial context or within the confines of a misguided, choiceless or naive institution, where their discipline may be relied upon. Their compliance with orders in such a situation cannot help but be more critical, more skeptical. Their activities tend then to be performed with less confidence, and more hesitantly. This often produces serious consequences to the efficiency of their actions. It is interesting to note that even women seldom care to follow women, particularly in critical situations. The male, biologically, for better or for worse, appears to be the natural leader. In the perversion of nature, of course, anything may occur."

Players of Gor (1984), Chapter 15.

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