The Gorean Roots of SL Historical Roleplaying

Before discussing historical roleplaying sims in Second Life any further, it’s important to introduce a side of Second Life that I’ve failed to acknowledge up to this point - sexual roleplaying. As one of the first subcultures to embrace Second Life, sexual roleplayers have influenced the entire Second Life culture - with BDSM references throughout the virtual world. The Wild West simulation of Sigil was started by a group of Gorean (also known as Gor) roleplayers who wanted to take a break from sexual roleplaying. As I’ve noted before, women in this Wild West roleplaying sim were sexualized - reflecting general trends within Second Life. Several other historical roleplaying sims have similar origins, including several Native American virtual tribes that I’ll introduce in the near future.

Nick Nobel, an undergraduate student at Trinity University recently wrote a paper on Sex in Online Games that begins to introduce this subculture better than most articles I’ve found. He described Gor as the following:

Gor is based on the futuristic science fiction novels of John Norman, and focuses primarily on the psychological relation between the “master” and sexual “slave.” [...] Gor was not sadomasochism, for it does not center on violence, but psychological domination and submission.

When beginning to articulate the relationship between individuals in current historical roleplaying sims, the master/slave relationship is important to keep in mind. I’m still researching the degree to which Gor influences and informs historical roleplaying in Second Life, and learning how many people in these sims identify themselves as Gorean. It offers an interesting twist to already complex power structures within history - for example Native Americans roleplayers and their relationship to Wild West roleplaying cowboys. In this world, does the D&S relationship directly correlate, or is it merely coincidental? Are cowboys dominant and natives submissive?

This entry was posted on Monday, June 11th, 2007 at 9:59 pm and is filed under Gor, Role-playing, Second Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Gor, Role-playing, Second Life



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