All Quotes in the books regarding Free Women

Tarnsman of  Gor (Book 1)

I realized that she had spoken to me as a free woman, using my name.
Page 72  

Many of the free women of Gor and almost always those of High Caste wear the Robes of Concealment, though, of course, their garments are seldom as complex or splendidly wrought as those of a Ubar’s daughter. The Robes of Concealment, in function, resemble the garments of Muslim women on my own planet, though they are undoubtedly more intricate and cumbersome. Normally, of men, only a father and a husband may look upon the woman unveiled.  Page 87 

Free women on Gor do not travel attended by only a single warrior, not of their own free will. Page 112 

Outlaw of Gor (Book 2)

I rejoiced that in at least one city on Gor the free women were not expected to wear the Robes of Concealment, confine their activities largely to their own quarters, and speak only to their blood relatives and, eventually, the Free Companion.  I thought that much of the barbarity of Gor might perhaps be traced to this foolish suppression of the fair sex, whose gentleness and intelligence might have made such a contribution in softening her harsh ways. To be sure, in certain cities, as had been the case in Ko-ro-ba, women were permitted status within the caste system and had a relatively unrestricted existence. Indeed, in Ko-ro-ba, a woman might even leave her quarters without first obtaining the permission of a male relative or the Free Companion, a freedom which was unusual on Gor. The women of Ko-ro-ba might even be found sitting unattended in the theater or at the reading of epics. Page 49 – 50


Why was the girl alone?
Had her protectors been killed? Was she perhaps an escaped slave, fleeing from a hated master? Could she be, like myself, an exile from Ko-ro-ba? Its peoples have been scattered, I said to myself, and no two stones and no two men of Ko-ro-ba may stand again side by side. I gritted my teeth. The thought ran through my head, no stone may stand upon another stone.  If she were of Ko-ro-ba, I knew that I could not, for her own welfare, stay with her or help her. It would be to invite the Flame Death of the Priest-Kings for one or the other, perhaps both of us. I had seen a man die the Flame Death, the High Initiate of Ar on the summit of Ar’s Cylinder of Justice, consumed in the sudden burst of blue fire that bespoke the displeasure of the Priest-Kings. Slim though her chances might be to escape wild beasts or slavers, they would be greater than the chance of escaping the wrath of the Priest-Kings.  If she were a free woman and not unfortunate, to be alone in this place was unwise and foolish.  Page 51


I missed in the crowd the presence of slave girls, common in other cities, usually lovely girls clad only in the brief, diagonally striped slave livery of Gor, a sleeveless, briefly skirted garment terminating some inches above the knee, a garment that contrasts violently with the heavy, cumbersome Robes of Concealment worn by free women. Indeed, it was known that some free women actually envied their lightly clad sisters in bondage, free, though wearing a collar, to come and go much as they pleased, to feel the wind on the high bridges, the arms of a master who celebrated their beauty and claimed them as his own. Page 66


Perhaps I was most startled on the silent streets of Tharna by the free women. They walked in this city unattended, with an imperious step, the men of Tharna moving to let them pass in such a way that they never touched. Each of these women wore resplendent Robes of Concealment, rich in color and workmanship, standing out among the drab garments of the men, but instead of the veil common with such robes the features of each were hidden behind a mask of silver. The masks were of identical design, each formed in the semblance of a beautiful, but cold face.  Page 67


Lara stood beside me, clad as a free woman but not in the Robes of Concealment. She had shortened and trimmed one of the gracious Gorean garments, cutting it to the length of her knees and cutting away the sleeves so that they fell only to her elbows. It was a bright yellow and she had belted it with a scarlet sash. Her feet wore plain sandals of red leather. About her shoulders, at my suggestion, she had wrapped a cloak of heavy wool.  Page 211

Priest-Kings of Gor (Book 3)

The Gorean male, at ease, usually sits cross-legged and the female kneels, resting back on her heels. The position of the Tower Slave, in which Vika knelt, differs from that of a free woman only in the position of the wrists which are held before her and, when not occupied, crossed as though for binding. A free woman’s wrists are never so placed. The Older Tarl, who had been my mentor in arms years ago in Ko-ro-ba, had once told me the story of a free woman, desperately in love with a warrior, who, in the presence of her family was entertaining him, and whose wrists, unconsciously, had assumed the position of a slave. It was only with difficulty that she had been restrained from hurling herself in mortification from one of the high bridges. The Older Tarl had guffawed in recounting this anecdote and was scarcely less pleased by its sequel. It seems she thereafter, because of her embarrassment, would never see the warrior and he, at last, impatient and desiring her, carried her off as a slave girl, and returned to the city months later with her as his Free Companion. At the time that I had been in Ko-ro-ba the couple had still been living in the city. I wondered what had become of them. The position of the Pleasure Slave, incidentally, differs from the position of both the free woman and the Tower Slave. The hands of a Pleasure Slave normally rest on her thighs but, in some cities, for example, Thentis, I believe, they are crossed behind her. More significantly, for the free woman’s hands may also rest on her thighs, there is a difference in the placement of the knees. In all these kneeling positions, incidentally, even that of the Pleasure Slave, the Gorean woman carries herself well; her back is straight and her chin is high. She tends to be vital and beautiful to look upon. Page 46 – 47

Nomads of Gor (Book 4)

I knew what must now pass, and it was what would have passed in any city or on any road or trail or path in Gor. She was a captive female, and must, naturally, submit to her assessment as prize; she must also be, incidentally, examined for weapons; a dagger or poisoned needle is often concealed in the clothing of free women. Page 37


Aphris of Turia, pleased with herself, assumed her place between the merchant and Kamchak, kneeling back on her heels in the position of the Gorean free woman. Her back was very straight and her head high, in the Gorean fashion. Page 94

Assassin of Gor (Book 5)

“I now understand,” she said, “why it is that free women never enter Paga taverns.” Page 22


I remember the days in Ko-ro-ba fondly, though there were certain problems.
Or perhaps one should say, simply, there was Elizabeth. Elizabeth, besides speaking boldly out on a large number of delicate civic, social and political issues, usually not regarded as the Province of the fairer sex, categorically refused to wear the cumbersome Robes of Concealment traditionally expected of the free woman. She still wore the brief, exciting leather of a Tuchuk wagon girl and, when striding the high bridges, her hair in the wind, she attracted much attention, not only, obviously, from the men, but from women, both slave and free.

Once a slave girl bumped into her on one of the bridges and struck at her, thinking she was only slave, but Elizabeth, with a swift blow of her small fist, downed the girl, and managed to seize one ankle and prevent her from tumbling from the bridge. “Slave!” cried the girl. At this point Elizabeth hit her again, almost knocking her once more from the bridge. Then, when they had their hands in one another’s hair, kicking, the slave girl suddenly stopped, terrified, not seeing the gleaming, narrow band of steel locked on Elizabeth’s throat. “Where is your collar?” she stammered.
“What collar?” asked Elizabeth, her fists clenched in the girl’s hair.
“The collar,” repeated the girl numbly.
“I’m free,” said Elizabeth.
Suddenly the girl howled and fell to her knees before Elizabeth, kneeling trembling to the whip. “Forgive me, Mistress,” she cried. “Forgive me!”
When one who is slave strikes a free person the penalty is not infrequently death by impalement, preceded by lengthy torture.
“Oh, get up!” said Elizabeth irritably, jerking the poor girl to her feet.
They stood there looking at one another.
“After all,” said Elizabeth, “why should it be only slave girls who are comfortable and can move freely?”
“Aren’t you slave?” asked one of the men nearby, a Warrior, looking closely.
Elizabeth slapped him rather hard and he staggered back, “No, I am not,” she informed him.
He stood there rubbing his face, puzzled. A number of people had gathered about, among them several free women.
“If you are free,” said one of them, “you should be ashamed of yourself, being seen on the bridges so clad.”
“Well,” said Elizabeth, “if you like walking around wrapped up in blankets, you are free to do so.”
“Shameless!” cried the free girl.
“You probably have ugly legs,” said Elizabeth.
“I do not!” retorted the girl.
“Don’t choke on your veil,” advised Elizabeth.
“I am really beautiful!” cried the free girl.
“I doubt it,” said Elizabeth.
“I am!” she cried.
“Well then,” said Elizabeth, “what are you ashamed of?” Then Elizabeth strode to her and, to the girl’s horror, on one of the public high bridges, face-stripped her. The girl screamed but no one came to her aid, and Elizabeth spun her about, peeling off layers of Robes of Concealment until, in a heavy pile of silk, brocade, satin and starched muslin the girl stood in a sleeveless, rather brief orange tunic, attractive, of a sort sometimes worn by free women in the privacy of their own quarters.
The girl stood there, wringing her hands and wailing. The slave girl had backed off, looking as though she might topple off the bridge in sheer terror.
Elizabeth regarded the free woman. “Well,” she said, “you are rather beautiful, aren’t you?”
The free woman stopped wailing. “Do you think so?” she asked.
“Twenty gold pieces, I’d say,” appraised Elizabeth.
“I’d give twenty-three,” said one of the men watching, the same fellow whom Elizabeth had slapped.
In fury the free woman turned about and slapped him again, it not being his day in Ko-ro-ba.
“What do you think?” asked Elizabeth of the cringing slave girl.
“Oh, I would not know,” she said, “I am only a poor girl of Tyros.”
“That is your misfortune,” said Elizabeth. “What is your name?”
“Rena,” said she, “if it pleases Mistress.”
“It will do,” said Elizabeth. “Now what do you think?”
“Rena?” asked the girl.
“Yes,” snapped Elizabeth. “Perhaps you are a dull-witted slave?”
The girl smiled. “I would say twenty-five gold pieces,” she said.
Elizabeth, with the others, inspected the free girl. “Yes,” said Elizabeth, “Rena, I think you’re right.” Then she looked at the free girl. “What is your name, Wench?” she demanded.
The girl blushed. “Relia,” she said. Then she looked at the slave girl. “Do you really think I would bring so high a price Rena?”
“Yes, Mistress,” said the girl.
“Yes, Relia,” corrected Elizabeth.
The girl looked frightened for a moment. “Yes Relia,” she said.
Relia laughed with pleasure.
“I don’t suppose an exalted free woman like yourself,” said Elizabeth, “drinks Ka-la-na?”
“Of course I do,” said Relia.
“Well,” said Elizabeth, turning to me, who had been standing there, as flabbergasted as any on the bridge, “we shall have some.” She looked at me. “You there,” she said, “a coin for Ka-la-na.”
Dumbfounded I reached in my pouch and handed her a coin, a silver Tarsk.
Elizabeth then took Relia by one arm and Rena by the other. “We are off,” she announced, “to buy a bottle of wine.”
“Wait,” I said, “I’ll come along.”
“No, you will not,” she said, with one foot kicking Relia’s discarded Robes of Concealment from the bridge. “You,” she announced, “are not welcome.”
Then, arm in arm, the three girls started off down the bridge.
“What are you going to talk about?” I asked, plaintively.
“Men,” said Elizabeth, and went her way, the two girls, much pleased, laughing beside her.
I do not know whether or not Elizabeth’s continued presence in Ko-ro-ba would have initiated a revolution among the city’s free women or not. Surely there had been scandalized mention of her in circles even as august as that of the High Council of the City. My own father, Administrator of the City, seemed unnerved by her. Page 73 – 76


Free women, here and there, were delicately putting tidbits beneath their veils. Some even lifted their veils somewhat to drink of the flavored ices. Some low-caste free women drank through their veils and there were yellow and purple stains on the rep-cloth.  Page 141


“The slave Phais,” I said, “and the girls of the Street of Pots, were of your party.”
“Yes,” said Hup, “and most useful. Slave girls, as is not the case with free women, may go almost anywhere in the city, gathering information, carrying messages. Page 389


Virginia was clad in garments cut from the beautiful, many colored robes of concealment of the free woman. But, proud of her beauty and glorious in her joy, she had boldly shortened the garments almost to the length of slave livery, and a light, diaphanous orange veil loosely held her hair and lay about her throat. She wore the robes of concealment in such a way as not to conceal but enhance her great loveliness. She had discovered herself and her beauty on this harsh world, and was as proud of her body as the most brazen of slave girls, and would not permit its being shut away from the wind and the sunlight. The garments suggested the slave girl and yet insisted, almost demurely, on the reserve, the pride and dignity of the free woman. The combination was devastating, tormentingly attractive, an achievement so tantalizing and astoundingly exciting that I would not be surprised if it were adopted throughout Ar by the city’s free women, rebellious, proud of their bodies, at last determined to throw off centuries of restriction, of confinement and sequestration, at last determined to stand forth as individuals, female individuals, sensuous as slave girls but yet rich in their own persons, intelligent, bold, beautiful, free. I mused to myself that slave raids on Ar might grow more frequent. Page 408

Raiders of Gor Book 6

“Know you not,” asked she, with sudden insolence and coldness, “that I am a free woman?”
I said nothing.
“Dare you aspire to a free woman?” she demanded.
“No,” I said.
“Dare you aspire to your mistress, Slave?” she demanded.
“No,” I said, “no!”
“Why not?” she demanded.
“I am a slave,” I said. “Only a slave.”
“That is true,” she said. “You are only a slave.” Page 36


“I never thought,” Tab was saying, “that I would find a free woman of interest.” He had one arm about Midice.
“On a peasant holding,” said Thurnock, defensively, as though he must justify having freed Thura, “one can get much more work from a free woman!” He pounded the table. Thura wore talenders in her hair.  Page 304


“A retinue!” shouted one of the guards.
“There is a free woman with the retinue!” shouted another.
I heard Targo crying out. “Slaves out!”
I was thrilled. I had never seen a Gorean free woman.
Page 72

I watched the flat wagon rolling closer.
The woman sat regally on the curule chair, wrapped in resplendent, many-colored silks. Her raiment might have cost more than any three or four of us together were worth. She was, moreover, veiled.
“Do you dare look upon a free woman?” asked a guard. I not only dared, but I was eager to do so. But, nudged by his foot, as the wagon approached, I lowered my head to the grass, as did the other girls.
The wagon, and the retinue, stopped only a few feet opposite us.
I did not dare to raise my head.
. . .
“Lift your head, Child,” said a woman’s voice.
I did so.
She was no older than I, I am sure, but she addressed me as a child. Page 73

I looked into her eyes. How steadily she regarded me, over her veil, her eyes mused. How beautiful she seemed. How splendid and fine! I could no longer meet her eyes.
“You may lower your head, Girl,” she said, not unkindly. Gratefully I put my head again, swiftly, to the grass.

When the wagon, and the retinue, had passed us, Targo straightened up. He had a strange expression on his face. He was pleased about something.

“Who was she?” asked the grizzled, one-eyed guard. “The Lady Rena of Lydius,” said Targo, “of the Builders.”
. . .
That night, at a stream, we stopped early to camp. Page 74

Out of the darkness came two men, warriors. Between them, face-stripped, was a woman, stumbling. Her arms, over her resplendent robes, were bound to her sides with a broad leather strap. She was thrown to the feet of Targo.
. . .
“You were foolish to hire mercenaries to guard you,” said Targo.
“Please!” she cried.
I recognized her then. She was the woman with the retinue.  Page 75

Captive of Gor (Book 7)

. . .
“Please!” wept the woman. I admitted to myself that she was beautiful.
“You have an admirer,” Targo told her, “a Captain of Tyros, who glimpsed you in Lydius last fall. He has contracted to buy you privately in Ar, to be taken to his pleasure gardens on Tyros. He will pay one hundred pieces of gold.”
Several of the girls gasped.
“Who?” asked the captive, plaintively.
“You will learn when you are sold to him,” said Targo. “Curiosity is not becoming in a Kajira,” said Targo. “You might be beaten for it.”
I remembered that the large man, on the planet Earth, had said to me this thing. I gathered that it was a Gorean saying.
The woman, distraught, shook her head.
“Think!” urged Targo. “Were you cruel to someone? Did you slight someone? Did you not grant someone the courtesy that was his due?”
The woman looked terrified.
“Strip her,” said Targo.
“No, no!” she wept. Page 76


“Who are these women?” I asked. “Where do they come from?”
“Some were doubtless once slaves,” said Ute. “Others were once free women. Perhaps they did not care for matches arranged by their parents. Perhaps they did not care for the ways of their cities with respect to women. Who knows? In many cities a free woman may not even leave her dwelling without the permission of a male guardian or member of her family.” Ute smiled up at me. “In many cities a slave girl is more free to come and go, and be happy, than a free woman.”  Page 82


“Slave,” she sneered.
“Yes, Mistress,” I whispered, and looked down. I could not meet her eyes, those of a free woman.  Page 138


“The piercing of the ears is far more terrible,” said Ute. “Nose rings are nothing. They are even pretty. In the south even the free women of the Wagon Peoples wear nose rings.” She held me more closely. “Even free women in the south,” she insisted, “the free women of the Wagon Peoples, wear nose rings.” She kissed me. “Besides,” she said, “it may be removed, and no one will ever know that you wore it. It will not show.” Then Ute’s eyes clouded with tears. I looked at the tiny steel rods holding open the wounds in her ears. “But only slave girls,” she wept, “have their ears pierced.” She wept. “How can I ever hope to become a Free Companion,” she wept. “What man would want a woman with the pierced ears of a slave girl? And if I were not veiled, anyone might look upon me, and laugh, and scorn me, seeing that my ears had been pierced, as those of a slave girl!”  Page 166


It also interested me, even astonished me, to see the fervor and skill brought to her training by the refined Lady Rena of Lydius. She knew that she had already, in effect, been purchased, but she did not know who her master might be. Since her ears had been pierced she was terrified that she might not please him. She trained with almost piteous ardor. She had been a free woman; she was now a female slave, the ease of whose life and whose fortunes would now depend entirely on her capacity to be pleasing to those who might capture or purchase her, those who would own her.

I now no longer moved as a free woman, even a beautiful one, of Earth. I now moved, and naturally, as what I was, uninhibited and shameless, taunting, catlike, insolent, a Gorean slave girl.  Page 175


Our training in the pens of Ko-ro-ba now began to move toward its conclusion.
Our bodies, superbly trained, even those of Inge and Ute, now became unmistakably those of slave girls. We had had into our bodies mysteries of movements of which even we, for the most part, were no longer aware, subtle signals of appetite, of passion and of obedience to a masculine touch, movements which excited the fierce jealousy, the hatred, of free women, particularly ignorant free women, who feared, and perhaps rightly, that their men might leave them for the purchase or capture of such a prize. Most slave girls, incidentally, fear free women greatly. Page 196 – 197


It could perhaps be mentioned that such work, cooking, cleaning and laundering, and such, is commonly regarded as being beneath even free women, particularly those of high caste. In the high cylinders, in Gorean cities, there are often public slaves who tend the central kitchens in cylinders, care for the children, but may not instruct them, and, for a tiny fee to the city, clean compartments and do laundering. Thus even families who cannot afford to own and feed a slave often have the use of several such unfortunate girls, commonly captured from hostile cities. Free women often treat such girls with great cruelty, and the mere word of a free woman, that she is displeased with the girl’s work, is enough to have the girl beaten. The girls strive zealously in their work to please the free women. Such girls, also, have a low use-rent, payable to the city, should young males wish to partake of their pleasures. Here again, the mere word of the free person, that he is not completely pleased, is enough to earn the miserable girl a severe beating. Accordingly, she struggles to please him with all her might. It is not pleasant, I fear, to be a public slave. The Gorean free woman, often, does only what work she chooses. If she does not wish to prepare a meal, she and her companion may go to the public tables, or, should they wish, order a girl to bring them food from the central kitchens.  Page 317


Similarly the Gorean free woman does not seem appropriately suited to menial tasks. She is too free, too proud. It is difficult for a collared slave girl even to look into the eyes of such a person. Thus, who is to do such work? The answer seems obvious, that it will be done by the slaves. The small, light, unpleasant work will be done by the female slave; the large, heavy, unpleasant work by the draft animal, or the male slave. Why should free persons do such tasks? They have slaves for such work.  Page 318

Hunters of Gor (Book 8)

Marauders of Gor Book 9

“It is a wonder that any man will follow you!” cried Talena. “You betrayed your codes! You are a coward! A fool! You are not worthy of me! That you dare ask me if I could care for such as you, is to me, a free woman an insult! You chose slavery to death!” Page 14


Hilda, of course was a free woman. For her to heel was an incredible humiliation.
The Forkbeard started off again, and then again stopped. Again, Hilda followed him as before.
“She is heeling!” laughed Ottar.
There were tears of rage in Hilda’s eyes. What he said, of course, was true. She was heeling. On his ship the Forkbeard had taught her, though a free woman, to heel. Page 123


“How shameful!” said the free woman, sternly.
The slave girls groveled at her feet. Slave girls fear free women muchly. It is almost as if there were some unspoken war between them, almost as if they might be mortal enemies. In such a war, or such an enmity, of course, the slave girl is completely at the mercy of the free person; she is only slave. One of the great fears of a slave girl is that she will be sold to a woman. Free women treat their female slaves with incredible hatred and cruelty. Why this is I do not know. Some say it is because they, the free women, envy the girls their collars and wish that they, too, were collared, and at the complete mercy of masters.
Free women view the platform with stern disapproval; on it, female beauty is displayed for the inspection of men; this, for some reason, outrages them; perhaps they are furious because they cannot display their own beauty, or that they are not themselves as beautiful as women found fit, by lusty men with discerning eyes, for slavery; it is difficult to know what the truth is in such matters; these matters are further complicated, particularly in the north, by the conviction among free women that free women are above such things as sex, and that only low and loose girls, and slaves, are interested in such matters; free women of the north regard themselves as superior to sex; many are frigid, at least until carried off and collared; they often insist that, even when they have faces and figures that drive men wild, that it is their mind on which he must concentrate his attentions; some free men, to their misery, and the perhaps surprising irritation of the female, attempt to comply with this imperative; they are fools enough to believe what such women claim is the truth about themselves; they should listen instead to the dreams and fantasies of women, and recall, for their instruction, the responses of a free woman, once collared, squirming in the chains of a bond-maid. These teach us truths which many women dare not speak and which, by others, are denied, interestingly, with a most psychologically revealing hysteria and vehemence. “No woman,” it is said, “knows truly what she is until she has worn the collar.” Some free women apparently fear sex because they feel it lowers the woman. This is quite correct.

“Shameful!” cried the free woman.

“I do not approve of the platform,” said the free woman, coldly.
Forkbeard did not respond to her, but regarded her with great deference.  Page 155 – 156


“Come tonight to our hall, Champion,” said she.
The Blue Tooth did not gainsay her. The woman of the Jarl had spoken. Free women in the north have much power. The Jarl’s Woman, in the Kaissa of the north, is a more powerful piece than the Ubara in the Kaissa of the south. This is not to deny that the Ubara in the south, in fact, exercises as much or more power than her northern counterpart. It is only to recognize that her power in the south is less explicitly acknowledged.  Page 191


The girls, though collared in the manner of Torvaldsland, and serving men, were fully clothed. Their kirtles of white wool, smudged and stained with grease, fell to their ankles; they hurried about; they were barefoot; their arms, too, were bare; their hair was tied with strings behind their heads, to keep it free from sparks; their faces were, on the whole, dirty, smudged with dirt and grease; they were worked hard; Bera, I noted, kept much of an eye upon them; one girl, seized by a warrior, her waist held, his other hand sliding upward from her ankle beneath the single garment permitted her, the long, stained woolen kirtle, making her cry out with pleasure, dared to thrust her lips eagerly, furtively, to his; but she was seen by Bera; orders were given; by male thralls she was bound and, weeping, thrust to the kitchen, there to be stripped and beaten; I presumed that if Bera were not present the feast might have taken a different turn; her frigid, cold presence was, doubtless, not much welcomed by the men. But she was the woman of Svein Blue Tooth. I supposed, in time, normally, she would retire, doubtless taking Svein Blue Tooth with her. It would be then that the men might thrust back the tables and hand the bond-maids about. No Jarl I knew can hold men in his hall unless there are ample women for them. I felt sorry for Svein Blue Tooth. This night, however, it seemed Bera had no intention of retiring early  Page 195 – 196


“You have dared to collar the daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar!” cried Bera to Ivar Forkbeard.
“My master does what he pleases, Lady,” said Hilda.
I wondered what Bera would say if she knew that Hilda had been put at the oar, and taught to heel; that she had been whipped, and taught to obey; that she had been caressed, and taught to respond.
“Silence, Bond-maid!” cried Bera.
Hilda put down her head.
“To think,” cried Bera, “that I expressed solicitude for a collar-girl!”
Hilda dared not speak. For a bond-maid to speak in such a situation might be to invite a sentence of death. She shuddered.
In fury, Bera, lifting her skirt from about her ankles, took her way from the long table, retiring to her own quarters.  Page 200 – 201


The fixing of the Kur collar, it had been decided by Svein Blue Tooth, was equivalent to the fixing of the metal collar and, in itself, was sufficient to reduce the subject to slavery, which condition deprives the subject of legal status, and rights attached thereto, such as the right to stand in companionship. Accordingly, to her astonishment, Bera, who had been the companion of Svein Blue Tooth, discovered suddenly that she was only one wench among others. From a line, as part of his spoils, the Blue Tooth picked her out. She had displeased him mightily in recent years. Yet was the Blue Tooth fond of the arrogant wench. It was not until he had switched her, like any other girl, that she understood that their relationship had undergone a transformation, and that she was, truly, precisely what she seemed to be, now his bond-maid. No longer would her dour presence deprive his feasts of joy. No longer would she, in her free woman’s scorn, shower contempt on bond-maids, trying to make them ashamed of their beauty. She, too, now, was no more than they. She now had new tasks to which to address herself, cooking, and churning and carrying water; the improvement of her own carriage, and beauty and attractiveness; and the giving of inordinate pleasure in the furs to her master, Svein Blue Tooth, Jarl of Torvaldsland; if she did not do so, well she knew, as an imbonded wench, that others would; it was not, indeed, until her reduction to slavery that she realized, for the first time, how fine a male, how attractive and how powerful, was Svein Blue Tooth, whom she had for years taken for granted; seeing him objectively for the first time, from the perspective of a slave girl, who is nothing herself, and comparing him with other free men, she realized suddenly how mighty how splendid and magnificent he truly was. She set herself diligently to please him, in service and in pleasure, and, if he would permit it, in love. Bera went to the next man, to fill his cup with mead, from the heavy, hot tankard, gripped with cloth, which she carried. She was sweating. She was barefoot. The bond-maid was happy.  Page 277 – 278


Whereas it commonly takes a third of an Ahn to arouse a free woman female slave is often responsive from almost the first touch of the master.

It is not unusual to give an entire day to sport with a female slave, something unthinkable with a free woman.  Page 292

Tribesmen of Gor (Book 10)

Women who have not been previously owned, like free women, for the most part, even if naked and collared, do not yet understand their sexuality. That can only be taught to them by a man, they helpless, in his power. An unowned girl, a free woman, thus, can never experience her full sexuality. A corollary to this, of course, is that a man who has never had an owned woman in his arms does not understand the full power of his manhood. Sexual heat, it might be mentioned, is looked upon in free women with mixed feelings; it is commanded, however, in a slave girl. Passion, it is thought, deprives the free woman to some extent of her freedom and important self-control; it is frowned upon because it makes her behave, to some extent, like a degraded female slave; free women, thus, to protect their honor and dignity, their freedom and personhood, their individuality, must fight passion; the slave girl, of course, is not entitled to this privilege; it is denied to her, both by her society and her master; while the free woman must remain cool and in control of herself, even in the arms of her companion, to avoid being truly “had,” the slave girl is permitted no such luxury; her control is in the hands of her master, and she must, upon the mere word of her master, surrender herself, writhing, to the humiliating heats of a degraded slave girl’s ecstasy. Only when a woman is owned can she be fully enjoyed. Page 17


When she does yield to the master, her guts half torn out with the love of him, then, of course, she is a more satisfactory slave. These indignities, of course, are not inflicted on free women. They are permitted to go through life with their eyes half closed, so to speak. In this way they can maintain their self-respect. Sometimes inert, esteemed Gorean free women cry out in rage, not understanding why their companions have forsaken them for the evening, to go to the paga tavern; there, of course, for the price of a cup of paga, he can get his hands on a silken, belled girl, a slave; the free woman must denounce her companion, crying out, for his lusts; too busy for this, however, are the sweet, dark-eyed, sensuous sluts of the paga tavern; they do not have time to denounce the lusts of their master’s customers; they are too busy serving and satisfying them.  Page 25


with assurance and power, to the depth and height of her mind and imagination she is taught; the slave girl experiences a paradox of freedom; the free woman is physically free, but miserable, fighting to be what she is not; the slave girl, physically in bondage, even to the collar, sometimes chains, is given no choice by men but to be totally and precisely what she is, slave; such women, the slave girls, interestingly, are almost always joyful and vital  Page 43


Free women, in the Tahari, incidentally, usually, when out of their houses, also measure their stride. Some fasten their own ankles together with silken thongs. Some dare even the chain, though they retain its key. Page 45


She was becoming brazen, and shameless, as befits an article of property. She was now, permitting herself thoughts and dreams that might have scandalized a free woman, but were for her, only a slave, quite appropriate.  Page 86


“Earrings,” I said to her, “by Gorean girls, are regarded as the ultimate degradation of a female, appropriate only in sensual slave girls, brazen, shameless wenches, pleased that men have forced them to wear them, and be beautiful.”
“Do free women on Gor not wear earrings?” asked Alyena.
“Never,” I said.
“Only slave girls?”
“Only the most degraded of slave girls,” I said. Page 138


“Let me sell myself!” she wept.
As a free woman she could do this, but, of course, she could not revoke the transaction for, after its completion, she would be only a slave.  Page 146


When free women and slave girls are chained together, it is common to respect the distinction between them by chaining them somewhat differently; in this case the free girl’s hands were slave’s were fastened below her right leg; it is common for the slave to be placed under greater restraint, and more discomfort, than her free sister; this acknowledges the greater nobility of the free woman, and is a courtesy often extended to her, until she, too, is only a slave.  Page 147


Beautiful slave girls, barefoot, bangled, in scandalously brief slave livery, well displaying their considerable charms, collared, hair free, flowing in the wind, vital, walking exhileratedly, were common on the high bridges of the city, extending between the numerous cylinder towers, whereas free women, sedate, dignified, restricted, in their confining robes of concealment, were discouraged from the use of such bridges.

I suspected, had to do with the attempt of cities to protect their free women who, in numbers, seldom fall to the enemy, unless the city itself should fall, and then, of course, they would find themselves, like slaves, under the victory torches, their clothing removed, completely, strapped on the pleasure racks of the conquerors, thereafter, in the morning following the victory feast, to be chained and branded. Men respected free women; they desired, fought for, sought and relished their female slaves.  Page 149 – 150


She had been the proud free woman, sold at Two Scimitars, with Zina, the traitress. It was difficult now to see in this lascivious, delicious slave, who seemed born to the collar, the proud free woman whom Hassan had earlier captured, and who had been later sold at the Bakah oasis of Two Scimitars. Some Goreans maintain that all women are born to the collar, and require only to find that man strong enough to put it on them.  Page 213


“There is a difference,” laughed Hassan, “between the pride of a free woman and the pride of the slave girl. The pride of a free woman is the pride of a woman who feels herself to be the equal of a man. The pride of the slave girl is the pride of the girl who knows that no other woman is the equal of herself.”  Page 333

Slave Girl of Gor Book 11

It was not as though she were a free woman whose anger might have significance, might even issue in actions or words, free from the reprisals of discipline. Page 85


“You cannot treat me badly,” I said. “You must treat me well.” I looked at him, boldly. “I have rights,” I said. “I am a free woman.”  Page 92


Afterwards, it might be mentioned, they are usually pleased with the piercing of their ears, and grow quite proud of this erotic dimension added to their beauty; not displeased are they either with the lovely adornments which their master may now order them to fix upon their body; free women, it is no secret, in many respects, envy their enslaved sisters, their beauty, their joy, their attractiveness to men; this may explain why free women are often quite cruel to slave girls; most imbonded girls fear greatly that they might be purchased by one of the dreaded free women. I have wondered sometimes if free women on Gor might not be happier if their culture permitted them to be somewhat more like the slave girls they so heartily despise. It seems a small enough thing that a free woman might be culturally permitted to have her ears pierced and, thus, be permitted earrings. Would it make so muck difference? But the bonds of culture are strong. On Earth a free woman would not think of having herself branded, though it might improve her beauty; similarly, on Gor, a free woman would not consider having her ears pierced.  Page 97


Some girls attempt to flee to the greenwood forests of the north. In such forests, in certain territories, there roam bands of free women, the lithe, ferocious Panther Girls of Gor, but these despise and hate women not of their own fierce ilk; in particular do they revile and hold in contempt girls, beauties, who have been slaves to men; should such a girl, fleeing enter the cool vastness of their green domain, she is commonly hunted down like a tabuk doe and cruelly captured; the forests are not for such as she; she is tethered and bound, and often lashed, then driven by switches helplessly to the shores of Thassa or the banks of the Laurius, and then sold back to men, usually for weapons or candy.
Page 98


Perhaps an equal must resist a man, but I was not an equal; I was a slave girl! I belonged to men! I could be a biological woman, as perhaps a free woman could not. I could be a primitive female, an owned woman, as they could not. I could be a woman, as they could not. Slavery made me free to be a woman.  Page 104


The veil, it might be noted, is not legally imperative for a free woman; it is rather a matter of modesty and custom. Some low-class, uncompanioned, free girls do not wear veils. Similarly certain bold free women neglect the veil. Neglect of the veil is not a crime in Gorean cities, though in some it is deemed a brazen and scandalous omission.

In some cities, and among some groups and tribes, it might be mentioned, though this is not common, veils may be for most practical purposes unknown, even among free women. The cities of Gor are numerous and pluralistic. Each has its own history, customs and traditions. On the whole, however, Gorean culture prescribes the veil for free women.  Page 107 – 108


His collar, I had heard, was one of the most sought collars in Ar.
When he strode through the streets free women sometimes threw themselves before him, tearing away their veils and robes, begging for his collar.  Page 155 – 156


The lust of Gorean males has much to do, doubtless, with the robes of concealment worn in most cities by Gorean free women. They would not wish the casual, inadvertent flirtation of an accidentally exposed ankle to lead to their hunt, capture and enslavement.  Page 237


Free women are often cruel to beautiful female slaves. They put us under terrifying discipline. Perhaps they sense in us something of greater interest to men than themselves, something which constitutes to them a threat, something which is subtly competitive, and successfully so, to them. I do not know. Perhaps they fear us, or the slave in themselves. I do not know. Mostly I suspect the women were furious with me because I had been responsive to the touch of the auctioneer’s whip. Free women, desiring to yield, pride themselves on their capacity not to yield, to maintain their quality and integrity; slave girls, on the other hand, are not permitted such luxuries; they, whether they desire to yield or not, must yield, and totally; perhaps free women wish they did not have to be free, and could relate in biological naturalness, like the slave girl, to the dominant organism. Perhaps they wish they were slaves. I do not know. One thing is certain, and that is that there is a deep, psychological hostility on the part of the free woman for her sister in bondage, particularly if she be beautiful. Slave girls, accordingly, fear free women; slave girls want to be locked in the collars of men, not women.  Page 291 – 192


She looked at me, not speaking. It seemed strange to me, later, that we, together, had spoken so. It was as though each of us desired to appear more frigid and less passionate than the other, as though the restriction or impairment of our natural sexuality were somehow desirable or meritorious. Women of Earth, I knew, sensitive to a heritage of insane values, of antibiological acculturation, sometimes competed with one another in their attempts to appear frigid, a competition which was often carried into the bedrooms of their husbands. Few wives, I knew, would dare to let themselves appear to their husbands as a hot, panting bitch. Slave girls, on the other hand, are given no choice.
“As a free woman,” she said, “I have had little opportunity to see a slave girl used.”
She looked at me, curious.
“Tellius,” she called. “Barus!”
The two men who had caught me entered the room.
The Lady Elicia indicated me to them. “Amuse yourselves with her,” he said.
“Have mercy on your slave!” I cried.
By the arms, I was thrown back on the tiles.

I wept, the tunic torn away from me, my body red and helpless, writhing on the tiles.
“Can there be more?” asked the Lady Elicia, amazed.
“She has not yet even experienced the first slave orgasm,” said Tellius, crouching beside me, looking up.
I turned my head from side to side, in misery. I looked up at him. I tried to lie still. But my body leaped to his touch. I cried out in misery.
“Is it soon?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Tellius, “note her breathing, the mottling of her skin, how she moves, her eyes.”
“Oh, please, Mistress, have mercy on me!” I wept. “Do not let them touch me further! Please, please, Mistress!”
Then I threw back my head and screamed. I clutched at Tellius. “You are my master!” I whispered, hoarsely. “You are my master!”
“Do not move,” he said.
“Oh, please, Master!” I wept
“You may now move,” he said.
I screamed and clutched at him, eyes closed, clawing at him, trying to bring our bodies closer. Then I threw back my head eyes wild, lips parted, and screamed, delivering my body to my master.
“It is the first of the slave orgasms,” said Tellius.
“I love you, Master!” I wept, clutching him. Gone now was the thought of the Lady Elicia. I, a slave girl, was in the arms of a Gorean male. I covered him with kisses and caresses, weeping. “Please touch your slave more, Master,” I begged.
“Little whore!” sneered the Lady Elicia.
“Touch me more, Master!” I begged.
“I knew you would be like this, even at the college,” she said. “Lovely Judy! A little whore!”
I licked at the hair on the upper arm of Tellius. “Please, Master,” I begged him.
“You are lower than a whore,” said the Lady Elicia. She looked down at me, in fury. “You are a slave girl!”
“I love you, Master,” I whispered to Tellius.
“Finish with her,” said the Lady Elicia, rising, angrily, from the curule chair. “And when you are done with her see that she is cleaned and groomed, and presented to me in a fresh tunic.”
“Yes, Lady,” said Tellius.
The Lady Elicia left the room.  Page 311 - 312


The Lady Elicia, as I soon discovered, and had earlier suspected, despised and hated men. Yet, too, she found them, somehow, intensely fascinating and intriguing. Often she asked me questions which a slave girl might respond to intimately and easily if asked by another slave girl, but which were difficult to respond to if asked by a free woman. She would ask questions about the tethering and chaining of slaves, and their feelings, and what men made them do and how they were expected to speak and behave. She wanted to know intimate details of such things as what it was like to be a peasant’s girl and what men exacted of girls in a paga tavern. I tried to answer her honestly. She would profess rage and indignation. “Yes, Mistress,” I would murmur, putting my head down.  Page 389 – 390

Beasts of Gor Book 12

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.  Page 10


“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “Give me my clothing,” she demanded angrily.
Again the points of the two spears pressed against her abdomen. Again they penetrated the loosely woven cloth. Again she stepped back, for the moment disconcerted.

I gathered that she had been accustomed to having her demands met by men.
When a woman speaks in that tone of voice to a man of Earth he generally hastens to do her bidding. He has been conditioned so. Here, however, her proven Earth techniques seemed ineffectual, and this puzzled her, and angered her, and, I think, to an extent frightened her. What if men did not do her bidding? She was smaller and weaker, and beautiful and desirable. What if she discovered that it were she, and not they, who must do now what was bidden, and with perfection? A woman who spoke in that tone to a Gorean man, if she were not a free woman, would find herself instantly whipped to his feet.  Page 25


I penetrated more deeply among the platforms. A girl, kneeling and naked, heavily chained, extended her hands to me. “Buy me, Master!” she begged. Then I had passed her and she was behind me. I saw two girls standing, back to back, the left wrist of each chained to the right wrist of the other. “Handsome master, consider me!” cried a girl as I passed her. Most of the girls knelt or sat on the platforms. All were secured in some fashion.
“Scandalous,” said a free woman, to another free woman, who was passing near me.
“Yes,” said the other free woman.  Page 53 – 54


I gestured to the two girls with the free woman. One of them slightly lowered her veil.
“I will pay well for the use of one of these slaves,” I said to the free woman.
“They are my personal slaves,” she said.
“I will give a silver tarsk for the brief use of one, either that you might indicate,” I said.
The warriors looked at one another. The offer was quite generous. It was unlikely that either of the girls would bring so much on the block.
“No,” said the free woman, icily.
“Permit me then to buy one,” I said, “for a golden tarn.” The men looked at one another, the draft slaves, too. Such a coin would fetch from the block a beauty fit for the gardens of a Ubar.
“Stand aside,” said the free woman.
I inclined my head. “Very well, Lady,” said I. I moved to one side.
“I deem myself to have been insulted,” she said.
“Forgive me, Lady,” said I, “but such was not my intent. If I have done or said aught to convey that impression, however minutely, I extend to you now the deepest and most profound of apologies and regrets.”
I stepped back further, to permit the retinue to pass.
“I should have you beaten,” she said.
“I have greeted you in peace and friendship,” I said. I spoke quietly.
Beat him,” she said.
I caught the arm of the captain. His face turned white. “Have you raised your arm against me?” I asked.
I released his arm, and he staggered back. Then he slung his shield on his arm, and unsheathed the blade slung at his left hip.
“What is going on!” demanded the woman.
“Be silent, foolish woman,” said the captain.
She cried out with rage. But what did she know of the codes?
I met his attack, turning it, and he fell, shield loose, at my feet. I had not chosen to kill him.
“Aiii!” cried one of the draft slaves.
“Kill him! Kill him!” cried the free woman. The slave girls screamed.  Page 114 – 115


The sexuality of a free woman is largely inert; the sexuality of a slave girl, on the other hand, has been deliberately and seriously activated.
. . .
The sexuality of the aroused slave girl is incomprehensible to the free woman. It is nothing she will ever understand. It is a color she cannot see, a sound she cannot hear.  Page 225


“Frigidity is a neurotic luxury,” I told her. “It is allowed only to free woman, probably because no one cares that much about them. Indeed, frigidity is one of the titles and permissions implicated in the lofty status of a free woman. For many it is, in effect, their proudest possession. It distinguishes them from the lowly slave girl. It proves to themselves and others that they are free. Should they be enslaved, of course, it is, for better or for worse, taken from them, like their property and their clothing.”
“Not all free women are frigid,” she said.
“Of course not,” I said, “but there is actually a scale, so to speak, in such matters. But just as some free women are insufficiently inert, or cold, to qualify, strictly, as frigid, perhaps to their chagrin, so none of them, I think, are sufficiently ignited to qualify in the ranges of “slave-girl hot,” so to speak. A free woman’s sexuality may generally be thought of in terms of degrees of inertness, or coolness; a slave girl’s sexuality, on the other hand, may generally be thought of in terms of degrees of responsive passion, or heat. Some slave girls are hotter than others, of course, just as some free women are less cold than others, whether this pleases them or not. Whereas the free woman normally maintains a plateau of frigidity, however, the slave girl will usually increase in degrees of heat, this a function of her master, his strength, her training, and such. The slave girl grows in passion; the free woman languishes in her frigidity, congratulating herself on the starvation of her needs.”
“Do free women know what they are missing?” she asked.
“I think, on some level, they do,” I said. “Else the resentment and hatred they bear the slave girl would be inexplicable.”
“I see,” she said.
“Beware the free woman,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.  Page 244


“Is there no cure for a free woman’s frigidity?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said.
“Total enslavement?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She said nothing.
“Every woman has a need to submit herself to a master,” I said. “When she finds herself at the feet of her master her body will no longer permit her to be frigid. There is no longer any reason. She is now where nature places her, at his feet and in his power. She kisses his feet and, weeping, feeling the heat and oils between her lovely legs, cannot wait to be thrown to the furs.”
She did not speak.
“But I do not speak here merely of the simplicities and negativities of a cure,” I said. “I speak rather of the beginning of a career, a helpless, flowering biography of service, love and passion.”
“You speak of a woman being made a slave girl,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“I wonder if I will be pleasing to a master,” she said.
“Any slave girl,” I said, “with the proper management, and master, can become a wonder of sexuality and love.”
“I think I will love being a slave girl,” she said.
I shrugged. What did it matter, what her feelings were? She was a slave.
“No wonder the free women hate us so,” she said.
“Of course,” I said. “You are everything that they desire to be and are not.”
She bit her lip. She looked at me. “Are free women permitted to watch us being sold?”
“Of course,” I said. “Why not? They are free.”
She looked at me, miserably.
“Ah, yes,” I said. “I see. It would be quite humiliating, one woman, a slave, being sold, while another woman, a free woman, observes.”
“Yes,” she said.  Page 245


“Do you find me of interest, Master?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“How can a girl who is only a slave be of interest?” she asked.
“Your question is foolish,” I said. “All men desire a slave, or slaves. It is their nature. Thus, that a woman is a slave, even in itself, makes her extraordinarily interesting. Her slavery in itself, apart from her intelligence or beauty, is found extremely provocative and exciting to the male, because of his nature.”
“But aren’t free women more interesting?” she asked.
“All women are interesting,” I said. “But consider the matter objectively. Anything that was interesting about you when you were free remains interesting about you now. But now you are additionally interesting because you are in helpless bondage. Too, slavery, because of its relation to a female’s genetic predispositions, tends to free her to be herself, rather than an imitator of male-type values. It frees her individuality by liberating her from the necessities of pretense. Too, slavery, by removing certain inhibitions and demands alien to a female’s deepest nature generally results in an increase in her beauty and energy; she is no longer as constricted and miserable, and needs no longer spend energy fighting to suppress herself and her natural desires, surely a grotesque and pathological misapplication of effort, a tragic waste of time and energy. That the girl, thus, becomes more beautiful and energetic does not, of course, diminish her interest. Indeed, similarity, routine, identity, boredom, those things which tend to make a woman less interesting, tend often to be functions of widespread conformances to externally imposed demands and images. It is thus that the free woman, though interesting, being female, is usually, sadly, a bound prisoner of her own prejudices, a rigid, constricted, ideologically restrained organism, an imitator of images and stereotypes alien to her own nature, a puppet obedient to principles foreign to herself. How can a woman be free until she obeys the laws of her own nature?”
“I do not know,” said Arlene.
“Interest, of course, is somewhat subjective,” I admitted. “Some men may prefer neurotic, frustrated, rigid, imitative, conforming free women, mouthing the correct slogans and adopting the correct views on all matters, and eager to slander all who disagree with her, but other men, perhaps naive types, would just as soon own an intelligent, beautiful, reflective, loving slave, a girl who thinks for herself, but must nonetheless obey him, regardless of her will, in all things. The matter seems a simple one. Let men choose between such women. Let men choose between them, between the stereotype and the truth, between the pain and the pleasure, between the unhappy and the happy, between the tasteless and the delicious, between sickness and health, between suffering and joy.”
She looked up at me.
“But regardless of the truth in these matters,” I said, “you are objectively my slave. Thus, whether you are or are not of interest is not really much to the point. Whether you are of more or less interest than your duller sisters in their intellectual cages congratulating themselves on how free they are is not important. What is important is that I own you. From my point of view I find you, and girls like you, far more interesting than your smug sisters. They seem generally much alike, even in their mode of dress, and tend in their thinking and conversation, because of their conditioning, to be repetitiously similar. Free women, though they need not be, are often boring. Who does not know, for example, what a female ‘intellectual’ will think on a given topic, provided it is a topic on which agreement is expected?”
“I am, then, of interest?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“A girl is pleased,” she said.
“I found you of interest when you were free,” I said, “and I find you of much greater interest now.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Part of this,” I said, “is doubtless that I now can, and will, do with you exactly as I please.”
“Oh, Master?” she asked.
“There is a sense, of course,” I said, “in which you are supposedly of less interest than a free woman.”
“What is that,” she asked, “Master.”
“Suppose,” I said, “that I was, in my compartments, entertaining a free woman. In such a situation you would be expected to efface yourself, and humbly serve. You would not speak unless you were spoken to, and then presumably only to respond deferentially to commands. You would remain in the background, a mere instrument to serve us. In no way would you in the slightest be permitted to detract from the impression or effect the free woman desires to create or compete with her in any way. You would be nothing in the room but an almost invisible convenience.”
“I see,” she said.
“And yet this is all on the surface,” I said, “and largely a matter of theory.”
“Oh, Master?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, “for in the depth of the situation your presence is felt profoundly by the free woman. Indeed, she will hate you with a ferocity which is difficult for you to understand. For you are a reproach, in the depths of your womanhood, to her superficiality. There is more excitement she knows in your slightest movement, the turning of your head, the tiny movement of a wrist or finger, that of a girl in bondage, than in her entire, tight, proud, righteous body. She can never touch you in the profundity of your existence and reality unless sometime she, too, should learn what it is to be only a collared slave. She knows that you have found your womanhood and she has not. Thus she hates you. She knows the free man is anxious for her to leave, that he may hurry you, his slave, to the furs. Thus she hates you. It is you whom he has put in his collar, not her. It is you he rapes in his arms, not her. It is thus that she despises and hates you. She must rise and leave. You will remain, and serve. She hates you, and, with a depth and intensity which is difficult for you to understand, envies you.”
“But why?” she asked.
“Because you are a slave,” I said.
“I see,” she said.
“Thus,” I said, “that is a situation in which a free woman is theoretically of more interest than a slave, but, upon closer analysis, the center of interest, even in such a situation, because of her latency, her womanhood, her helplessness, what can be done with her, is the slave.”
“I see,” she said.
“Beware of free woman,” I smiled.
“Yes,” she said, “I think I would be very afraid of them.”
“And you should be,” I said. “They can often be terribly cruel to slave girls.”
“I do fear them,” she said.  Page 274 - 277


“A slave should be proud of her heat,” I said. “You are not a free woman, permitted to be smug in the icy conceit of her frigidity.”  Page 278


“Love is found more often among slave girls than free women,” I said. “If you would learn love, learn slavery.”  Page 310


“So do not be surprised, in your servitude,” I said, “that you find men strong. Simply to look upon you, a beautiful slave, will commonly be enough to stimulate their lust. You are no longer a free woman, filled with her rigidities and negativities, for whom it is permissible to be irritating and boring. No. You are a lovely slave. Looking upon you men will want you. They will want to buy you. They will want to own you.”  Page 315


“No,” she said, “I would not like to be returned to Earth. I have never been so sensuously alive as here, at the mercy of men. I pity even the free women of this world, who cannot know the joys and loves of the female slave. I do not wish to return to Earth, to adopt again the role of pretending to be a man. What has Earth to offer that is worth more than joy and happiness?”  Page 434


I went to the rear of the come line and took the last girl on the line gently in my arms. I put my lips, gently, to hers. They were cool, in the cold night. Yet beneath mine they yielded, as a slave’s. Already had she who had been the Lady Rosa learned much. There is a difference between the kiss of the free woman and the kiss of the slave girl; the slave girl yields to her master; the difference is unmistakable. It is said that he whose lips have never touched those of a slave girl does not know, truly, what it is to hold a woman in his arms. Page 438

Explorers of Gor Book 13

Gorean free women, of course, may do what they wish. The slave girl, on the other hand, does not compete with the master, but serves him.  Page 39


The female slave, in the fullness of her womanhood, and helplessness, attains heights of passion from which the free woman, in her pride and dignity, is forever barred. She is not a man’s slave.  Page 41


Frigidity is accepted by Goreans only in free women. Slave fires, of course, lurk in every woman. It is only a question of arousing them.  Page 47


“As a free woman,” she said, “sometimes, late at night, or in my dreams, I had dimly sensed what might be the sexuality of the slave girl, but I had never remotely understood it could be anything like that, anything so overwhelming, so helpless, so total.”

“After a woman has felt anything like that,” she said, “how could she ever go back to being free?”
“Not many would receive the opportunity,” I told her.
She laughed. It was true. Gorean men, on the whole, do not free slaves. The freeing of a girl is almost unheard of. This makes sense. They are not free women. They are belongings, valuables, slaves, treasures. Who discards precious possessions, who surrenders treasures? If the slave girl were worth less perhaps she would be freed more. She is too marvelous to free; and if she is not marvelous, she can be slain. Too, what man who has known the glory and joy of a girl at his feet is likely to wish to exchange that for the inconvenience and bother of a free woman?  Page 89 – 90


Then she stumbled against a free woman, who, in fury, screamed at her, and began to strike and kick at her.
She fell to her knees, and put her head down. “Forgive me, Mistress!” she begged. “Forgive me!”
The free woman, angrily, continued on her way.  Page 131


“Do you think free women could have felt what you felt?” I asked.
“Never,” she said, “for they are not slaves.” She looked up at me. “What I felt were the feelings of a slave in the arms of her master. Those are feelings no free woman will ever know.”
“Unless she is put in bondage,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she smiled. Then she said, “How I pity them, those poor free woman, such as I was. How ignorant they are. No wonder they are so hostile to men. Would not any woman hate a man who did not have the strength to put her in a collar?”  Page 179


“Surely free women, too, have emotions,” I said.
“I was free,” she said. “I did not know what it was to feel until I became a slave. I was free. There was no need to feel, or be aware. But this has changed since I became a slave. I must now be sensitive to the feelings of others. I have never been so aware of other human beings as now. And I cannot always have my way, and I must yield to male domination. I can be commanded, and I must obey, and be pleasing. This answers to something very deep in me, Master.”  Page 188


“You will be punished for femininity on this world,” I told her, “only by free women.”  Page 204


The slave girl moves, and carries herself, differently from a free woman. This is evident in such small things as fetching a cup for her master or in pouring his wine. These movements, and bodily attitudes and postures, subtle and beautiful, difficult to fully disguise, have betrayed more than one slave beauty who, disguised as a free woman, has sought to flee a city.  Page 318


“The slave girl must honestly expose her needs,” I said. “The hypocrisy of the free woman, her concealment, her subterfuges, her lies, are not permitted to the female slave.”  Page 328


“Have her put her arms over her head, wrists back to back,” said Ayari.
. . .
No free woman, for example, would dare to place herself in such a position before Gorean free men, unless perhaps, weary of her misery and frustration, she was begging them, almost explicitly, to put her in a collar. There are many stories of Gorean free women, sometimes of high caste, who, as a lark or in a spirit of bold play, dared to dance in a paga tavern. Often, perhaps to their horror, they found themselves that very night hooded and gagged, locked in close chains, lying on their back, their legs drawn up, fastened in a wagon, chained by the neck and ankles, their small bodies bruised on its rough boards as they, helpless beneath a rough tarn blanket, are carried through the gates of their city.  Page 342


“It is a common property of human beings,” I said, “that they, for better or for worse, do not pay much attention to the thoughts and feelings of others. Thus, it would not be surprising if most men did not pay much attention to the thoughts and feelings of women. If it is any consolation, they do not pay much attention to the thoughts and feelings of other men either. Similar remarks, of course, hold for women. Many women, for example, are excellent in not listening to others. No one sex has a monopoly on dogmatism.” I looked at her. “If you are interested in this sort of thing from the Gorean viewpoint,” I said, “free men and women are usually attentive to the thoughts and feelings of one another. Not only are they free, but they may even share a Home Stone. Free women, in being free, command attention when they speak. It is their due.  Page 353 – 354


“I had not known such sensations could exist,” she had said.
“They are attainable only by the slave,” I told her. “They are the surrender and submission spasms of the owned woman, the girl who must yield absolutely and totally, holding nothing back, to her master.”  Page 364 – 365


“Yes, Master,” she said. A free woman’s name, of course, tends to remain constant. A Gorean free woman does not change her name in the ceremony of the Free Companionship. She remains who she was. In such a ceremony two free individuals have elected to become companions. The Earth woman, as a consequence of certain mating ceremonials, may change her last name. The first and other names, however, tend to remain constant. From the Gorean point of view the wife of Earth occupies a status which is higher than that of the slave but lower than that of the Free Companion.  Page 365

Fighting Slave of Gor (Book 14)

“I was terribly angry,” she said. “‘Never have I been so insulted!’ I said to him. ‘I hate you!’ I cried. He smiled at me. ‘Being troublesome and displeasing is acceptable in a free woman,’ he said. ‘Be troublesome and displeasing while you may. It will not be permitted to you later.’  Page 20


“I do not need permission to speak,” she cried. “I am a free woman! I am not a slave!”  Page 38


“Yes,” she said. “They are stinking, meaningless, lascivious little sluts who have been as slaves in the arms of Gorean men. It has spoiled them for freedom. They are worthless, sensuous little beasts whose passions Gorean men have seen fit, as cruel masters, to ignite. Their sexuality, their shamelessness, their needs, their helplessness, makes them an insult to free women.  Page 63


Lola fled to the Lady Gina and knelt before her, putting her head to the floor. Lola, I saw, was terrified to be in the presence of the free women. I realized then, as I had not before, something of the loathing and hatred with which the enslaved female is regarded by her free sisters.
. . .
She did not, after all, wish to writhe beneath their whips, the lashed object of the fury and contempt of free women, jealous perhaps of the helplessness of the slave girl before men, her beauty and her collar.  Page 83 – 84


Lola looked up at me, tears in her eyes. Slavery, I suddenly suspected, releases femaleness in the woman. I did not suppose that Gorean free women could have brought themselves to this pitch of exposure, vulnerability and excitement, which was perhaps not unusual for a slave girl. The major difference then, I suspected, lay not so much between the Gorean woman and the Earth woman, but between the free woman and the slave.  Page 101


“Are you a pretty one?” I heard. A woman’s voice had spoken. I looked up, through the perforations.
“I can see very little of him,” said another voice, also that of a woman. Two free women, veiled and in robes, stood near the slave box. They had market baskets on their arms.
“Are you pretty?” I heard.
“I do not know, Mistress,” I said.
She laughed.
“For what market are you bound?” asked the other woman.
“The market of Tima,” I said.
They looked at one another and laughed. “I’ll bet you are a pretty one!” said one of the women.
“My companion would not even let me have a pet like you,” said the other.
“Are you quite tame?” asked the first woman.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“He probably is,” said the second woman. “The market of Tima is famous for her tamed slaves.”
I did not tell them that I came from a world in which almost all the males were perfectly tamed, indeed, a world in which males were supposed to pride themselves on their inoffensiveness and agreeability.
“I do not trust Kajiri,” said the first woman. “They can revert. Can you imagine how fearful that might be, if one turned on you?”
The second one shuddered, but I thought with pleasure. “Yes,” she said.
“Consider your danger, and what they might make you do,” said the first.
“Yes,” said the second.
“They might treat you as though you were little better than a slave.”
“Or perhaps as only a slave,” said the second.
“How horrifying that would be,” said the first.
“Yes,” said the second, but it seemed to me that she, beneath her robes and veil, shuddered again with pleasure.
“But if the Mistress is strong,” said the first, “what has she to fear?”
“One who is stronger than she,” said the second.
“I am stronger than any man,” said the first.
“But what if you should meet your Master?” asked the second.
The first one was silent then for a moment. Then she spoke. “I would love him and serve him, helplessly,” she said.
“Beautiful Mistresses,” I said, “can you tell me in what city I am?”
“Be silent, Slave,” said the first woman.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“Curiosity is not becoming in a Kajirus,” said the second.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said. “Forgive me, Mistresses.”  Page 123 - 124


I could already begin to feel the wine. I was still half on my elbows. “What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
“Treat you as what you are,” she said, “a man of Earth, a weakling, at the mercy of a Gorean free woman.”
I regarded her, frightened.
“Lie back, pretty Jason,” she said. I lay back. The furs were deep about me. I felt the inflexible clasp of the steel on my ankles and wrists.
Then suddenly, lightly, like a cat, she slipped onto the couch beside me.
“I do not understand,” I said. “What are you going to do with me?”
“Own you,” she whispered. “Use you for my pleasure.”
I looked at her with horror.
She smiled and then thrust the whip, crosswise, in my mouth, between my teeth.
She then aroused, and raped me.  Page 132


I knew, of course, what she looked like naked, for I was her silk slave. Free women think as little of concealing their bodies before their silk slaves as the women of Earth would before their pet dogs.  Page 180


“Do you still think your Mistress should be a slave girl?” she asked.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said, through gritted teeth.
“Why?” she demanded.
“Because you are exciting and beautiful,” I said.
“Flattering slave!” she laughed.
I did not speak.
“But I am exciting and beautiful as a free woman,” she said.
“It is true, Mistress,” I said. “But the excitement and beauty of a free woman is as nothing compared to the excitement and beauty of a slave girl.”
“Beast!” she laughed. But I think she knew that it was true.  Page 206


“If you would improve your situation somewhat,” he said, “I recommend that you learn the arts of the slave girl, and practice them with diligence.”
“That would only improve my situation somewhat?” she asked, puzzled.
“Yes,” he said, “for you would still be free, and no free woman, because she is free, can truly compete for the attention and affection of a man as can a slave girl.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I do not know,” said Turbus Veminius. “Perhaps it is simply because the slave girl is a slave girl, truly, and is owned.”  Page 217


Like many Gorean women, she did not use cosmetics. Free women in Ar commonly use cosmetics, but, outside of Ar, usually it is only the bolder women who resort to them. My Mistress, for example, did not use cosmetics either. Many free women regard cosmetics as only for slave girls. Page 224


She wore a full, beige skirt, the hem of which fell to within some six inches of the ground, and slim, high, black-leather boots; a beige blouse, and a beige jacket, belted, which fell to her thighs; too, she wore a loose hood, attached to the jacket by hooks, of matching beige material, and an opaque veil, also of beige material. Such garments, far less formal than the common attire of the Gorean free woman, are sometimes worn by rich women in the supervision and inspection of certain sorts of holdings, such as orchards, fields, ranches and vineyards. They constitute, for such women, so to speak, a habit for work.  Page 232


Frigidity is a neurotic luxury which Goreans do not see fit to indulge in female slaves. It is permitted only to free women.  Page 243


All then drank, save the Lady Florence, who, smiling, did not lift her cup. Free women, drinking, commonly lift their veil, or veils, with the left hand. Low-caste free women, if veiled, usually do the same. Sometimes, however, particularly if in public, they will drink through their veil, or veils. Sometimes, of course, free women will drink unveiled, even with guests. Much depends on how well the individuals are known, and who is present. In their homes, of course, with only members of their families present, or servants and slaves, most free women do not veil themselves, even those of high caste.  Page 276


“Back! Back!” they cried. “Back, you collared she-sleen!” they cried to the slave girls, drawing their whips. And the leather of their whips, to cries of dismay and pain, fell liberally on the half-stripped bodies of the imbonded beauties. Even free women among them cried out in misery, struck. Then the women, bond and free, fell back, crying and frightened, for all women, whether slave or free, understand the whip.  Page 324


“No,” she said. “No!” She regarded me, in fury. “Can you not simply look upon me and see that I am free?”
“Perhaps if I saw you in the robes of concealment, and veiled, being carried in a palanquin through the streets of Vonda by slaves,” I said, “I would think you free.”
“It has nothing to do with such things!” she said. “Free women are different from slave girls. They are simply different! Free woman are noble and fine! Slave girls are only meaningless, lascivious, sensuous, little sluts!”  Page 349 – 350


“I fear,” she said, “that I will never be able to make the transition between a free woman and a slave.”
I laughed at her, and she looked up, angrily.
“There is in actuality no transition for you to make,” I told her.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you are a woman,” I told her.  Page 366


“Men seeing you will want you in their collar,” I said. “They will pay high to take you from the block. As a free woman you are extremely beautiful. As a slave you will be a thousand times more beautiful.”  Page 377

Rouge of Gor Book 15

“What you have done to me,” she said, “is irreversible. I can never go back, now, knowing what I do, to being a proud free woman.”  Page 34


“I am a free woman of Vonda!” the woman at the counter had been crying out last night. “You cannot put me out!” “You will pay or be ejected,” Strobius had told her.
“You cannot put me out into the street!” she said. I had taken another sip of the sul porridge.
The woman at the counter had been veiled, as is common with Gorean women, particularly those of high caste and of the high cities. Many Gorean women, in their haughtiness and pride, do not choose to have their features exposed to the common view. They are too fine and noble to he looked upon by the casual rabble. Similarly the robes of concealment worn by many Gorean women are doubtless dictated by similar sentiments. On the other hand veiling is a not impractical modesty in a culture in which capture, and the chain and the whip are not unknown. One justification for the veiling and for the robes of concealment, which is not regarded as inconsiderable, is that it is supposed to provide something of a protection against abduction and predation. Who would wish to risk his life, it is said, to carry off a woman who might, when roped to a tree and stripped, turn out to be as ugly as a tharlarion? Slave girls, by contrast, are almost never permitted veils. Similarly they are usually clad in such a way that their charms are manifest and obvious to even the casual onlooker. This, aside from having such utilities as reminding the girls that they are total slaves and giving pleasure to the men who look upon them, is supposed to make them, rather than free women, the desiderated objects of capture and rapine. I think there is something to this theory for, statistically, it is almost always the female slave and not her free sister who finds herself abducted and struggling in the lashings of captors or slavers. On the other hand, in spite of the theories pertaining to such matters, free women are certainly not immune to the fates of capture and enslavement Many men, despite the theories pertaining to such matters, and accepting the risks involved, enjoy taking them. Some slavers specialize in the capture of free women. Indeed, it is thought by some, perhaps largely because of the additional risks involved, and the interest in seeing what one has caught, that there is a special spice and flavor about taking them. Similarly it is said to be pleasant, if one has the time and patience, first to their horror and then to their joy, training them to the collar.
“You cannot put me out into the street!” had cried the free woman.
“I can,” he informed her soberly.
“I am a free woman of Vonda,” she said, “a member of the Confederation.”
“I am an innkeeper,” said he. “My politics are those of the ledger and silver.”  Page 41 – 42


“Your duties in this house, Lola,” I told her, “will be numerous and complex. In particular, you will be a house slave. You will dust and clean the house, and keep it neat. You will mend and sew. You will wash and iron clothing. You will shop, and cook and serve. All manners of domestic tasks, trivial and servile, unfit for free women, will be yours.”  Page 130


“I am a free woman,” she said. “Do you find slaves more interesting than I?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“For one thing,” I said, “they are owned.”
“That makes them fascinating, doesn’t it?” she said, bitterly.
“Yes,” I said.
“And doubtless,” she said, angrily, “they do not have the inhibitions and frigidities of their free sisters!”
“They are not permitted them,” I admitted.
“I hate female slaves,” she said.
I shrugged.
“Why are they preferred over free women?” she asked.
“Because they are slaves,” I said.
“What are the differences?” she asked.
“There are thousands,” I said. “Perhaps, most simply, the female slave is submitted to men. This makes her the most total of women.”
“Disgusting,” she said.
“Perhaps,” I said.  Page 151


To the Gorean free woman the joys of the slave girl, though they may be despised and disparaged, are at least culturally not unknown, and are the envy of such free women. To the Earth woman, on the other hand, who finds herself in the collar of a Gorean master, such joys come as a revelation. Only in her wildest and most secret dreams had she dared even to suspect their existence. Then she finds herself a slave girl.  Page 208


It is said on Gor that the garments of a free woman are designed to conceal a woman’s slavery, whereas the accouterments and garments of a slave, such as the brand and collar, the tunic or Ta-Teera, are made to reveal it.  Page 276

Guardsman of Gor (Book 16)

The presence of a free woman on a ship, incidentally, causes some Gorean sailors uneasiness. Indeed, some, superstitiously, and mistakenly, in my opinion, regard them as harbingers of ill fortune. This is probably, from the objective point of view, a function of the dissension such a woman may produce, particularly on long voyages, and of the alterations in seamanship and conduct which can be attendant upon her presence on shipboard. For example, knowing that a free woman is on board, and must be accommodated and protected, can adversely, whether it should or not, affect the decisions of a captain. He might put into shore when it would be best to remain at sea; he might run when he should fight; when he should be firm, he might vacillate; when he should be strong, he might be conciliatory and weak. Page 61


For example, although one may see a girl in the streets, naked save for, say, her brand and collar, or a bit of chain, this is not common. This sort of thing is done, usually, only as a discipline. Free women tend to object, for the eyes of their companions tend almost inadvertently to stray to the exposed flesh of such girls. Perhaps, too, they are angry that they themselves are not permitted to present themselves so brazenly and lusciously before men. Needless to say it is difficult for men to keep their minds on business when such girls are among them. Perhaps this is the reason that magistrates tend to frown upon the practice. After all, Goreans are only human.  Page 106


“Too,” said I, “tie shut your tunic. Free women may soon be about. We must not scandalize them.”  Page 168


The girl who was serving as the small brunet’s keeper withdrew from the chest, and shook out, a flimsy, tiny, diaphanous snatch of yellow pleasure silk. It was the sort of garment which, commonly, would be worn only by the most lascivious of dancing slaves writhing before strong, rude men in the lowest taverns on Gor. Free women had been known to faint at the sight, or touch, of such cloth. In many cities it is a crime to bring such cloth into contact with the flesh of free women. It is just too exciting, and sensuous.  Page 173


The unauthorized rape of slave girls, without the permission of their masters, is officially frowned on in most cities, but, too, it is as often winked at.
There are thought to be two major advantages to the custom of permitting, and, sometimes, of even encouraging, the practice. First, it provides a way of satisfying the sexual needs of young men who may not yet own their own girls, and, secondly, it is thought to provide a useful protection for free women. Free women, incidentally, are almost never raped on Gor, unless it be perhaps a preparatory lesson proceeding their total enslavement.
There seem to be two major reasons why free women are seldom raped on Gor. First, it is thought that they, being free, are to be accorded the highest respect, and, secondly, slave females are regarded as being much more desirable. Page 184


Two children, however, one boy and one girl, did run and strike the slave. She started, and squirmed, on my shoulder under the blows.
I did not admonish the children. First, it was nothing to me that they had struck her, for she was a slave. Secondly, they were free persons, and free persons on Gor may do much what they please. It is slaves who must be careful of their behavior, lest free persons find it displeasing. The boy who had struck her, I believe, had been in a fit of ill temper. I think he had just lost at stone toss.
The girl, on the other hand, I think, had had far different motivations. She had not been involved in the game, but had only been watching it. Yet she had struck the slave by far the cruelest blow. Already she had learned, as a free woman, that female slaves are to be despised and beaten. The hatred of the free woman on Gor for the female slave is an interesting phenomenon. There are probably many reasons for this.
Among them, however, would seem to be a jealousy of the female slave’s desirability and beauty, a resentment of the interest of free men in imbonded women, and an envy of the slave girl’s psychological and biological fulfillments, and emotional freedom and joy. Something of the same hatred and contempt tends to be felt by masculine women on Earth towards feminine women. Perhaps they hate what they are not, and perhaps cannot be. The Gorean slave girl, incidentally, can be terrorized by the mere thought that she might be sold to a free woman. I glanced at the girl who had struck the slave. She was comely. I wondered if she might one day fall slave. If so, she, too, in her turn, would surely learn to fear free women. Page 197 – 198


The former Miss Henderson, of course, had been in this house before. This was, however, the first time she had been brought into it as a slave. The slave girl, of course, sees a house much differently than does a free woman. Most simply she sees it as a house, and knows it, as a house in which she is a slave, whereas the free woman sees it and knows it as a house in which she is free. The houses are, accordingly, experienced quite differently. The free woman looks into a slave kennel but she, presumably, has never occupied it, the helpless prisoner behind its bars; the free woman may see chains but she, presumably, has never worn them; she may see the whip but she, presumably, has never felt it. She sees the door, a device by means of which she gains access to her dwelling, but can it have the same meaning to her as to one who has been helplessly carried through it, as a slave? Similarly, the free woman passes through that door whenever she wishes. She does not give it a second thought. It is only a door. To the slave, on the other hand, it is the portal to her master’s house. It is, thus, a significant border in her world. Commonly, if the master is home, and she is not under orders, as in, say, running an errand, or conducting regular business, such as shopping or gardening, she must, on her knees, beg his permission to leave the house, usually specifying her itinerary and when she expects to return.
Similarly a free woman may look upon a wall and see there merely the side of a room, but the slave girl may see there an obdurate barrier, beyond which she cannot run, against which she could be thrown and stripped, a barrier at the foot of which, crouching in terror, she would have to await the pleasure of her master. The free woman may look upon the smooth tiles flooring a room but, presumably, she has never felt them on her naked flesh, on her belly, as she has kissed the feet of her master. Too, presumably, she will never have been beaten upon them, or forced, as a discipline, to clean them, prone, her hands bound behind her, a small brush held in her teeth. The free woman looks upon a stairwell. She sees a stairwell. The slave girl may also see a place where she, if her master wishes, may be conveniently tied to a railing and raped. Much sex between a master and his slave is spontaneous and casual, occurring whenever the master wishes, and not unoften when the slave begs for it. The sweetness of these sometimes sudden and transient ravishings, of course, does not replace the lengthy feasts of love of which the Gorean is fond; rather, they merely supplement them. They are, in their way, merely another attestation of the condition of the girl, that she is truly a slave and must be ready, at any time, and in any place, to serve her master’s pleasure. The same girl who, fed by hand, is lengthily ravished over a period of Ahn, or even of a day or two, may, at another time, be merely told to stretch herself over a table. She will do so, immediately, unquestioningly. She is a slave. And how wondrously different does the bedroom of the male seem to the free woman than it does to the slave. She looks upon the couch of the male. She sees the slave ring at its foot. She sees the furs of love, rolled against the side of the wall. She sees the lamp. She sees, coiled beneath the slave ring, a chain; with a collar or shackles. She sees the whip. But these things, as she is free, mean little to her. Imagine, however, if you will, her emotions if she entered that room as a slave girl, stripped and rightless, bearing on her upper thigh, just under her hip, the mark of bondage, her throat clasped in the light, gleaming, close-fitting, locked circlet of a slave. How different, then, would that room seem to her! She is ordered to spread the furs of love. She does so, beneath the slave ring. She must light the lamp. She does so. She returns then to the furs of love, and kneels upon them. She is then fastened by her master to the slave ring. Perhaps this is merely done by a single ankle ring, on her left ankle, or perhaps both of her ankles are shackled, the length of chain running through the slave ring. If this is done, of course, the chaining is such that her ankles may be thrust widely, even painfully apart. Or perhaps the collar is locked upon her, with its dependent chain. She, then, feels the drag of the chain against her collar, and the chain, with its heavy links, between her bared breasts; she knows well that she is chained.
Though the light of the lamp is soft and sensuous, it is quite adequate, by design, to illuminate her; she is under no delusion on this score; her tiniest movements and her subtlest expressions, she knows, will be fully visible to her master. This is as it should be; she is his slave. Some free women, incidentally, insist on making love in the dark, because of their modesty. If such a woman should be enslaved, however, she must learn to perform in full illumination, whether it be in the soft light of a common ravishment lamp or on a dock at midday.
We shall now suppose that the girl is kneeling before her master, on the deep furs, in the position of the pleasure slave, in the soft light of the lamp, chained to the slave ring. Do you not think that she will find that room different than would the free woman? The master walks about her, whip in hand. She tries to hold herself as beautifully as she can, that he will be pleased. Perhaps she lowers her head, frightened, submissively. She feels the butt of his whip under her chin, lifting it up. She must hold her head properly. She sees the master shake out the blades of the whip. Is she to be whipped, or raped, or both? But he folds back the blades and holds the whip before her. She kisses it, fervently, in token of her slavery and submission. He then drops the whip to the side, but where it may easily be grasped, should he wish to do so. He then lifts the chain and throws it to the side, over her left shoulder. He then begins to caress her, with the full and possessive caresses of the master, sometimes even holding her in place with her left hand behind the small of her back. She begins to moan. Then, when he wishes, she is thrust on her back on the furs. “Please, be gentle, my Master,” she begs. But he will, or will not, as it pleases him. She lies before him, a slave, his to do with as he pleases. It is little wonder, then, I think, that the female slave experiences the bedroom of the male in a manner quite different from that of the free woman.  Page 201 - 203


The slave girl, it might be mentioned, in connection with the “releasing effects” of the collar, is relieved of many social pressures to which the free woman, because of her freedom, must remain subject. The free woman, for example, may fear that men will learn of her sexual vitality. It would not do for her for them to know that she, that lofty creature, on the couch, is a helpless, panting, licking she-sleen. The slave girl, on the other hand, does not have this problem. She knows that she belongs to a category of women toward which respect need not be shown, and will not be shown.  Page 209


A third reason why girls tend to wear their collars with pleasure and pride, aside from the attractiveness of the collar and its seductiveness, is seldom mentioned. That is, that the collar, in its way, functions as a symbol of interesting differences among women. It, like a wired seal of quality, attests to the value of the merchandise upon which it is fastened. “Beautiful enough to he collared” is a Gorean compliment, though perhaps a rather rude one, and one that one would not be likely to hear addressed openly and to the face of a free woman. “She has legs pretty enough to be those of a slave girl” is another such compliment. If the free woman should hear such compliments she will he scandalized. But she may also wonder if, indeed, she is beautiful enough to be collared, and if, indeed, her legs are as pretty as those of a slave girl. If, at some later time, she is collared, she will then, for all practical purposes, have the answers to her questions. Normally it is only the finest, and the most feminine and desirable of women who are enslaved. This makes sense.  Page 210


The collar, thus, particularly statistically, is a symbol of excellence and quality, of value, among women. It says, in effect, “Here is a woman whom men have wanted. Here is a woman whom men have found beautiful enough, and desirable enough, to enslave.” The slave girl, in her tunic and collar, trembling, kneels in the street before the ornately robed, arrogant, imperious free woman. Perhaps she is even struck or kicked by her. But who, truly, is the superior woman? Many Goreans believe that it is the girl who kneels on the stones 
Page 211


As a free woman she had been, in effect, without accomplishments. Now she had additional ways in which to please her master. She now knelt behind her master. She wore a yellow tunic, and her collar.  Page 232


It is a well-known fact that the mere sight of chains can make many women, even free women, sexually uneasy. Imagine if they were put in them. The chain, like the rope and the strap, and the whip, even when they have no reason to believe they will ever be used on them, speak on some profound level to women. Imagine, then, that a woman, falling slave, suddenly realized that she was now, in effect, subject to them! Consider her fears, her curiosity, her arousal A woman, often, particularly if stripped, seeing a chain and knowing that it is to be placed upon her, will feel uncontrollable sexual desire, her body opening like a humid flower in its receptivity. That response can characterize even a free woman. Imagine, then, if you will, that now the woman is not free, but has fallen slave! She now knows that she is subject, categorically and in all ways, to the full domination of the master. No longer does she have even the theoretical option of offering a token resistance. Open, enraptured, joyful, she writhes moaning and crying out on the furs of love, a conquered slave, a fulfilled woman.  Page 243


“A free woman!” suddenly exclaimed Glyco, startled.
I smiled.
From the kitchen there had emerged, in the robes of concealment, the figure of a woman.
The men, save I, rose as one to their feet, for Gorean men commonly stand when a free woman enters a room.
The voluptuous slave of Aemilianus swiftly knelt, making herself as small as possible, putting her head to the floor. The little dark-haired slave, too, swiftly knelt, also putting her head to the floor. Too, she shuddered, trying to cover her nakedness with her hands. Peggy and Florence, too, now had their heads to the floor. Slave girls, as I may have mentioned, fear free women, terribly.  Page 255


A familiar bit of advice given by bold Gorean physicians to free women who consult them about their frigidity is, to their scandal, “Learn slave dance.” Another bit of advice, usually given to a free woman being ushered out of his office by a physician impatient with her imaginary ailments is, “Become a slave.” Frigidity, of course, is not accepted in slaves. If nothing else, it will be beaten out of their beautiful hides by whips.  Page 260


The lovely figures of slave girls are not accidents. Only free women are permitted to become unkempt and gross.  Page 264


I looked down at her, on her belly, her small hands chained behind her. The passions of the female slave are a mystery to many free women who, unaroused and sexually inert, never collared and owned, cannot even understand them; to most free women, of course, the passions of the female slave are not so much a mystery as a source of envy and fury; she senses that they, deep and precious, making the slave so helpless and vulnerable, are far beyond anything which she herself possesses. Sometimes, perhaps, twisting on her couch at night in frustration, the free woman may dimly sense what it is to be an aroused slave, a woman so much at the mercy of men, and so precious and beautiful to them; the free woman clenches her fists and moans; the slave may throw herself to the feet of men and beg to please them, as she cannot.  Page 286

Savages of Gor Book 17

In most Gorean cities it is illegal to offer an unbranded woman in a public sale. This is presumably in deference to the delicacy and sensibilities of free women. The brand draws a cataclysmic gulf between the Gorean free woman, secure in her arrogance, beauty and caste rights, and the stripped, nameless, rightless slaves; suitably vended as the mere lovely beasts they are in the flesh markets of this primitive, gorgeous world. Page 101


“I betrayed myself,” she said.
“Let us think clearly about this matter,” I suggested.
“Your assertion might be construed as meaning that you had committed some treason against yourself; or, perhaps, as meaning merely that you had revealed, or manifested, yourself. Let us consider, first, the matter of treason. A free woman might, possibly, feel that she had betrayed herself, in this sense, if she had so yielded to a man as to supply him with some perhaps subtle hint as to the latency of her slave reflexes. A slave girl, on the other hand, cannot commit treason against herself in this sense, for she is a slave. To commit this type of treason one must have a right, say, to deceive others as to one’s sensuality, to conceal one’s sexuality, and so on. The slave girl, an owned animal, under the command of her master, does not have this sort of right. Indeed, she has no rights. Accordingly, she cannot commit this sort of treason. Her legal status precludes its possibility. She may, of course, rationally, fear the consequences of her responsiveness being discovered, thus increasing, perhaps to her terror, in a slave culture, her desirability. Similarly she may lie, or attempt to lie, about her responsiveness, but she is then, of course, merely a lying slave and, when found out, will be treated accordingly.”
“Such treason, then,” she said, “can be committed only by a free woman.”
“Yes,” I said. “It is a luxury not permitted to the slave.”
“It is a function only of the free woman’s right to lie, and defraud, others?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “It is possible, of course, for the slave, subjectively, psychologically, to feel that she has committed this treason, for she may, mistakenly, be still regarding herself, implicitly, as a free woman.”
“But she cannot, in fact, have committed it, because she is a slave?” asked the girl.
“Yes,” I said.
“I understand, Master,” she said, bitterly.
“You see,” I said, “you were still regarding yourself, implicitly, at least at the moment, as a free woman, or, perhaps better, more narrowly, as retaining at least one of the rights of a free woman.”
“I am not to be beaten, am I, Master?” she asked.
“Not at the moment, at least,” I informed her. Page 189 – 190


“An ignorant free woman is a commonplace,” I said. “An ignorant slave is an absurdity.”

“You are not a wasted free woman,” I said. “You are a slave. You must earn your keep.”

“The free woman,” I said, “lies down, and waits to see what will happen. The female slave kneels beside her master, and begs to please him. The free woman deems it sufficient that she should exist, the slave girl, on the other hand, is expected not only to exist, but to excel; indeed, she fears only, commonly, that she may not be sufficiently marvelous for her master. It is little wonder that most men find the free woman, in her inertness, her ignorance and arrogance, boring. It is little wonder that most men prefer to order her rival to their furs, the helpless, collared, curvaceous, lascivious, feminine slave.”
“I was once a free woman,” said the girl.
“There is hope for the free woman,” I said. “She may be put in a collar, and stripped, and made subject to the whip. She may then, enslaved, be trained, too, for the pleasure of men.”
“Yes, Master,” whispered the girl. Page 196 – 197


“Sometimes, metaphorically, in English, however,” I said, “a distinction is drawn between the virgin and the woman, a distinction which is almost Gorean in tone. Strictly, of course, in English, one might be both a woman and a virgin.”
“Do Goreans speak freely of these things?” she asked.
“Free persons do not commonly speak freely of them,” I said. “For example, whether a free woman is glana or falarina is obviously her business, and no one else’s. Such intimate matters are well within the prerogatives of her privacy.”  Page 204


Slave girls must yield, and fully, to any man. Their entire mental set, so to speak, in the furs, is oriented toward providing the master with marvelous pleasures, and, in their own case, to feel as richly and deeply as possible, and, in the end, in an uncompromised and delicious capitulation, submitting fully to their master, to obtain the surrender spasms of one who is merely a vanquished woman, naught but an owned and degraded slave. This is quite different from the mental set taken by the free woman to the furs, of course, with attendant deleterious consequences for the free woman, in so far as any woman could be called free who is not surrendered and owned. The free woman is expected to pervert her nature in the furs, behaving as a cultural identical rather than as what she is by nature, the servant and slave of her master. It is littlie wonder that the free woman, concerned with her putative identicality, her status, her image, her dignity and pride, is often inhibited and sexually inert in the furs. The Goreans say that if one has never had a slave one has never had a woman. Similarly there is a secret saying, among Gorean men, that no female is a woman, who has not been made a slave. The free woman, often, fears to feel. The slave, on the other hand, fears not to feel, for she may then, in all likelihood, be punished. The same frigidity which may be accounted a virtue among free women, figuring in their vanity competitions, how well they can resist men, is commonly among slaves an occasion for the imposition of severe discipline; it can even constitute a capital offense. The degraded slave has little choice but to yield, and yield well. An interesting question arises as to whether a woman, permitted her own will in the matter, as a slave is not, can be forced to yield. There are two answers to this question, and the division between the answers is primarily a function of the time involved. Within a given amount of time, say, half of an Ahn, some women can resist some men. On the other hand, there will be some men whom they cannot resist and to whom, despite their will in the matter, they will find themselves uncontrollably yielding. Given a longer amount of time, however, any woman may be made to yield, whether she wishes to or not, by any man. Sometimes, after such a yielding, she is then collared. “Resistance is now no longer permitted,” he tells her. “Yes, Master,” she says. She now knows that she, as a slave, must open herself to feeling, and even seek it avidly, even knowing whence it leads, to the acknowledgement of the male as her master, and of her as his slave.  Page 222


“What did Grunt, who is your master, the fellow in the broad-brimmed hat, call you?” I asked.
“‘Wicincala’,” she said, “which means ‘Girl’, and ‘Amomona’, which means ‘Baby’ or ‘Doll’.”
“I see,” I said. I myself prefer the application of such expressions not to slaves, but to pretentious free women, to remind them that they, in spite of their freedom, are only women. They are useful, by the way, in making a free woman uneasy, their use suggesting to her that perhaps the male is considering shortly enslaving her. In speaking to a slave I prefer expressions such as ‘Slave’ or ‘Slave Girl’, or the girl’s name itself, she understanding clearly, of course, that it is only a slave name.  Page 230 – 231

Blood Brothers of Gor (Book 18)

I well understood, now, why free women could not be permitted to see such a dance. It was the dance of a slave. How horrified, how scandalized, they would have been. Better that they not even know such things could exist. Such dances, that such things could be, are doubtless best kept as the secrets of masters and slaves. Too, how furious, how outraged, they would be, to see how beautiful, how exciting and desirable another woman could be, a thousand times more beautiful, exciting and desirable than themselves, and one who was naught but a slave. But then how could any free woman compete with a slave, one who is truly mastered and owned? Page 42


A free woman, understandably, cannot even begin to compete with a female slave for a man’s love. That is perhaps another reason why free women so hate their vulnerable, imbonded sisters. If a free woman would assure herself of her man’s love she could not do better than, in effect, become his slave. She can beg of him, if she senses in herself the true bondage of love, an enslavement ceremony, in which she proclaims herself, and becomes, his slave. In their most secret and intimate relations thereafter she lives and loves as his slave. If a woman fears to do this she may, on an experimental basis, resort to limited self-contracting, in which her documents will contain stated termination dates. Thus, by her own free will, she becomes a slave for a specific period, ranging usually from an evening to a year. The woman enters into this arrangement freely; she cannot, of course, withdraw from it in the same way. The reason for this is clear. As soon as the words are spoken, or her signature is placed on the pertinent document, or document, she is no longer a free person. She is then only a slave, an animal, no longer with any legal powers whatsoever. She is, then, until the completion of the contractual period, until the expiration date of the arrangement, totally subject to the will of her master.  Page 101 – 102


“In what way,” I asked, “could a slave girl possibly have more power than a free woman?”
She smiled. She lowered her head, demurely. “Some men,” she said, “find us attractive.”
“That is true,” I said. How unpretentiously, and delicately, she had put this point. I could not help, in spite of myself, but agree with her. How could the capacity of a free woman to stimulate male desire even begin to compare with that of the female slave? The female slave, in her helplessness, her vulnerability and beauty, is the most exciting and desirable of all females. Even to look upon one can drive a man mad with passion.

“I can see,” I said, “that the female slave, in her beauty, may possess, upon occasion, at least, some meager particle of power which does not appertain to the free woman.”

“But how,” I asked, “in what other way, other than in possible attractiveness and desirability, could a slave have more power than a free woman?”
“If one can do things another cannot, and if one is permitted to do things which another, in effect, could not, then, I suppose, one has, in a sense, powers which the other does not.”
“I see,” I said. “Powers in the sense of capacities and permissions.”
“Yes,” she said. “Slave girls, for example, can, and must, do things and perform acts, superbly, lovingly and unquestioningly, which would be forbidden to free women, or unthinkable for them. Indeed, some of the performances expected of slave girls, and some of the services rendered by them to their masters, are doubtless beyond even the ken of our ignorant free sisters. They probably do not even suspect their nature.”
“They may suspect,” I smiled. The liberties, in certain senses, permitted to slave girls doubtless constituted an additional reason why free women so hated and envied them. The free woman, in a sense, is paradoxical. She professes to despise the slave girl; she professes to loathe her and hold her in contempt; but, too, obviously, she is almost insanely jealous of her. Can it be that she, too, in her secret heart, wishes to kneel before a man, naked and in his collar, totally subject to his will?
“But some of the things they probably do not even know of,” she said.
“That is probably true,” I said. It was true that free women tended to be somewhat naive and ignorant. Some of them, at any rate, when enslaved, seemed quite startled to discover the nature of some of the even routine performances and services that would now be expected of them.
“Too,” said the girl, “we are better at certain things than free women, such as serving and pleasing men.”
“That is true,” I said. The docility, deference and perfection of a slave girl’s service are legendary. They had better be. She is owned. Too, the intimate and fantastic pleasures they can give men are well known, at least among free men.
“Too,” she said, “we are permitted to act in certain ways in which I think it would be unlikely that a free woman could, or would, act.”  Page 104 – 106


“What were your relations with men, prior to your enslavement?” I asked.
“Cannot you simply take me and be done with it?” she asked.
“Speak,” I said.
“At one time,” she said, “in spite of being a proud free woman of Ar, I felt the desire for the companionship of men.”
“I understand,” I said.
“I decided that I would permit them, certain ones of my careful choosing, of proper means and stations, to become acquainted with me, and that I might then, from among these,
favor certain ones with the dignity and honor of my friendship. Then, perhaps, in time, if I felt so inclined, I might, if he were thoroughly pleasing and wholly suitable, consider acceding to the pleas of one to enter into companionship with me.”
“And how did matters proceed?” I asked.
“I called together a number of young men,” she said. “I informed them of my willingness to form acquaintances, and specified to them the strict conditions to which these relationships, absolute equality, and such, would be subject.”
“And what happened?” I asked.
“All withdrew politely,” she said, “and I never saw them again, with one exception, a little urt of a man who told me he shared my views, fully.”
“You entered into companionship with him?” I asked.
“I discovered he was interested only in my wealth,” she said. “I dismissed him.”
“You were then angry and hurt,” I said, “and began to devote yourself wholly to the pursuits of business.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Too,” I said, “I gather, from other aspects of your story, that you became mercenary and greedy.”
“Perhaps,” she said.
“And then you were captured, and brought into the Barrens, and made a slave,” I said.

“I think you feared your womanhood,” I said. “That seems clear, even from your behavior in Ar. This is not unusual, incidentally, in a free woman, because deep womanhood, they sense, involves love, and love, for a woman, seems always to involve a bondage, if not of ropes and chains, of one sort or another.”
She looked at me, tears in her eyes.
“Then, when you were, in effect, rejected as a woman, you were hurt and angry. You determined never to endure another such humiliating rejection. Too, understandably, you became hostile towards men. You would hate them. You would outdo them. You would have your vengeance on them. You came to fear certain sorts of feelings. You drew back even further from your womanhood.”
“No, no, no,” she wept, “I am a poor slave only because I am unresponsive! That is my nature! I cannot help it!”
“That is not your nature,” I told her. “And you are going to help it.”  Page 135 – 137


Free women, whose sexuality is usually, for most practical purposes, sluggish and inert, often have difficulty in understanding the desperation and intensity of these needs on the part of a female slave. They think that she is different from, and inferior to, themselves. If they themselves should be enslaved, of course, they are likely to soon revise these opinions. They, too, then may well find themselves moaning and scratching in their kennels, begging rude keepers for their touch, and being despised, in turn, by free women.  Page 141


“It is perhaps just as well,” I said. “You were a free woman, and you have not had much training. If you did not do well, you might be whipped severely, or perhaps slain.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Being a slave girl is very different from being a free woman,” I said. “From a free woman a man expects little, or nothing. From a slave girl, on the other hand, he expects, as it is said, everything, and more.”
“I understand,” she said.
“A free woman may be valueless and, if she wishes, account this a virtue. A slave, on the other hand, must be superbly pleasing. She must see to it, with all her intelligence and beauty, that she is her master’s attentive, sensitive, skillful treasure.”  Page 165


I did not know if Bloketu would be permitted into the council or not. Normally women are not permitted in such places. The red savages, though often listening with great attention to their free women, and according them great honor and respect, do not choose to relinquish the least bit of their sovereignty to them. They will make the decisions. They are the men. The women will obey.  Page 199


Whereas a free woman may often make a man angry with impunity, she being lofty and free, this latitude is seldom extended to the slave.  Page 221


Lastly I would no longer be an encumbrance to you for I am, obviously, no longer a free woman. No longer am I an inconvenience and a bother, something to be concerned about and watched out for. Now I am only a property that begs to love and serve you.”  Page 283


“I was thinking of when I was a free woman,” she said. “How contemptuous I was of the slave girls in the cities, how I scorned them, and despised them, so helpless in their lowly, silken slaveries, and yet, now, how I envy them their slaveries!”
“What lucky, soft little things they are,” she said, “being sold naked off sales blocks to the whips and chains of strong masters, with little more to worry about than the heat of the kitchens, the steaming water of the laundering tubs, the dangers, from young, prowling ruffians, of shopping in the evening! How warm and safe they are locked in their kennels at night or cuddling, in furs, chained at the foot of their masters’ couches! What need have they to fear sleen and tarns! They need fear only their masters!”  Page 333


“Yes,” she said, “I was jealous of their beauty and desirability. I envied them their happiness.”
“Did you know this as a free woman?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, “but I do not think that I would have freely admitted it.”
“Deceit is a freedom of free women,” I said.  Page 334


Mira had fallen upon the porridge with gusto. She now, with her fingers and tongue, was wiping the bowl clean. She did not eat now as might a rich, free woman, from a golden service with Turian prongs, sumptuously, in some fine house. She ate now as a slave, and was grateful for her feeding.  Page 354

Kajira of Gor (Book 19)

Players of Gor (Book 20)

One of the slave girls, one kneeling a few feet away, before us and to our right, at a table, one of those who was naked, save for her collar, laughed. Then she turned white with fear. She had laughed at a free woman. Samos turned to a guard and pointed at the offending slave. “Fifteen lashes,” he said. The girl shook her head in misery. She whimpered with terror. These would be lashes, she knew, with a Gorean slave whip. It is an efficient instrument for disciplining women.  Page 11


I inclined my head, “Lady,” said I, acknowledging the introduction. To a free woman considerable deference is due, particularly to one such as the Lady Rowena, one obviously, at least hitherto, of high station.
She inclined her head to me, and then lifted it, acknowledging my greeting.
Page 12


She belonged to Samos, of course. It had been within the context of his capture rights that she had, as a free woman, of her own free will, pronounced upon herself a formula of enslavement. Automatically then, in virtue of the context, she became his. The law is clear on this. The matter is more subtle when the woman is not within a context of capture rights. Here the matter differs from city to city. In some cities, a woman may not, with legal recognition, submit herself to a specific man as a slave, for in those cities that is interpreted as placing at least a temporary qualification on the condition of slavery which condition, once entered into, all cities agree, is absolute. In such cities, then, the woman makes herself a slave, unconditionally. It is then up to the man in question whether or not he will accept her as his slave. In this matter he will do as he pleases. In any event, she is by then a slave, and only that.
In other cities, and in most cities, on the other hand, a free woman may, with legal tolerance, submit herself as a slave to a specific man. If he refuses her, she is then still free. If he accepts her, she is then, categorically, a slave, and he may do with her as he pleases, even selling her or giving her away, or slaying her, if he wishes. Here we might note a distinction between laws and codes. In the codes of the warriors, if a warrior accepts a woman as a slave, it is prescribed that, at least for a time, an amount of time up to his discretion, she be spared. If she should be the least bit displeasing, of course, or should prove recalcitrant in even a tiny way, she may be immediately disposed of.
It should be noted that this does not place a legal obligation on the warrior. It has to do, rather, with the proprieties of the codes. If a woman not within a clear context of rights, such as capture rights, house rights, or camp rights, should pronounce herself slave, simpliciter, then she is subject to claim. These claims may be explicit, as in branding, binding and collaring, or as in the uttering of a claimancy formula, such as “I own you,” “You are mine,” or “You are my slave,” or implicit, as in, for example, permitting the slave to feed from your hand or follow you.  Page 21


The Gorean slave girl is not a free woman. Accordingly she must keep herself beautiful.  Page 37


Sometimes free women, during the time of carnival, masquerading as slaves, run naked about the streets.  Page 39


It is not difficult, however, aside from such possible historical antecedents, and the popular, superficial interpretations of such a custom, in one time or another, to speculate on the depth meaning of such favors. One must understand, first, that they are given by free women and of their own free will. Secondly, one must think of favors in the sense that one might speak of a free woman granting, or selling, her favors to a male. To be sure, this understanding, as obvious and straightforward as it is, if brought to the clear light of consciousness, is likely to come as a revelatory and somewhat scandalous shock to the female. It is one of those cases in which a thing she has long striven to hide from herself is suddenly, perhaps to her consternation and dismay, made incontrovertibly clear to her. In support of the interpretation are such considerations as the fact that these favors, in these games, are bestowed by females on males, that, generally, at least, strong, handsome males seem to be the preferred recipients of such favors, that there is competition among the females in the distribution of these favors, and that she who first has her “favors” accepted therein accounts herself as somewhat superior to her less successful sisters, at least in this respect, and that the whole game, for these free women, is charged with an exciting, permissive aura of delicious naughtiness, this being indexed undoubtedly to the sexual stimulations involved, stimulations which, generally, are thought to be beneath the dignity of lofty free women.
In short, the game of favors permits free women, in a socially acceptable context, by symbolic transformation, to assuage their sexual needs to at least some small extent, and, in some cases, if they wish, to make advances to interesting males. There is no full satisfaction of female sexuality, of course, outside of the context of male dominance. I wondered what the free woman whose favor I wore would look like, stripped and in a collar. How would she look, how would she act, I wondered, if slave fires had been lit in her belly. I did not think she would then be distributing silken scarves to make known her needs to men. She must then do other things, such as putting a bondage knot in her hair, offering them wine or fruit, dancing naked before them, or kneeling before them, whimpering and whining for attention, licking and kissing at their feet and legs.  Page 45


I reached down and drew the slave to her feet and then, holding her by the arm, turned away from the free woman.
The free woman gasped, rejected, scorned, of less interest than a slave.
The slave now held my arm, I permitting it, closely, that she not be pulled away from me in the crowds.
“This is not the way to the pleasure racks,” she said.
“You must be patient,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she moaned, pressing more closely against me. She would be patient. She had no choice in the matter. She was a slave.
I looked back and saw the free woman, turned away, forlorn, her arms clutched about herself, half crouched over. Her body shook with sobs. She trembled with need. I saw that she had strong drives. I smiled. Such drives would bring her, sooner or later, to a man’s feet, the only place they can be satisfied.  Page 47


“It is interesting to me that free women play the game of Favors,” I said.
“It gives them a way of flirting,” he said. “Too it gives them an opportunity to put themselves, in a way, at the mercy of the male, to engage in petitioning behavior, suing for his indulgence. In this it is not difficult to see a form of symbolic submission, a making of themselves dependent on his will. Too, of course, it gives them a way of testing their desirability and publicly proclaiming, or advertising, it.”
“Luscious, vain creatures,” I observed. I myself had earlier speculated along these lines. To be sure, the game of Favors, like most games, customs and practices, was undoubtedly complex and multiply motivated. Too, sometimes things take on additional meanings and values as they are enriched in a historical tradition or more deeply or variously interpreted in different contexts.
“I agree,” I said. That certain games, such as that of Favors, provided a mechanism for establishing desirability rankings among females, something in which they seemed much interested, seemed clear.
“What do you think of free women?” asked the officer.
“I didn’t know there were any, really,” I said. Goreans have a theory that there are only two sorts of women, slaves and slaves.
“You know what I mean,” he said.
“I suppose they are all right,” I said. They were all right, I supposed.
“Slaves are incomparably superior,” he said.
“That is true,” I said. There was no comparison.
“Please, Master, take me to a rack,” begged the girl at my feet.
Freedom, with its inhibitions, inertnesses and hostilities, tends to produce a blockage to the emergence of the depth female. In bondage this blockage is removed, freeing the woman to find her natural fulfillment, her fulfillment in the order of nature, that of a slave at the feet of her master.  Page 66 - 63


I saw that her sexual drives were far too strong to be appropriate for those of a free woman. In her there was an eager, succumbing slave.
“Now I want to be overwhelmed, dominated. Now I want to take my place in the order of nature. Now I want to be what I am, and have always been, truly, a woman!”
In every woman, of course, Goreans think, there is a slave.
Perhaps, in the end, there is no difference.
She looked at me, pleadingly.
“You are a free woman,” I told her.
She moaned.
“It would seem thus,” I said, “at least according to some, that you are entitled to respect and dignity.”
“I have never encountered a convincing proof to that effect,” she said. “Have you?”
“No,” I said.
“Oh, would that I were a slave,” she smiled. “Then I would not have to concern myself with such matters. Then I would only have to mind my manners and make certain that I pleased my masters, totally.”
“To be sure,” I said, “many of the matters with which the free woman must concern herself are simply irrelevant to the slave.”
“Such as dignity and respect,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Under those names I have gone hungry for years,” she said.
“And yet, now,” I said, “you have come, and of your own free will, to a rack.”
“There comes a time,” she said, “when the slogans no longer suffice, a time when the myth is seen to be meaningless.”
“And such a time came for you?” I said.
“Yes,” she said.  Page 76 - 77


“Free women are more beautiful than slaves,” she said.
“That is false,” I said. “Furthermore, every woman, in her heart, knows it is false. Any beauty a free woman has, for example, is enhanced a thousand-fold when she becomes a slave.”
“I hate slaves!” she said.
“That is because you are not one of them,” I said. “You envy them.”
“Beware,” she said. “I am a free woman!”
“I know,” I said.  Page 92


I did not think it was necessary to remind her that I was not really according her the polite courtesies and gentle dignities appropriate to the pleasures of the free woman, but was, in effect, of my own will, by my own decision, subjecting her to attentions more commonly reserved for the imbonded female, the woman who has no choice but to submit to a lengthy and authoritative ravishing, one which well teaches her the meaning of her collar, and what it is to be in the hands of a man, and as he wants her.  Page 93


We could see the Sardar Mountains in the distance. I had been her servant for some three days. After the first night she had not commanded me to her intimate service. I think that first night had terribly unsettled her. She had apparently not understood that she could have such feelings. At times she had seemed almost taken out of herself. At times, clearly, she had responded uncontrollably, reflexively, at my mercy, almost as might have a slave. This sort of behavior was inappropriate in her, inexcusably so, she doubtless deemed, as she was a free woman. Roundly had I been scolded for my part in matters. Yet with mixed feelings, it was, I think, that she chastised me. I pretended, of course, to ignorance and innocence, and a perhaps overzealous desire to please. In any event she clearly now feared her feelings.  Page 95


“Yes, Mistress,” I said. I saw that she still feared me, and herself, and, I think, men generally. She had not yet been able to cope with the sensations which I had induced in her. This is not surprising in a free woman. To be sure, such sensations can be terribly frightening to a free woman. They whisper to her of slavery. She is terrified to say “yes” to them, with all she knows this means, but aches and longs to do so, and will not be whole until she does.  Page 105


“I am a free woman,” she said. “How can you, a free man, deny me anything I want?”
“Easily,” I said.
She looked at me, angrily.
“Many free women believe they can have anything they want, merely by asking for it, or demanding it,” I said, “but now you see that that is not true, at least not in a world where there are true men.”  Page 119


“Disgusting! Disgusting!” cried the free woman, one veiled and wearing the robes of the scribes, standing in the audience. “Pull down your skirt, you slave, you brazen hussy!”
“Pray, do withdraw, noble sir, for you surprise me unawares, and of necessity I must improvise some veiling, lest my features be disclosed,” cried the girl upon the stage, Boots Tarsk-Bit’s current Brigella. I had seen her a few days earlier in Port Kar.
“Pull down your skirt, slut!” cried the free woman in the audience.
“Be quiet,” said a free man to the woman. “It is only a play.”
“Be silent yourself!” she cried back at him.
“Would that you were a slave,” he growled. “You would pay richly for your impertinence.”
“I am not a slave,” she said.
“Obviously,” he said.
“And I shall never he a slave,” she said.
“Do not be too sure of that,” he said.
“Beast,” she said.
“I wonder if you would be any good chained in a tent,” he said.
“Monster!” she said.
“Let us observe the drama,” suggested another fellow.  Page 120 - 121


It must be understood, of course, to fully appreciate what was going on, that the public exposure of the features of a free woman, particularly one of high caste, or with some pretense to position or status, is a socially serious matter in many Gorean localities. Indeed, in some cities an unveiled free woman is susceptible to being taken into custody by guardsmen, then to be veiled, by force if necessary, and publicly conducted back to her home. Indeed, in some cities she is marched back to her home stripped, except for the face veil which has been put on her. In these cases a crowd usually follows, to see to what home it is that she is to be returned. Repeated offenses in such a city usually result in the enslavement of the female. Such serious measures, of course, are seldom required to protect such familiar Gorean proprieties. Custom, by itself, normally suffices.
Social pressures, too, in various ways, contribute to the same end. An unveiled woman, for example, may find other women turning away from her in a market, perhaps with expressions of disgust. Indeed, she may not even be waited upon, or dealt with, in a market by a free woman unless she first kneels. It would not be unusual for her, in a crowded place, to overhear remarks, perhaps whispers or sneers, of which she is the obvious object, such as “Shameless slut,” “Brazen baggage,” “As immodest as a slave,” “I wonder who her master is,” and “Put a collar on her!” And if she should attempt to confront or challenge her assailants, she will merely find such remarks repeated articulately and clearly to her face.  Page 124 - 125


“I am Telitsia, Lady of Asperiche,” she said. “I am a free woman! I am not afraid of men!”
I smiled to myself. She was perfectly safe, of course, for she was within the perimeters of the Sardar Fair. How brave women can be within the context of conventions! I wondered if they understood the artificiality, the fragility, the tentativeness, the revocability of those subtle ramparts. Did they truly confuse them with walls of stone and the forces of weaponry? Did they understand the differences between the lines and colors on maps and the realities of a physical terrain? To what extent did they comprehend the fictional or mythical nature of those castles within which they took refuge, from the heights of which they sought to impress their will on worlds? Did they not know that one day men might say to them, “The castle does not exist,” and that they might then find themselves once again, the patience of men ended, the folly concluded, the game over, snuck to their place in nature, gazing upward at masters?  Page 128 - 129


“Disgusting!” cried the free woman.
“It is you who are disgusting,” said one of the men to the free woman.
“I?” she cried.
“Yes, you,” he said.
The free woman did not respond to him. She stiffened in her robes, her small hands clenched in her blue gloves. How antibiological, petty, and self-serving were her value judgments.  Page 140 - 141


“Do not be too hard on her,” I said. “She is only a slave.”
“Slaves are to be shown no mercy,” said the free woman coldly.  Page 150


“As you are perfect gentlemen, you will free me,” she said. “I can count on that as a free woman!”
I smiled. Goreans tend to be less gentlemen, than owners and masters of females. In the order of nature they tend to acquire and dominate them, making them uncompromisingly their own.  Page 198


The slave, “Lady Telitsia,” had in her, I suspected, superb slave potential. Up to now, of course, as a free woman, given her conditioning and what was expected of her in her culture, she had undoubtedly, possibly even agonizingly, resisted her sexuality, fighting to control and suppress her slave drives. Now, of course, now that she had been freed of the psychological chains, the confining restrictions, the imprisoning inhibitions of the free woman, I had little doubt that she, and perhaps even soon, would prove to be a helplessly arousable, helplessly yielding slave, a joy both to herself and her masters.  Page 211


“And so what is your complaint?” I inquired. As she was a free woman, it seemed I should be concerned, at least to some extent, with any complaints which she might have. A slave, of course, in distinction from a free woman, is not permitted complaints. She must try to obtain things in other ways, for example, by humble requests while kneeling or lying on her belly before her master.  Page 215


“Do you know the slave in camp, she called Lady Telitsia?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“She has not yet eaten,” I said.
“So?” asked the lady Yanina.
“She is probably quite hungry by now,” I said.
“So?” she asked.
“I do not think her master would permit her to beg food until a certain free woman, a prisoner in the camp, was fed.”
“Probably not,” said the Lady Yanina. “Why are you bringing the matter up?”
“I thought it might be of interest to you,” I said.
“It is not,” she said.
“You were common captives of the brigands,” I said. “I thought you might have some concern for her.”
“No,” she said.
“I see,” I said.
The Lady Yanina looked at me, and smiled. She put the piece of crust in her mouth and nibbled on it, slowly. “Let her wait,” she said. “She is a slave. Slaves are nothing.”
I did not gainsay the Lady Yanina, of course. What she had said was true. I had only brought up the matter as a form of test for her, to satisfy my own curiosity. I wished to more exactly ascertain her self-image. It was, as I had expected, that of the lofty free woman, separating herself, at least publicly, by dimensions and worlds from mere slaves. This was particularly interesting to me in view of the fact that she was herself, obviously, a highly appropriate candidate for the collar. Did she think, truly, she was that different from the slave who, but Ehn ago, had been tied and lashed?  Page 220


Bina’s hands were thonged tightly together before her body. A ring, on a rope, one of several, was lowered from the ceiling. These rings, when lowered, hung a few feet above the floor, some six or seven feet above it, in the open space between the tables. These rings may serve various purposes, such as the display of disgraced females destined for slavery, most likely debtors, or the public punishment of errant slaves, but their number is largely dictated by the occasional use of displaying captured, stripped free women of enemy cities. These women, during the course of a victory feast, are caressed by whips, or beaten by them, until they beg, though free, to serve the tables as slaves. After they have so served, Ahn later, they are taken below. There they will be properly branded and collared, and will begin to be taught the lessons, intimate and otherwise, appropriate to their new condition in life.  Page 325

Mercenaries of Gor (Book 21)

How well, if haughtily, she now walked. I considered the walks of free women, and of slaves. How few free women really walk their beauty. Perhaps they are ashamed of it, or fear it. Few free women walk in such a way as to display their beauty, as, for example, a slave must. I considered the length of garments. The long garments, usually worn by free women, such as that now worn by Boabissia, might cover certain defects of gait perhaps, but when one’s legs are bared, as a slave’s commonly are, one must walk with beauty and grace. Too, given the scantiness of many slave garments, it is sometimes necessary to walk in them with exquisite care.
The slave, for example, and this is commonly included in her training, seldom bends over to retrieve a fallen object. Rather she flexes her knees, lowering the body beautifully, and retrieves the object from a graceful and humble crouch. Sometimes, to be sure, commonly in serving at the parties of young men, certain objects, sometimes as part of a game, objects with prearranged significances among the young men, are thrown to the floor, and she must pick them up in a less graceful fashion. Whichever object she first touches determines to whose lusty abuse she must then submit. This game is sometimes played several times in the evening. I considered Boabissia. Her walk now seemed something between that of a free woman and a slave. It was, if haughty, quite good, and it showed, I thought, definite signs of slave promise. There seemed little doubt that, with some tutelage, and perhaps a collar on her neck, the beauty could be kept in it, and considerably improved, and the sullying haughtiness removed. I glanced again at her. Yes, it seemed to me that Boabissia might even be ready to walk in a slave tunic. I had little doubt but what several of the fellows she had passed, her nose in the air, would, with whips, have been more than willing to give her instruction in the matter, with or without the tunic.   Page 207 - 208


“I know females,” said Boabissia. “I am one of them. If you are weak with them, they will take away your manhood and destroy you. If you are strong with them, they will lick your feet with gratitude.” She touched the body of the female slave with the whip. “Is it not so?” she asked the girl.
“Yes, Mistress,” wept the girl.
“If you are not strict with slaves,” said Boabissia, “they will grow lax, and then arrogant, and then begin to assume the airs of free persons.”
“I suppose that is true,” I said.
“They must be kept under perfect discipline,” said Boabissia, “absolutely uncompromising and perfect discipline.”
“Of course,” I said.
Boabissia drew back the whip. How she hated the female slave. It is sometimes hard to understand the hatred of the free female for her imbonded sister. It has to do, I suppose, with the venomous jealousy of a woman who has taken an unhappy path, a road commended to her by many but one which she has discovered leads only to her ultimate frustration, misery and lack of fulfillment. No woman is truly happy until she occupies her place in the order of nature.
“Do not strike her,” I said.
“I am a free woman,” said Boabissia, “and I shall do as I please.”
“Do not strike her,” said Hurtha. “Come along.”
“Men are weak,” said Boabissia. “I will teach you what women deserve, and need.”  Page 218 - 219


I fetched the key. I returned to where she knelt, shackled. I looked down upon her. I wondered if there would be point in having her, here, suddenly, on the floor of the insula’s vestibule, before I unshackled her. She was very beautiful.
“Master?” she asked.
I thrust her back to the floor, in a rattle of chain. “Oh!” she cried. It did not matter. She was only a slave. “Oh!” she gasped, and then was clutching me. “Disgusting,” said a free woman, entering the insula, and then proceeding upstairs.  Page 293


“If it is of interest to you,” he said, “I did not simply buy you. Although your mother was a free woman I had her strip, and then put her through slave paces. I would attempt to assess the possibilities of the daughter by seeing the mother, by seeing her naked and performing, attempting desperately to please. When she was reluctant, as a free woman, I used the whip on her. Thus I obtained a better idea of what I might be buying.”
“Tell me about my mother, please,” she said.
“She was a comely wench, as I determined, when I saw her naked,” he said. “She was curvaceous, and, when she realized I would not compromise with her, moved quite well. She herself, I am sure, under a suitable master, would have made excellent collar meat. She would also make, it seemed to me, an excellent breeder of slaves.”  Page 303


“Why not train her?” I asked.
“Training would be inappropriate for her, as she is a free woman,” said my hostess. “Too, it might scandalize and horrify her. We would certainly not want that. Too, it is not likely that it would even be fully meaningful to her, as she is free, and would thus not be able to understand it as it is meant to be understood, in the helpless depths of an owned belly.”  Page 316


“You are not interested in free females?” she said.
“Not particularly,” I reminded her. This is not that unusual in one who has tasted of slaves. As women, there is no comparison between a free woman and her imbonded sister. Perhaps that is why free women so hate slaves. To be sure, there is something to be said for free women. It is enjoyable to capture, enslave and train them. That is interesting. But then, of course, in a matter of time, one is not then dealing any longer with a free woman, but only another slave.  Page 319


“Would you care to join me?” I asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It would not be proper. I do not even know you.”
“Forgive me,” I said. “I did not mean to be forward.” She moved her left foot a little, causing the bangles on her left ankle to move slightly. Most free women, of course, would never wear such things. They are regarded as suitable and appropriate only for slaves. She moved the bracelets on her left wrist up her left forearm an inch or two. The tiny noise this made was exciting, slave exciting. With one hand she threw her hair back. It was loose. Slaves commonly wear their hair loose. She moved subtly, charmingly, seemingly inadvertently, within the dress. Then she seemed, suddenly, concerned with it. Could there be something wrong with it? She then, almost apologetically, adjusted one of shoulder straps of the dress, pulling it up tighter and more to the side. She did this as though not giving it much thought, and as though modestly, but in such a way, with such a movement of her body, and with such an effect, that she called dramatic and inevitable attention to the marvelousness of her breasts. Such breasts, I thought, would probably increase her value as a slave. Page 343 - 344


“I am sure you find free women of some interest,” she said.
“Certainly I find them of interest,” I said. The most interesting thing about them, of course, was that they could be seized and enslaved. After that they might become of real interest to a man. The female slave, of course, yours in her servitude, is ten thousand times more interesting than a free woman could ever dream of being. In any contest of desirability the free woman must always lose out to the slave, and if she does not seem to do so, then let her be enslaved, and see how she then, suddenly, in a moment, competing then with her former self, becomes ten thousand times more desirable than she ever was as a mere free female.  Page 346


“I have been too bold,” she said. “I approached your table. I have spoken to you first. I have permitted you, a man I scarcely know, to buy me ka-la-na. I am so ashamed.”
“There is no need to be ashamed,” I said.
“But far worse,” she said, “I revealed to you my feelings. I told you of my unspeakable loneliness. Are you lonely?”
“Not particularly,” I said. It is normally only free folks among free folks who are lonely, each so separate from the other. It is not easy for men to be lonely who have access to slaves. Similarly the slaves, so occupied, and of necessity so concerned to please the master, are seldom given the time for the indulgence of loneliness. Too, of course, the incredible intimacy of the relationship, intellectual and emotional, as well as sexual, for the master may inquire into, and command forth, and is normally inclined to do so, her deepest thoughts and feelings, which must be bared to him, as much as her body, as well as command, even casually, her most intimate and delicious sexual performances, militates against loneliness.
In slavery total intimacy is not only customary, but it can be made obligatory, under discipline. Masters like to know their girls. They want to know them with a depth, detail and intimacy that it would be quite inappropriate to expect of, or desire from, a prideful free companion, whose autonomy and privacy is protected by her lofty status. In a sense, the free woman is always, to one extent or another, veiled. The slave, on the other hand, is not permitted veils. She is, so to speak, naked to the master, and fully.
There is no doubt that slaves without private masters, or slaves in multiple-slave chains, arrangements, households, institutions, and such, may experience terrible loneliness. There is doubtless great loneliness, for example, in a rich man’s pleasure gardens. Indeed, the presence of a lovely slave there might not even be known to the master, but only to her immediate keepers, and the master’s agents, who may have purchased her, or accountants, who keep records of the master’s properties and assets. Perhaps she must beg piteously to be called to the attention of the master. Some women in such a place, even those whose existence is known, or remembered, at least vaguely, might wait for months for a summons to the couch of the master, he perhaps selecting a ribbon with her name on it, from a rack of slave ribbons, and tossing it to an attendant, that she be brought in chains to his quarters that night, the ribbon on her collar. Too, it can doubtless be lonely in the house of a slaver, especially when the guards do not choose to amuse themselves with you, or have you perform for them, or, say, when you find yourself alone at night, perhaps a work slave, in the basement of a cylinder, chained in a cement kennel.
“Oh,” she said.
“With you here,” I said, “how could I be lonely?”
“What a lovely thing to say,” she said.
I thought it had been pretty good myself. To be sure, it had required quick thinking.
“But mostly,” she said, as though tearfully, “I am distressed at the boldness with which I spoke before.”
“Boldness?” I asked.
“When I admitted, as I should never have done,” she said, “that I was drawn to you.”
“‘Drawn to me’?” I inquired.
“Yes,” she said, lowering her eyes.
“I understand,” I said. “You were drawn to me because something within you seemed to sense, and delicately, that I might prove to be a sympathetic interlocutor, an understanding fellow with whom you might, assuaging therein to some extent your loneliness and pain, hold gentle and kindly converse.”
“It was more than that,” she whispered, not looking up, as though she dared not raise her eyes.
“Oh?” I asked.
She looked up, as though distressed. “I felt drawn to you,” she said, and then she lowered her head, as though in shame, “- as a female to a male.”
I said nothing.
“Free women have needs, too,” she whispered.
“I do not doubt it,” I said. At the moment, of course, she had no real idea of what female needs could be. As with most free females they were doubtless far below the surface and seldom directly sensed. Their effect upon conscious life, because of her conditioning, would normally be felt in such transformed and eccentric modalities as anxiety, uneasiness, misery, discomfort, ill temper, imaginary complaints, frustration and loneliness. These things would be connected with her lack of feminine fulfillment, she not finding herself in her place, in her natural biological relationship, that of submissive to dominant, to the male of her species. These things, the result of her loss of sexual identity and fulfillment, too, often produced a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness. Too, they sometimes produced an envy and resentment of men, whom she, perhaps with some justice, would blame for this lack of fulfillment. When one sex needs the other to fulfill it, and the other refuses, what is to be done? One way of striving for vengeance, of course, is to attempt, socially and politically, to bring about the debilitation and ruination of anatomical males, whether they be men or not. This, of course, might prove dangerous, for it might provoke an upsurge of nature, like a natural phenomenon, in which her order, artificialities then scorned and abolished, would be harshly restored.
Another danger, and perhaps one more serious; is that a misdirected response would be provoked in which, say, angry males, perhaps unable to take direct action because of the numerous, carefully wrought political traps and snares trammeling them, would think themselves, consciously or subconsciously, to have no recourse but to engage in the undeniably masculine games of war, games which might destroy worlds, but, with them, perhaps, the walls within which they have permitted themselves to be imprisoned. It would be unfortunate, indeed, if the female, returned at last to her rightful chains, were to find herself kneeling in ashes.
“You are kind not to scorn me for my needs,” she said. She looked up at me. “Sometimes they are very strong.”
“I am sure of it,” I said. She had as yet, of course, as a free woman, as I have mentioned, no real idea of what female needs could be. They were in her, as in all free women, muchly suppressed. She had no idea as to what they could be. Never had she confronted them wholly and directly. She was as yet alienated from the depth and richness of the extensive sexual tissues in her body; she did not yet understand how her entire skin, from her scalp to her toes, could awaken into life, startled and rejoicing, stimulated by the hot, surgent, wavelike irradiations emanating not only from her helpless, lovely, exploited centralities, but as well from all the other sensitive curvatures and beauties of her, curvatures and beauties so much at a master’s mercy; too, she could not even now begin to suspect the momentous emotional dimensions of bondage for the female, its entire, totalistic matrix, of what it was to be a slave, the nature of the slave’s feelings, how she is affected by what she is, and what can be done to her, of what it is to be owned, absolutely, to be under uncompromising discipline, of what it is to know that you must, and will, under strict and uncompromising enforcements, give yourself up wholly to service and love, no alternatives permitted.
“You are very kind to take pity on a woman,” she said.
“It is nothing,” I said. I speculated that her needs might be rather strong, as a matter of fact, for a free woman. Certainly her body suggested the influence, of a rich abundance of female hormones. One does not get curves like that by being hormonally deficient. It might be interesting, I thought, to see what those needs might be like if permitted to develop fully under bondage.
“When I spoke your name before,” she said, “I hesitated.”
“I remember,” I said.
“It was so hard to speak,” she said.
“Yes?” I said.
“May I speak?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I was thinking that I might perhaps let you see my body,” she said, “that I might even permit you to touch it.”
“Yes,” I said.
“That I might tonight,” she said, “as you have been so kind to me, and I am drawn to you, give you my body.”
“I am overwhelmingly impressed,” I said. This seemed to me a suitable response, as she was a free woman. It is really difficult to know what to say when one hears something so stupid. If she were a slave, I would have enjoyed hearing her try to speak in that fashion, speaking of “giving her body” and for such-and-such a period. That would earn her a swift whipping. If one could speak in that fashion, of “mere bodies,” so to speak, and it was not typically Gorean to do so, she would not in bondage be considering whether or not to bestow her body, and for how long, but rather she would discover that it was his for the master to take, whenever he wished, however he wished, and for as long as he wished, for it would then belong not to her but to him, or he could order her to bring it to him, his property, in whatever attitude or posture he might please. But it is not typically Gorean to think in this fashion. The slave, for example, does not ask if the Master now wants the body of Gloria but, rather, does he want Gloria. In Gorean thought, and, indeed, Gorean law is explicit on this, what is owned is the whole slave. It is she who is owned, the whole woman, and uncompromisingly and totally.
“How kind you are,” she said, “to a woman met in such a place, one so poor she cannot even afford sandals, a suitable gown, and proper veiling. Do you object that I am so revealingly clad, and am not properly veiled? Does it scandalize you?”
“No,” I said. “Doubtless it is an inevitable concession to the cruelties of poverty.”
“Yes,” she lamented. “Perhaps you could try to think of me veiled,” she suggested.
“That is a thought,” I said. That much, surely, at least, could be said for it. I conjectured what she might look like, stark naked, save for chains, perhaps, holding her as a tight love bundle, for a master’s pleasure, at a ring, and the locked, steel slave collar that belonged on her neck.
She looked at me, gratefully. In my imagination I tightened her chains a notch or two.
“Is it true that you are drawn to me?” I asked.
“Yes!” she whispered, daring to touch my hand.
“Then shall we leave this place,” I asked, “and venture to your domicile?”
She drew back. As I had anticipated, she would not find a suggestion of this sort acceptable. She would not want her address known. That might put her at the mercy of furious, outraged victims. Too, it could make it simple for guardsmen, acting on complaints, to bring her in for identification and questioning, these details doubtless, in her case, to be followed by a hearing and sentencing, an almost inevitable reduction to bondage and then perhaps, initially, while her disposition is being more carefully considered, a placement in the public slave gardens.
“Perhaps then my room?” I suggested. “It is nearby.”
“Sir!” she said, reproachfully. As I had thought, this would not be satisfactory either. She would prefer to complete her work here, where apparently it was tolerated, with the stealth of a drug, rather than go to the expense of employing confederates outside or take the risk of being recognized by others who might be in the vicinity of the victim’s environs. “What sort of girl do you think I am?”
“Forgive me,” I said, earnestly. “I did not mean to offend you.” She was skillful at this type of game, it seemed, to provoke a male response, and then to claim she had been misunderstood, and was offended, thus confusing the male, keeping him off balance, and, in general, thusly guaranteeing, with a glance or tear, that she would have things her own way. She was, at least, manipulative in a feminine fashion. That I granted her. It said something for her femaleness. It is pleasant later, of course, to manipulate such women in a masculine fashion, by command and the whip.
“I knew I should not have come here,” she sobbed, wiping away a tear, one at least in theory, from the corner of her eye. She made as though to rise but, as I did not restrain her, she remained where she was.
“I have been clumsy,” I said.
“I do not really blame you,” she sobbed. “What else could you think, meeting me here? Surely you must think me the same as these other, lower women.”
“No, certainly not,” I said. “You are quite different, obviously, from them.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
I nodded. Of course she was quite different from them. That was obvious. She was not yet nude. She did not yet have a slave collar on her neck. She had probably never yet, in her life, felt a slave whip.
“Perhaps you are wondering,” she said, wiping away yet another supposed tear, “what I, a gentlewoman, of breeding and refinement, am doing in this place?”
“Perhaps,” I said, encouragingly. I tried to look puzzled. Actually I had a rather clear idea what she was doing in this place.
She looked down. “I think the real reason,” she said, “under everything, as you may have suspected, is that I was driven here, almost helplessly, a woman in desperate need of love, daring to enter this terrible place, but one where I knew men were, by my desire to meet a kindly man, by my loneliness.”
“Yes?” I said.
“But I should never have come.”
“But then we would never have met,” I said.
“Yes,” she whispered, again touching my hand. “That is true.”
“You spoke of a real reason,” I said, “that having to do with your need of love, and such. That suggests, then, I take it, that there was some other reason, or pretended reason, for coming.”
She smiled, ruefully. “Yes,” she said. “I am a proud free woman. I could not permit myself to recognize such things as my loneliness, or need for love. I must tell myself there was another reason for coming.”
“And what was that?” I asked.
“I am in need of money,” she said. “I have a ring. I told myself that I would try to sell it, that I would try to find a buyer in this place.”
“I see,” I said.
“But I have never been able to bring myself to part with it,” she said. “It is one of the few things left to me from the time when I was proud and wealthy. It is so laden with memories. I could never really bring myself to part with it.”
“I understand,” I said.
“Would you like to see it?” she asked.
“It is not necessary,” I said.
“Please, let me show it to you,” she said.
“Very well,” I said.
From the tiny pouch, hung on strings at her belt, she produced the ring. She slipped it on her finger.
“Lovely,” I said. Its oval stone was of white porcelain, mounted in a red-metal bezel. On the porcelain, very delicately done, in red, was the representation of a Tur tree. The band was of gold.
“It was wrought in Turia,” she said. I found that easy to believe. It had the Tur tree, emblem of Turia, in the southern hemisphere, on the porcelain stone. Too, I knew such rings were manufactured in Turia. Indeed, I had even seen them there. Rings of this design, however, though perhaps not of this purpose, were rare in Ar, in the northern hemisphere. Most fellows of Ar would not recognize the ring, or suspect its purpose. She had probably purchased it in an import shop on the Avenue of Turia, which was nearby. To be sure, perhaps the setting was solid, and not hollow. Many rings of this appearance are totally innocent.
“Would you let me buy it?” I asked. “Surely you could use the money.”
Mercenaries of Gor Book 21 Page 356
“Do not tempt me,” she smiled. “I could never bring myself to part with it.”
“I am sorry,” I said.
“How fortunate I am to meet a man such as you,” she said. “How understanding you are.”
I shrugged.
“I am becoming excited,” she whispered.
“Oh?” I said.
“I want to go to your room,” she whispered.
“Let us go,” I said.
“Oh, the wine is gone,” she pouted.
That was true.
“May we have more wine?” she wheedled. “It would help me to get even more into the mood. With a little more wine I do not know if I could control myself. I might find myself hurrying after you, going to your room, heeling you through the streets like an amorous slave!”
“I will get some more wine,” I said. I glanced over to the left. In a moment or two, I had managed to catch the eye of Louise. She had not, of course, after her initial command, been concentrating on our table. I was pleased that she was not in use. I enjoyed having her serve me. Had she been, of course, I would have made do with another girl, say, Ita or Tia. They were both very nice slaves. Louise was now looking at me, aware that I was looking at her. I lifted my hand. She leaped up, hurrying toward me. I noticed the fellow nearby, slumped over the table. He had not yet stirred. He might be out for another Ahn or so. I leaned over to where Louise now knelt and gave her the wine order. The collar, such fine, strong steel, looked nice under her right ear.
Lady Tutina smiled at me. I, too, smiled at her.
“Do you like me?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. I thought, properly trained and disciplined, she would make an excellent slave.
“I wish that slave would hurry,” she said.
“I’m sure she will be back in a moment,” I said.
“Perhaps you should beat her,” she said.
“An excellent suggestion,” I said, “but let us give her a few more Ihn.”
“I think I shall soon be in the mood,” she whispered, confidingly, intimately.
“Excellent,” I said. It amused me to hear her speak of moods, and such. I wondered if she might think, perhaps for the first few Ihn of bondage, until the hand, the whip or boot taught her differently, that she might make a master wait upon her pleasure, until, say, she might be in the “mood,” or something like that.
“I suspect,” she said, looking into my eyes, intimately, “that this meeting may change my life.”
“It is not impossible,” I said.
“Master,” said Louise, arriving at the table, kneeling, another small bottle of wine on her tray. I removed it from the tray and set it near me. I then dismissed her.
I poured two small glasses of wine. I did not know how skilled the Lady Tutina was. I had known at least one fellow, Boots Tarsk-Bit, who was marvelously skilled at such things as misdirection and sleight of hand.
“She is rather pretty, isn’t she?” asked the Lady Tutina, looking after Louise. She, the Earth-girl slave, nude and collared, hard to see in the flickering reddish light, carrying the tray over her head, was making her way back along the tables and mats to the bar. “In a trivial, servile way, suitable for a slave, of course,” added the Lady Tutina.
“Perhaps,” I said. I looked after Louise.
“That fellow seems to think so,” said the Lady Tutina. A fellow had reached out to touch Louise’s branded flank as she moved past his table. She withdrew, frightened, hurrying on, from the touch. Then the fellow sprawled to the side, drunk.
“Yes,” I said.
Louise was lovely, indeed. She had not yet, however, I suspected, fully learned her collar. I did not think she, as yet, realized fully, in the depths of her, that she was a slave girl, and only that, and what that meant. She could, of course, be taught.
“She is a bit skinny,” said the woman.
I shrugged. She was not skinny. She was slight, and slender. But such often make superb slaves. Certainly for her size and weight, she was well curved.
“Let us drink,” said the Lady Tutina. I decided that she was not particularly skilled after all. It is no great trick to put something in someone’s drink when they are not looking. Boots, I was sure, could have managed it while engaged in face-to-face conversation. He, of course, was unusually good at that sort of thing.
“To you,” breathed the Lady Tutina, smiling.
“No,” I smiled, “to you.”
She then sipped the wine. I, on the other hand, after lifting it toward my lips, merely returned it to the table.
“This is not the same wine,” she said, lowering the glass. “It is different.”
“Yes,” I said. “Do you like it?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “Of course. It is wonderful.”
“Perhaps you will come to like it,” I said. In the beginning perhaps it would be poured down her throat, her head held back by the hair, by masters. Later, she might find herself wheedling and groveling for it, grateful to have anything that good.
“You haven’t touched your wine,” she said, reproachfully.
“Come here,” I said.
She came about the table, kneeling near me. It was the first time she had obeyed me. It pleased me to have her obeying me.
“Close,” I said.
She came then quite close to me.
“Cuddle,” I said.
She snuggled up against me. Her nearness made me master hot. Her breasts were exciting. I put my arm about her, that I might hold her to me. She looked up into my eyes.
“You haven’t touched your wine,” she pouted.
“Oh?” I said.
“Drink, drink,” she wheedled, picking up the glass, lifting it toward my lips. “Drink,” she said, “and then we may hurry to your room, where I may serve you, even as a slave.”
“You are luscious, and tempting,” I said.
“Drink,” she said.
I forced myself to remember that she was for the other fellow, the one slumped across the nearby table.
“Drink,” she whispered.
I took the glass from her. I set it down on the table.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
“Encourage me,” I said.
She then began to kiss me, and lick me, about the face and neck. She did it quite well. With training she would do it much better.
“Do you know the wine?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
I turned the bottle so that she might read the label. It was a small bottle of Boleto’s Nectar of the Public Slave Gardens. Boleto is a well-known winegrower from the vicinity of Ar. He is famous for the production of a large number of reasonably good, medium-grade ka-la-nas. This was one of the major wines, and perhaps the best, served in Ar’s public slave gardens; indeed, it had originally been commissioned for that market; hence the name.
“Oh,” she said.
“I hope you like it,” I said.
“It’s very nice,” she said.
“I’m glad you like it,” I said.
“Here,” she said, picking up the glass, “hurry, drink. I wish to hurry to your room.”
“Let us go to the room now,” I said. I considered giving her this option, this chance to save herself. Did she accept it I would release her from the ring in the morning, with perhaps no more than an admonitory bruise or two.
“Hurry,” she whispered. She lifted the glass to my lips. “Drink,” she whispered, invitingly, seductively.
I smiled to myself. She had had her chance. To be sure, I had offered it to her only as an irony and amusement. That would doubtless sometime become quite clear to her. I had known she would not accept it.
“Drink,” she whispered.
I took the glass from her hand.
“Drink,” she whispered.
“But it is for you,” I said.  Page 349 - 360


I loosened the blades of the whip. “You will kiss it now,” I said, “or after you have felt it. To me it is a matter of indifference. The choice is yours.”
“Do not whip me,” she said.
“You are a free woman,” I said. “You have doubtless never even felt a slave whip.”
“I will kiss it,” she said.
I held it before her. Many free women, before they have felt it, are skeptical of the efficacy of the slave lash. Their skepticism vanishes, of course, as soon as they feel it. On the other hand, I did not think this one would be. She was quite familiar with it. She doubtless used it regularly in her work. It was one of her tools, a useful device for the instruction, correction, discipline and punishment of slaves. She would be quite aware of its power, of its effect on her helpless charges.  Page 397


“Take me then to a slaver’s,” she said.
“No,” I said.
“You are no true man!” she said.
I then stood up before her. She looked up at me, puzzled, I then, after regarding her for a time, suddenly, with the back of my hand, struck her fiercely back from the mat, she twisting and falling back, flung to the side from her knees, almost half on her feet for an instant, then losing her balance, then falling back into the trash at the side of the wall. She, from the midst of the garbage, half on her side, looked at me wildly, her hand at her mouth, blood between her fingers.
I pointed to the mat. “Here,” I said. “Kneel.”
She hastened back to the mat and knelt before me. She looked up at me in wonder, blood at her mouth. She had been cuffed. “Did you strike me because I challenged your manhood?” she asked. “I did not really mean it. It is only that I was terribly angry. I did not think.”
“You were not struck for such an absurd reason,” I said. “You are, after all, a free woman, and free women are entitled to insult, and to attempt to demean and destroy men. It is one of their freedoms, unless men, of course, should decide to take it from them. You were struck, rather, because you were attempting to manipulate me.”
She nodded, putting her head down.
“Do you recognize your guilt, and the suitability of your punishment?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.  Page 422


Tenalion smiled. “You have very unrealistic concept of the market,” he said. “Too, you are no longer a free woman, and priceless. You are now only one slave among others, and now, within certain limits, have a specific monetary value.”  Page 436

Dancer of Gor Book 22

A free woman is entitled to try to escape a captor as best she can, and without penalty, even after her first night in his bonds, if she still chooses to do so. If she is enslaved, of course, then she is subject to, and covered by, the same customs, practices and laws as any other slave.  Page 96


Upswept hairdos are usually reserved for free women, or high slaves. They are a mark of status.  Page 112

He tapped me twice, rather smartly, but not cruelly, not to hurt me, with the side of the stick, swinging it to his right, as I passed him. It had been done with a good-natured, if perhaps somewhat vulgar, familiarity. It was like the good-natured, possessive slap below the small of the back with which men sometimes speed slave girls about their business. In his way be was complimenting me. I must endure such touches, of course. Men owned me, and could do what they wanted with me. I belonged to them. Actually, of course, I was pleased that he had done so. In its way it was a kindly act. Indeed, it may have been intended to hearten and reassure me. Slave girls seldom object to such treatment, vulgar though it might seem to free women, and even free women, I think, in spite of the scandal they profess to feel in its wake, do not really mind it. It is a way in which women are informed that they are of sexual interest.  Page 124 - 125


As a free woman I had been priceless, and thus, in a sense, without value, or worthless. As a slave, on the other hand, I did have a value, a specific value, depending on what men were willing to pay for me.  Page 150


Free women, incidentally, seldom, if ever, bare their shoulders. Doing so is almost like offering themselves for the collar. “If you would be stripped as a slave, then be a slave,” it is said. Similarly free women on Gor seldom, if ever, wear earrings, either of the natural or of any other variety, such as the clip variety. Earrings are regarded as being fit, rather, for slaves, and usually the lowest of slaves. Nose rings, interestingly, are not regarded in the same light. They are worn even by some free women, I understand, in the far south, the women of the Wagon Peoples there, as well as, generally, by the female slaves of such peoples.  Page 157


On Gor, dance of the sort in which I was expected to perform, is called, simply, “slave dance.” That is presumably because it is, a form of dance which, for the most part, is thought to be fit only for slaves, and would be performed only by slaves. The thought crossed my mind that the lovely woman who had been my teacher on Earth had once remarked to me, “We are all slaves.” I think that is true. Certainly, however, not all women are legal slaves. Many women are free, legally, whether it is in their best interest or not. Such dances, then, “slave dances,” at least on Gor, are not for such women. If a “free woman,” that is, one legally free, were to publicly perform such a dance on Gor she would probably find herself in a master’s chains by morning. Her “legal freedom,” we may speculate, would prove quite fleeting.  Page 172


We were still to be hot, and ready, paga slaves, eager to serve, and fully, the silk no more than an invitation to its removal. This was not much different, incidentally, than what was the case in even the most prestigious paga taverns. In such places free women were generally not permitted. In them, usually, the only women to be found would be collared slaves, generally belonging either to the tavern keeper or the guests, who may have brought them in, to avail themselves of the facilities of the alcoves.  Page 245


Once a free woman came to watch, for a moment. I dared not meet her eyes, but, too, I did not falter in my dance, or beauty; indeed, I tried to show her, lovingly, as one woman to another, what a woman could be, even a lowly slave, especially a lowly slave. She hurried away, trembling within her robes. I wondered if sometime she, too, would wear a collar, and move so before men.
Page 285


I danced in such a way that a free woman might only dream of, awakening, sweating, in the night, clutching her covers, in terror, then feeling her throat with trepidation, with the tips of frightened fingers, to ascertain that no collar has been locked on it in the night. How could she, a free woman, have such a dream? What could it mean? And what would the men do to her when they came to take her in their arms? She awakened, in terror. Perhaps she hurries to strike a light in her room. The familiar surroundings reassure her. She has had such dreams before. What could they mean? Nothing, of course. Nothing! Such dreams must be meaningless! They must be! But what if they were not? She shudders. Perhaps she then, in her long silken gown, curls up, frightened, at the foot of her bed. What, too, could that mean? She does not know. Surely that, too, means nothing. But what if it did? She lies there, troubled, but somehow comforted, somehow secure, in that position. It seems to her, somehow, that that is where she belongs.  Page 333 - 334


I thought of Pietro Vacchi. How well he handled a woman! How well he had mastered me! I remembered that on the road a “gentlewoman,” one from Ar, had been mentioned. She, as I understood it, was to have been given to Aulus for the evening, that he might help her learn what it was to be a female. Aulus, as I well knew, from when I had worn the rectangle of silk in his tent, was a strong master. I had little doubt but what the “gentlewoman,” lying at his feet in the morning, wide-eyed and sleepless, would recollect in chagrin and horror her responses of the preceding night. Could she believe what she had done, and said? How she had begged and squirmed, and acted not at all like a free woman, but like a slave? How she had behaved in his arms? How could she, a free woman, have acted like that? But perhaps she was not truly, ultimately, a free woman, as she had hitherto supposed but really, truly, like so many other women, those she had pretended not to really understand, and had held in such contempt, until now, only a slave? Could that be? And could they teach her things, if she begged hard enough, that she might be more pleasing to such men, that they might find her of interest and deign again to notice her? Regardless of such considerations how could she now, after what had been done to her, and how she had acted, go back to being a free woman? Could she pretend nothing had happened? How could she hold her head up, again, now, among free women? Would she not now cringe before them, and be unable to meet their eyes, like a runaway slave, thence to be seized by them and remanded to a praetor? Now that she had known the touch of a man, such a man, how could she return, as though nothing had happened, to her former self, with its haughty, barren pretenses of freedom? What authority or right had she any longer, given what she had learned about herself last night, to claim that she was “free,” except perhaps in virtue of the accident of an undeserved legal technicality?
How could she ever again, given what she now knew about herself, consider herself free? No longer had she a right to such a claim. She now knew, in her heart, that she was not truly free, but, truly, a slave. That was what she was, and right that she be. No longer could she find it in her heart to pretend to be free, to play again the role of a free woman, to enact once again what, in her case, could now be only a hollow mockery, an empty farce of freedom. Too, could she any longer even dare to do so? Suppose others came to suspect, or even to know! What if they could read it somehow in her eyes, or body? It is a great crime for a slave to pretend to be a freewoman. Would they not simply take off her clothes and punish her, and then hand her over to a praetor, for her proper disposition? Too, what could such a pretence gain her but the closing of doors on the truth of her being? But even if these things were not true, as she feared they were, she did not wish to perish of shame. No longer now, knowing what she now knew about herself, could she live as a free woman. She must beg Aulus, when he awakened, for she did not dare awaken him for fear she might be whipped, for the brand and collar. No longer could she be a free woman. It was now right that she be kept as a slave, and made a slave.  Page 366 - 367


To be sure, almost all female slaves on Gor must expect to be put to domestic labors, cooking, sewing, cleaning, washing, ironing, and such. We were women. Even free women, in households without slaves, perform such labors.
Page 387


“A slave may not lie,” I said. “She is not a free woman.” Interestingly, on Gor, as on Earth, morality, for the most part, was not required of free women. They might do much what they pleased.  Page 468

Renegades of Gor (Book 23)

Some Gorean “coaches,” and fee carts, not many, are slung on layers of leather. This gives a reasonably smooth ride but the swaying, until one accommodates oneself to it, can induce nausea, in effect, seasickness. This seems to be particularly the case with free women, who are notoriously delicate and given to imaginary complaints.
Page 19


“We are free women!” said the third woman. “We expected men to be gentlemen, to be understanding, to take care of us!”
“We counted on the kindness of men!” said the forth woman.
“They will do anything for free women!” said the second woman.
I laughed, and they shuddered in their chains, against the wall. It was still raining, but the force of the storm had muchly subsided. I released my grip under the chin of the first woman.
“Do not laugh!” begged the first woman.
“In short,” I said, “you entered the inn, and remained here, in spite of the fact that you had not the wherewithal to meet your obligations, expecting perhaps you might somehow do so with impunity, that your bills would perhaps be simply overlooked, or dismissed by the inn in futile anger, or that eager men could be found to pay them, doubtless vying for the privilege of being of service to lofty free women.”
“Would you have had us spend the night on the road, like peasants?” demanded the third woman.
“But these are hard times,” I said, “and not all men are fools.”
The third woman cried out with anger, shaking her shackles. She was well curved, and diet and exercise could much improve her. I thought she might bring as much as sixty copper tarsks in a market. If that were so, and the inn sold her for that much, they would have made then, as I recalled, some twenty-five copper tarsks on her.
“When you discovered you had not the price of the inn’s services,” I said, “you might have asked if you might earn your keep for the night.”
“We are not inn girls!” cried the second woman.
“It is interesting that you should think immediately in such terms,” I said. “I had in mind other sorts of things, such as laundering and cleaning.”
“Such tasks are for slaves!” said the fifth woman.
“Many free women do them,” I said.
“Those tasks are for low free women,” she said, “not for high free women such as we!”
“Yet you are now at the wall, in shackles,” I said, “and have upon you not so much as a veil.”
“Nonetheless,” said the second woman, “we are high free women, and women such as we do not earn our keep.”
“Perhaps women such as you,” I speculated, “will soon, at last, find yourself doing so.”  Page 42 - 43


This must be she, then, of whom the keeper had spoken. I recalled that he had told me that although the use of an inn girl would cost me, in these times, three copper tarsks for only a quarter of an Ahn, I might have the free woman working in the paga room for an Ahn for only a tarsk bit. To be sure, that perhaps overrated her value considerably, as she was only a free woman. Whereas free women, technically, are priceless, they are also, usually, in bed, worthless. They are not worthy of kneeling and humbly holding candles within a thousand pasangs of a slave. To be sure, they commonly hold an inflated opinion of their expertise and desirability. They are no good, however, until they have been imbonded, and have begun, vulnerably and fearfully, to tread, willingly or not, the paths to fulfillment, and ecstasy. The outrageousness of the price, of course, was doubtless to be expected, given the general inflations of the times. I had told him I would let him know later. I would.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“It is none of your business,” she said.
“Have you ever been whipped?” I asked.
“I am Temione, Lady of Telnus,” she said. “No, I have not been whipped,” she added.  Page 63


“There are some others outside,” I said, “who may have had similar ideas to yours, in one way or another. They are now in the court, chained naked to rings. Do you know them?”
She looked away, angrily.
“Lady Temione,” I said, “you have been asked a question.”
“There are five others,” she said, “Rimice, Klio, and Liomache, from Cos, Elene, from Tyros, and Amina, a Vennan.”
“What do you think will happen to them?” I asked.
“Doubtless they will be redeemed, and freed,” she said. “We are all free women. Men, some sorts of men, will save us. Men, some sorts, cannot so much as stand to see a tear in a woman’s eye. To such men it is unthinkable that we might bear the consequences of our actions.”
“Do you think I am such a man?” I asked.
“No,” she said, “else I would have petitioned redemption from you.”
“Men such as those of whom you speak,” I said, “those who are so solicitous, so kindly, those who are so eager to render you succor, who will strive so desperately to help you, and please you, do they stir you deeply in your belly?”
“I am a free woman,” she said. “We do not consider such things.”
“But you must fear the iron,” I said.
“It will never happen,” she said.
“But you must fear it,” I said.
“Perhaps,” she said.
“Things, then,” I said, “would be quite different.”
“Yes,” she said. “They would then be quite different.” This was quite true. The slave girl is in a totally different category from the free woman. It is the difference between being a person and being a property, between being a respected, legally autonomous entity, entitled to dignity and pride, and being a domestic animal. The same fellow who will go to absurd lengths to please a free woman, and even make a fool of himself over her, will, even with the same woman, if she has been enslaved, simply gesture her with his whip, and without a second thought, to the furs.  Page 64 - 65


“How did the keeper seem when he ordered you shackled and put in the paga room?” I asked.
“Amused,” she said, angrily.
Perhaps you had spoken up to him,” I speculated, “though you were only a debtor slut.”
“Such is my right!” she said. “I am a free woman!”
“You dared to protest the treatment you received?” I asked.
“Of course!” she cried. “How is it that a free woman, should be stripped, and searched, and put in a cage, and such!”
“Perhaps you made demands, threatened him, insulted him, that sort of thing?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” she said.
“I can see then,” I said, “why it might have amused him to put you here, to serve as a waitress.”
“Perhaps,” she said, angrily.  Page 68


The Lady Temione paused near my table, on all fours. She looked at me. She had been rejected by a man, thrown from him, in disgust. I saw that she was stunned, that she was confused, that she was bewildered. Many free women regard themselves, without justification, as marvelous prizes. It can come as a great shock to them to suddenly realize they are, for most practical purposes, worthless. This rejection had shaken her profoundly. Like many free women she probably regarded herself as inordinately attractive. She looked at me, piteously, beggingly. She wanted some reassurance from me that she might be at least a little bit desirable or attractive.  Page 79


As I have indicated, the lips and mouth of a female are commonly regarded as extremely sensuous features to a Gorean, hence the concern of many free women, particularly of high caste, in the high cities, to conceal them  Page 125


“Beg,” I said.
“I am not in the mood,” she cried.
I laughed. How amusing are free women! Slaves learn to be in the “mood” instantaneously, at so little as a glance or a snapping of the fingers, and a pointing to the floor.  Page 146


The slave cannot free herself. She can be freed only by an owner. The condition of slavery does not require the collar, or the brand, or an anklet, bracelet or ring, or any such overt sign of bondage. Such things, as symbolic as they are, as profoundly meaningful as they are, and as useful as they are for marking properties, identifying masters, and such, are not necessary to slavery. They are, in effect, though their affixing can legally affect imbondment, ultimately, in themselves, tokens of bondage, and are not to be confused with the reality itself. The uncollared slave is not then a free woman but only a slave who is not then in a collar. Similarly a slave is still a slave even if her brand could be made to magically disappear or, if she has been a made a slave in some other way, if she has not yet been branded.  Page 273


I saw one free woman backed against the wall, a sword at her belly. Then she pulled her robes away from her shoulders and breasts, and then, a moment later, at an impatient movement of the sword, which made her wince, thrust them down over her hips, and let them slip to her knees. Then she straightened up. The sword was then again at her belly, only now it was bared to the sharpened steel. She turned her head to the side, in misery, in terror, being assessed. Then, at a movement of the blade, and ordered, doubtless, she looked at the fellow. It seemed then she was suddenly startled. Then she began to tremble. I had little doubt she had seen in him her master. It is an interesting moment for a woman, the first time she finds herself looking as a slave into the eyes of her master. She quickly knelt, as though fearful of displeasing him. I saw her turned about, rudely and thrust up, closely, against the wall. Her hands were bound behind her. She was leashed.  Page 320


The principle he had alluded to pertains to conduct in a free woman which is taken as sufficient to warrant her reduction to slavery. The most common application of this principle occurs in areas such as fraud and theft. Other applications may occur, for example, in cases of indigency and vagrancy. Prostitution, rare on Gor because of female slaves, is another case. The women are taken, enslaved, cleaned up and controlled. Indulgence in sensuous dance is another case. Sensuous dance is almost always performed by slaves on Gor. A free woman who performs such dancing publicly is almost begging for the collar. In some cities the sentence of bondage is mandatory for such a woman.
Page 372


The slave, because of her training, her emotional freedom, thousands of times greater than that of a free woman, the discipline she is under, and such, can attain orgasm much more quickly than a free woman, sometimes, particularly if she has been deprived for a time, almost immediately. A response which might take a free woman a third to a half of an Ahn to attain a slave, and not an unusual slave, might attain in three or four Ehn.  Page 390


“So that is how a slave is used!” she gasped.
“Sometimes,” I said.
“Surely no free woman would be used in such a manner!” she said.
“Presumably not often, at any rate,” I granted her. I did know that free women might be, and occasionally were, used in that way, for example, to insult them, or prepare them for the collar. To be sure, the man who used them in that fashion might as well be, I supposed, for most practical purposes, their master.
“Do you presume, incidentally,” I asked, “to arrogate to yourself the rights or modesties, or the least of the prerogatives of the free woman?”
“No, Master!” she said.
“Do you presume, further,” I asked, “to inquire into even the least of the sexual habits or activities of free women, whatever they might be?”
“No, Master!” she said. Her response amused me. Naturally both free women and slaves, as both are women, are very much interested in one another’s sexual activities. It is very natural. To be sure, unless the slave is a bred slave, most of this interest is on the part of the free women, for the slaves have usually, at one time or another, been free women, and have a very good idea of how narrow, dull, limited and mediocre is the sex life of the free woman. Indeed, the matter is paradoxical, for the free women have a tendency both to inquire eagerly into the behaviors expected of slaves, and enjoined upon them, and, at the same time, commonly profess horror and scandal at what they hear.
“Such things are no longer of concern to you, are they?”
“No, Master!” she said.
“And you are a little liar, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Forgive me, Master!” she said.
“In any event,” I said, “you need not concern yourself any longer with the sexual activities, the proprieties, and such, of the free woman. Your attention is now to be more properly focused on your own business and concerns, for example, such things as the many intricate, exciting, complex and delicious sexual modalities and behaviors of the female slave.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.  Page 403 - 404


Slave girls, of course, as goods, as exchangeable properties, and so on, are likely to see a great deal more of their world than the average free woman. Many free persons on Gor seldom travel more than a few pasangs from their village or the walls of their city. An important exception to this is the pilgrimage to the Sardar, which every Gorean, male and female, is expected to undertake at least once in his life. The journey, of course, from many points on Gor to the Sardar is, at least in certain parts, dangerous. It is not unknown for a young woman who sets out in the pilgrim’s white to arrive as a chained slave, who will be sold at one of the fairs. Her glimpse of the Sardar is likely to be obtained from the height of a sales platform.  Page 443

Vagabonds of Gor (Book 24)

Magicians of Gor (Book 25)

“Any free woman who couches with another’s slave, or readies herself to couch with another’s slave, becomes herself a slave, and the slave of the slave’s master. It is a clear law.”  Page 7


“Fellows as handsome as he,” complained the merchant, “should be forced to go veiled in public.”
“Perhaps,” I granted him. Free women in most of the high cities on Gor, particularly those of higher caste, go veiled in public. Also they commonly wear the robes of concealment which cover them, in effect, from head to toe. Even gloves are often worn. There are many reasons for this, having to do with modesty, security, and such.  Page 12


A free woman drew back her robes, hastily, frightened, lest they touch an Initiate. It is forbidden for Initiates to touch women, and, of course, for women to touch them.  Page 17


“We must place our trust in the Priest-Kings,” said a man. Across from us, about seven feet away, on the other side of the narrow street, was the free woman who had secured her robes, that they might not touch an Initiate. She rose to her feet, looking after the procession. We could still hear the bells. The smell of incense hung in the air. Near the free woman was a female slave, in a short gray tunic. She, too, had been caught, like Phoebe, in the path of the procession. She had knelt with her head down to the street, the palms of her hands on the stones, making herself small, in a common position of obeisance. The free woman looked down at her. As the girl saw she was under the scrutiny of a free person she remained on her knees. “You sluts have nothing to fear,” said the free woman to her, bitterly. “It is such as I who must fear.” The girl did not answer. There was something in what the free woman had said, though in the frenzy of a sacking, the blood of the victors racing, flames about, and such, few occupants of a fallen city, I supposed, either free or slave, were altogether safe. “It will only be a different collar for you,” said the free woman. The girl looked up at her. She was a lovely slave I thought, a red-haired one. She kept her knees tightly together before the free woman. Had she knelt before a man she would probably have had to keep them open, even if they were brutally kicked apart, a lesson to her, to be more sensitive as to before whom she knelt. “Only a different collar for you!” cried the free woman, angrily. The girl winced, but dared not respond. To be sure, I suspected, all things considered, that the free woman was right. Slave girls, as they are domestic animals, are, like other domestic animals, of obvious value to victors. It is unlikely that they would be killed, any more than tharlarion or kaiila. They would be simply chained together, for later distribution or sale. Then the free woman, in fury, with her small, gloved hand, lashed the face of the slave girl, back and forth, some three or four times. She, the free woman, a free person, might be trampled by tharlarion, or be run through, or have her throat cut, by victors. Such things were certainly possible. On the other hand, the free women of a conquered city, or at least the fairest among them, are often reckoned by besiegers as counting within the yield of prospective loot. Many is the free female in such a city who has torn away her robes before enemies, confessed her natural slavery, disavowed her previous masquerade as a free woman, and begged for the rightfulness of the brand and collar. This is a scene which many free women have enacted in their imagination. Such things figure, too, in the dreams of women, those doors to the secret truths of their being. The free woman stood there, the breeze in the street, as evening approached, ruffling the hems of her robes. The free woman put her fingers to her throat, over the robes and veil.
She looked at the slave, who did not dare to meet her eyes.
“What is it like to be a slave?” she asked.
“Mistress?” asked the girl, frightened.
“What is it like, to be a slave?” asked the free woman, again.
“Much depends on the master, beautiful Mistress,” said the girl. The slave could not see the face of the free woman, of course, but such locutions, “beautiful Mistress,” and such, on the part of slave girls addressing free women, are common. They are rather analogous to such things as “noble Master,” and so on. They have little meaning beyond being familiar epithets of respect.
“The master?” said the free woman, shuddering.
“Yes, Mistress,” said the girl.
“You must do what he says, and obey him in all things?” asked the free woman.
“Of course, Mistress,” said the girl. “He is the Master.”
“You may go,” said the free woman.
“Thank you, Mistress!” said the girl, and leaped to her feet, scurrying away.
The free woman looked after the slave. Then she looked across at us, and at Phoebe, who lowered her eyes, quickly. Then, shuddering, she turned about and went down the street, to our left, in the direction from whence the Initiates had come.  Page 18 - 19


It is interesting, I thought, how much such a small thing can mean to a girl. It was a mere slave tunic, a cheap, tiny thing, little more than a Ta Teera or camisk, and yet it delighted her, boundlessly. It was the sort of garment which free women profess to despise, to find unspeakably shocking, unutterably scandalous, the sort of garment which they profess to regard with horror, the sort of garment which they seem almost ready to faint at the sight of, and yet to Phoebe, and to others like her, in bondage, it was precious, meaning more to her doubtless than the richest garments in the wardrobes of the free women. To be sure, I suspect that free women are not always completely candid in what they tell us about their feelings toward such garments. The same free woman, captured, who is cast such a garment, and regarding it cries out with rage and frustration, and dismay, and hastens to don it only when she sees the hand of her captor tighten on his whip, is likely, in a matter of moments, to be wearing it quite well, and with talent, moving gracefully, excitingly and provocatively within it. Such garments, and their meaning, tend to excite women, inordinately. Too, they are often not such strangers to such garments as they might have you believe. Such garments, and such things, are often found among the belongings of women in captured cities. It is presumed that many women wear them privately, and pose in them, before mirrors, and such. Sometimes it is in the course of such activities that they first feel the slaver’s noose upon them, they surprised, and taken, in the privacy of their own compartments. On Gor it is said that free women are slaves who have not yet been collared  Page 21 - 22


We then returned our attention to the dancing circle. New women entered it upon occasion, as others were withdrawn. There were now some ten to fifteen slaves in the circle. How beautiful are women!
“How disgusting,” said a free woman, nearby. I had not noticed her standing there until now.
“Be gone, slut!” said a peasant.
The free woman gasped, and hurried away. Peasants are not always tolerant of gentlewomen.
. . .
I noted that the free female had gone a bit about the outside of the circle, and now stood there, back a bit from the circle, where there was a space between some men. From that position of vantage she continued to watch the dancers. This puzzled me. If she found such beauty, such sensuous liberation, such fulfilling joy, such reality, such honesty, the marvelousness of owned women before their masters, offensive or deplorable, why did she watch? What did she see there in the circle, I wondered.
What so drew her there, what so fascinated her there? Like most free women she was perhaps inhibited, frustrated and unhappy. She continued to gaze into the circle. Perhaps she saw herself there, clad in a rag and collar, if that, moving, turning with the others, like them so beautiful, so much alive, so vulnerable, so helpless, so owned. Does her master lift his whip? She must then redouble her efforts to please, lest she be lashed. I supposed that she, even there, standing so seemingly still, pretending to be a mere observer, could feel the dance in her body, in its myriad incipient movements, tiny movements in her legs, in her belly, in her body, in herself, in the wholeness of her womanhood. Perhaps she wished for her robes to be torn off and to be collared, and to be thrust, in her turn, into the circle. I did not doubt but what she would be zealous to please. Indeed, she had best be! But how strange that she, a free woman, would even linger in this place. Perhaps free women are incomprehensible. A Gorean saying came to mind, that the free woman is a riddle, the answer to which is the collar.
“Away!” called a fellow, who had turned about and seen the free woman. He waved his arm, angrily. “Away!” he said. The free woman then turned about and left the vicinity of the circle, hurriedly. I felt rather sorry for her, but then, I thought, surely the fellow was right, that the circle, or its vicinity, was no place for a free female. It was a place, rather, for the joy of masters and their slaves. Similarly, the vicinity of such places, though I did not think it would be so in this camp, at this particular time, can be dangerous for free women. For example, sometimes free women attempt, sometimes even disguising themselves, to spy on the doings of masters and slaves. For example, they might attempt, perhaps disguised as lads, to gain entrance to paga taverns. And often such entrance is granted them but later, to their horror, they may find themselves thrown naked to the dancing sand and forced to perform under whips. Similarly if they attempt to enter such establishments as pretended slaves they may find themselves leaving them by the back entrance, soon to become true slaves. In many cities, such actions, attempting to spy on masters and slaves, disguising oneself as a slave, garbing oneself as a slave, even in the supposed secrecy of one’s own compartments, lingering about slave shelves and markets, even exhibiting an interest in, or fascination with, bondage, can result in a reduction to bondage. The theory is apparently that such actions and interests are those of a slave, and that the female who exhibits them should, accordingly, be imbonded.

. . .
I have, more than once, I believe, alluded to the hatred of free women for their imbonded sisters, and to how they profess to despise them and hold them in contempt. Indeed, they commonly treat such slaves with what seems to be irrational and unwonted cruelty. This is particularly the case if the slave is beautiful, and of great interest to men. I have also suggested that this attitude of the free female toward the slave seems to be motivated, paradoxically enough, by envy and jealousy. In any event, slave girls fear free women greatly, as they, being mere slaves, are much at their mercy. Once in Ar, several years ago, several free women, in their anger at slaves, and perhaps jealous of the pleasures of masters and slaves, entered a paga tavern with clubs and axes, seeking to destroy it. This is, I believe, and example, though a rather extreme one, of a not unprecedented sort of psychological reaction, the attempt, by disparagement or action, motivated by envy, jealousy, resentment, or such, to keep from others pleasures which one oneself is unable, or unwilling, to enjoy. In any event, as a historical note, the men in the tavern, being Gorean, and thus not being inhibited or confused by negativistic, antibiological traditions, quickly disarmed the women. They then stripped them, bound their hands behind their back, put them of a neck rope, and, by means of switches, conducted them swiftly outside the tavern. The women were then, outside the tavern, on the bridge of twenty lanterns, forced to witness the burning of their garments. They were then permitted to leave, though still bound and in coffle. Gorean men do not surrender their birthright as males, their rightful dominance, their appropriate mastery. They do not choose to be dictated to by females. The most interesting portion of this story is its epilogue. In two or three days the women returned, mostly now barefoot, and many clad now humbly in low-caste garments. Some had even wrapped necklaces or beads about their left ankle. They begged permission to serve in the tavern in servile capacities, such as sweeping and cleaning. This was granted to them. At first the slaves were terrified of them but then, when it became clear that the women were not only truly serving humbly, as serving females, but that they now looked timidly up to the slaves, and desired to learn from them how to be women, and scarcely dared to aspire to their status, the fears of the slaves subsided, at least to a degree. Indeed, it was almost as though each of them, though perhaps a low girl in the tavern rosters, and much subject to the whip, had become “first girl” to some free woman or other, a rare turnabout in the lives of such collared wenches. Needless to say, in time, the free women, learning the suitable roles and lessons of womanhood, for which they had genetic predispositions, and aided by their lovely tutors, were permitted to petition for the collar. It was granted to them. It seems that this was what they had wanted all the time, though on a level not fully comprehensible to them at the beginning. One does not know what has become of them for, in time, as one might expect, they being of Ar, they were shipped out of the city, to be disposed of in various remote markets.  Pages 49 - 52


“No, Master,” said Phoebe.
Although Marcus had spoken in irony, Phoebe’s response was quite serious, and appropriately so. She did not even begin to put herself in the category of a free woman. An unbridgeable and, to the slave, terrifying chasm separates any free woman on Gor from a slave, such as Phoebe.  Page 100 - 101


One may usually hire a lad from the district to direct one to particular points. Similarly, of course, one may make inquiries of fellows in the area. In such inquiries, the male will normally speak to a male, and the female to a female. This has to do not only with matters of propriety, enshrined in Gorean custom, but also with common sense security measures. For example, a woman would not wish to seem forward, nor, in effect, to be calling herself to the attention of a strange male, which can be dangerous on Gor, and a woman, a free woman, might be well advised not to respond to the accostings of a strange male. He might even be a slaver or a slaver’s man, interested in seeing if she has a pleasing voice, one suitable for a slave. Similarly if she responds to a strange male this may be taken as evidence that she is eager to please a man and obey, two attributes which suggest her readiness, even immediately, for his collar.
Page 108


The woman cried out with anguish as the single garment was removed from her. She put down her head. She blushed, totally, from the roots of her hair to her toes.
I did not think the woman would be chosen. Like many free women, she had not taken care of her figure. Perhaps that was why she had not wished to be bared before men.  Page 152


The leader brought forward the pouch, and put it down on the stones. He then signaled to the lad with the veil. That fellow then brought the veil forward, too, and put it on the stones. Both of them then backed away. I then released the hand of the other lad, Decius, it seemed, and he scrambled away, holding his wrist.
“Give me my veil!” demanded the woman, coming forward.
I handed it to her.
She turned about, adjusting it.
“Pick up my pouch,” she said, her back to us. “Give it to me.”
I picked up the pouch. The lads had now withdrawn some forty yards or so away. They were gathered about the fellow whom I had had down on his knees, his arm behind him, the wrist bent. He was still undoubtedly in pain.
“Give me my pouch!” she demanded.
I looked at the group of youths.
The fellow’s wrist had not been broken. I had not chosen to do that.
One or another of the lads, from time to time, looked back at us. I did not think they would return, however. To be sure, Marcus might have welcomed that. His sword was still unsheathed. Too, I did not think they would be interested in causing the lady further inconvenience.
I felt the woman’s hand snatch at the pouch and my own hand, almost reflexively, closed on the pouch.
Her eyes flashed angrily over the veil, an opaque street veil, now readjusted.
“Give it to me!” she said.
“It was our mistake to interfere,” said Marcus, dryly. He resheathed his blade.
“Give it to me!” said the woman.
“You are rude,” I said.
She tugged at the pouch.
“Are you not grateful?” I asked.
“It demeans a free woman to express gratitude,” she said.
“I do not think so,” I said.
“Are you not paid for your work?” she asked.
“Are you not grateful?” I asked.
“I am not a slave!” she asked.
“Are you not grateful?” I asked, again.
“Yes,” she said. “I am grateful! Now, give it to me!”
“Ah,” I said, “Perhaps you are a slave.”
“No!” she said.
“What do you think of this free woman?” I asked Marcus.
“It is difficult to tell, clothed as she is,” he said.
She reacted angrily, but did not release the pouch.
“Do you think she might be more civil,” I asked, “if she were stripped?”
“Yes,” he said, “particularly if she were also branded and collared.”
“She would then learn softness, as opposed to hardness,” I said.
“It would be in her best interest to do so,” said Marcus.
“Yes,” I said.
She released the pouch and stepped back a little.
Her eyes were now wide, over the veil.
“Perhaps she is the sort of woman who is best kept in a kennel,” I said, “to be brought forth when one wishes, for various labors.”
“Such women are all haughty wenches,” he said. “But they quickly lose their haughtiness in bondage.”
“Please,” she said. “Give me the coins.”
I did not release them.
“Give them to me!” she said, angrily.
“Would you not like to learn softness, as opposed to hardness?” I asked.
She looked at me, angrily.
“Women learn it quickly in bondage,” I said.
“It is in their best interest to do so,” said Marcus.
“Yes,” I said.
“Surely you have wondered what it would be, to be a slave?” inquired Marcus.
She gasped. Only too obviously had she considered such matters.
“But then,” I said, “you may not be attractive enough to be a slave.”
She did not speak.
I put the pouch inside my tunic.
“Oh!” she said, for I had then reached up and taken her hood in my hands.
“We shall see,” I said.
“Oh!” she said, startled.
Marcus held her from behind, by the arms.
I pushed back her hood and thrust it down. I then jerked away the veil, and surveyed her features.
“I think you, like most women, would make an adequate slave,” I said.
She squirmed.
“Hold her wrists together,” I said. I then tied them together, behind her back, with her veil.
She moaned.
She could not now readjust the veil.
“Please,” she begged. “Let me veil myself. Slavers might see me!”
“You were not pleasing,” I said.
I then took the pouch of coins in my hand and lofted it to the group of lads some forty yards away. Their leader caught it. They then turned about, and ran.
The woman looked at me, astonished, aghast.
“Your lips are pretty,” I said. “They could probably be trained to kiss well.”
Tears sprang to her eyes.
“And lest you return home too quickly,” I said, “we shall do this.” I then crouched down and tore off a bit of the hem of her robes, but not enough to offend her modesty, for example, revealing her ankles, and, using the cloth as a bond; fastened her ankles together, leaving her some four or five inches of slack, rather like a slave girl’s hobble chains.
“Return home now,” I said.
We watched her withdraw, sobbing. She had not been pleasing.
“She is not unattractive,” said Marcus.
“No,” I said. “To be sure, her face now is a bit cold, and tight, and strained, as seems her body, as well, common in free women, but I do not doubt but what, in time, relaxed, brought into touch with herself, and her fundamental realities, no longer permitted to deny them, obliged then rather to express and fulfill them, she will blossom in softness and beauty.”
“She might even bring a good price in a market,” said Marcus.
“I am sure of it,” I said.
“Sleen!” said a free woman, bundled in the robes of concealment, heavily veiled, hurrying by. Doubtless she had witnessed, from a distance, the fate of her compatriot.  Page 69 - 172


For some reason free women hate female slaves. They are often quite cruel even to those whom they themselves own. I am not certain of the explanation of this seemingly unreasoning, inexplicable hatred. Perhaps they hate the slave for her beauty, for her joy, her truth, her perfections, her desirability, her happiness. At the root of their hatred, perhaps, lies their own unhappiness and lack of fulfillment, their envy of the slave, joyful in her rightful place in nature. In any event, this attack on the part of the free woman, which happily had been only verbal, as they often are not, and the abused slave in any event dare not protest or object, as they are at the mercy of free persons, was in its way a profound compliment.  Page 197


“You are not kneeling,” I said to the girl in the center.
“I am a woman,” she said, “why should I kneel?”
This seemed to me a strange response. I would have supposed it in excellent reason to kneel, being in the presence of men, if one were a woman. If she were a free woman, of course, fitting or not, there would be no legal proprieties involved. A free woman, as long as she remains free, can stand to the fullness of her short, graceful height before men.  Page 216


“Forgive me, Masters!” she wept. “You are men! You are men! A slave begs forgiveness!” Her concern was certainly not out of place. The demeaning of men, whereas it is permitted to, and not unknown among, free women, is not permitted to female slaves.  Page 226