Beginnings Are Precious

I was asked to write something on the idea of the online world of Gor in Second Life as a way to learn about submission.  This idea is interesting to me because that is, in fact, how I began, five years ago -- entering the world of dominance and submission via "safe, sane, consensual" Gorean role-play.  There are so many good things about this, and also so many things that require caution and care.  To be clear, I am talking about entering Gor (or any role-play fantasy) as a way of learning about submission:  to talk about exploring feelings that one has already cultivated is another conversation altogether.  Here, I'm more concerned about the brand-new.  The uninitiated.  The absolute beginner, as I was.

The first thing I have to say is, beginnings are precious.  I get this idea from Frank Herbert's novel, Dune.  "A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct." Beginnings are precious: if one upsets the journey in the beginning, it is a terrible shame when such great potential is wasted and abandoned.  What can upset the balance:  the inexperienced can fall prey to the sinister-minded resulting in a terrible abuse; or, the inexperienced can fall prey to a particular group that doesn't meet her desires but instead forces her to meet theirs, convincing her that "this is submission" because they say so.  Beginnings are precious: the absolute beginner is at the mercy of those who have walked the path before, and it's the luck of the draw whether the absolute beginner meets a kind person first or meets the big bad wolf first.  I was lucky -- I am just a lucky person, I suppose -- and I met the awesome.

The second thing I have to say is, not everybody enters the role-play fantasy worlds with the same purpose and intention.  A large percentage of the population of online Gor comes to play for the battle and rescue, and they are not experienced Masters or teachers beyond the obvious gender-allowances that dictate "This is Gor, and I am male, therefore you will obey me."  Because, the fundamental premise of Gor is a gender-based submission:  females are inferior in strength, in intelligence, and in social standing to men in Gor.  With that inferiority comes a "natural" submission and slavery -- and here is one reason why so many people equate submission with weakness, incidentally.  It is a Gorean idea, not an Earth one.  (And, it is offensive to my soul, in many ways, so I ignore it.)  So, to come into Gor with the intent of learning about submission, the first and fundamental premise of Gorean submission is one that many people are simply going to reject from the get-go.

The third thing I have to say is, there is no shortage of online gaming communities that trade on the dominance and submission architecture -- vampire sims, Story of O and Beauty sims, medieval sims, drug addict apocalyptic nihilistic sims, pirates and mermaids and nude-bars galore, nevermind the "regular" BDSM clubs one can join.  Each one has a very specific kind of play on offer, and so an absolute beginner (if she wants to learn about submission) is going to get a narrow and highly-specialized education if she leaps in to one of these communities before doing a little bit of research.  For example, Gor and the Story of O both trade in sado-masochistic disciplining and humiliation of the submissive/slave.  This is not "submission" writ large:  this is one very specialized kink that is often mistaken for "all submission."  When one mistakes the part for the whole, one may upset the balance of the beginning and, well, run like mad from the idea forever after.

Not all submissives are sexual deviants, it is important to remember.  Not all submissives want to be humiliated, or whipped, or chained or sat on or burned or waxed or whatever it is that people's kinks explore.  And, so, to learn about submission in a highly-eroticised and kinked-out fantasy world, a person might just get the wrong idea if these kinks are not what she had in mind from the beginning.  (Granted, she may get a terrific education and have some doors opened to her about stuff she never realized was really sexy, before.  That, too, happened with me.  I would not understand my love of ropes if not for my early grooming by my lucky find.)

The fact that I can -- in this blog and in my photography --  eroticise the idea of ropes, chains, and enslavement as part of my fantasy world of submission leads me to my final point on the matter:  a person needs to be able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.  In my fantasies, I am a slave.  In my reality, I am a submissive.  I love that in my reality, I have free will and the ability to choose for myself when I need to.  I love that I do not have to ask permission to do anything, and that I am free to use my strength and power for what needs doing, all in the service of my very special husband. And, in my fantasy, sometimes I imagine the world of Pauline Reage's Story of O.  Sometimes I imagine the world of John Norman's Gor.  But these are fantasies and I would never wish that reality upon anybody, 24/7.  If, in reality, a woman was deemed weaker, and was naturally expected to obey, and was forced into sado-masochistic sexual practice whether she liked it or not as proof of her submission, oy vey.  I would have to change the world, in that case.   The world would need changing.

Beginnings are precious.  In the beginning, a new exploratory submissive woman does not have the wherewithal and experience to make these distinguishing analyses.  And that makes her vulnerable.  Beginnings are precious, because beginnings are vulnerable.  The new submissive cannot say with any confidence what the difference is between a slave and a submissive person.  She cannot always tell what is spoken "in character" and what is spoken "out of character" in roleplay situations.  Therefore, to wander into Gor and expect to learn about submission is, I think, a dangerous idea.  Sometimes it can work -- but it is not as safe a bet as wandering into the Journey sim and talking to a mentor.