Types, use, and ranks of slaves of Gor
What purpose do slaves serve in the world of Gor? This is a broad question, but one that has a fairly simple answer, provided by Norman himself in his novels:
“80% of slaves are women, and 80% of them are intended for the sexual pleasure of men.”
There are no hundreds of plantations run by large landowners with cohorts of thousands of slaves working in the fields, no armada of ships propelled by hundreds of galley slaves tied to their oars, or quarries where thousands of convicts die of exhaustion under the whip of their overseers. Gor is no more like Ancient Rome than it is like the slave-owning West of the 18th century, at least on this subject. On Gor, the vast majority of work, even the most arduous, is done by free men and women, aided by their advanced engineering, which makes slavery for forced labor largely unnecessary. Of course, it does exist! But it is mostly occasional, even if we see a few examples in the novels: Goreans, as a whole, do not rely heavily on slaves for their manual labor and industry (for one simple reason: there really aren’t that many slaves, as I’ll discuss below…).
On Gor, the vast majority of slaves become forced prostitutes, more or less. But, and this is an example I often cite because it is a totally valid and consistent comparison, the slave girls of Gor are nothing more and nothing less than the Gorean equivalent of our domestic dogs, pets, who have the advantage of being intelligent and available for sex whenever desired .
That said, summarizing the activity of Gor’s kajirae as solely sexual is reductive. First, because not all slaves are solely intended to be raped, and second, because the Goreans have taken the refinement of the most practical, exotic, and playful uses of their slaves very far.
So, I will describe some of the types of slaves in Gor, according to their uses, their function, but also their nature. I will surely forget some, but I will do my best.
1- Let’s start with a digression!
Well, I’ve already talked about this often elsewhere (including in this recent article: https://www.psychee.org/gorpedia/the-real-price-of-slaves-in-gor/ ), but a reminder won’t hurt… Female slaves are not at all common on Gor, if we refer to excerpts from the Gor novels, and therefore to Norman’s own words. This is completely paradoxical with other excerpts from novels which, for example, describe workshops where hundreds of women are chained to looms or work in the fields, in entire cohorts, with their ankles chained.
But the Gor novels are full of inconsistencies of this kind, which Norman has scattered throughout (and attempted to correct as he wrote his novels), so we have to sort through what can be considered plausible and what falls within the realm of the unreliable narrator. After all, most novels are not written in the third person with an omniscient external narrator, but in the first person, through the eyes and experiences of a single narrator with his own cognitive biases (and in this genre, Tarl Cabot is undoubtedly the most unreliable narrator in the novels!).
Editor’s note: it is because of this problem of inconsistency and unreliable narrators that the articles in the Gorean Archive are not just a series of vaguely commented quotes from the novels, but attempts at explanatory guides that synthesize information in a didactic manner. Quoting excerpts from the novels without their context, both intra-diegetic and external, i.e., historical and sociocultural, does not make much sense, since one quote can contradict another with no more effort than just digging through the novels.
But okay… a few quotes, just to provide some context:
“Most of the women were free, but there were also a few slaves, about one slave for every fifteen or twenty free women.”
Avengers of Gor
“The vast majority of women on Gor are, of course, free women from many different castes. On the other hand, female slavery is common. They can be seen in the streets, in the markets, in the fields, etc. Statistically, few slaves come from slave farms. Most were originally free women, captured in raids, kidnappings, wars, etc.“
Swords of Gor
”Are most Gorean women slaves?” she asked.
“No,” I replied. In fact, statistically, in the regions of Gor that I know well, they are very few in number. In general, only one woman in forty or fifty is a slave. This varies somewhat from city to city, of course. The main exception to these proportions is the city of Tharna, where almost all women are slaves.” I looked at her. “There are specific historical reasons for that,” I said.
“But with such a large population,” she said, “that would literally be thousands.”
“Of course,” I replied.
Beasts of Gor
So, I’m only including a few quotes from the Gor novels here, just to highlight some of the paradoxes in the figures put forward by the protagonists of Gor or by Norman himself. Norman’s characters talk about markets where thousands and thousands of slaves are sold, sometimes for a pittance, while later on we learn that only one in fifty, forty, or even twenty women are enslaved in the world of Gor, which clearly indicates that they are in fact a rare and prized commodity.
Once again, for the subject of the real monetary value of slaves in Gor, I refer you to this article: https://www.psychee.org/gorpedia/the-real-price-of-slaves-in-gor/
But if we make an effort to synthesize the various data on Gorian demographics, we get something like this: In a village or small town, 2 to 3% of women will be enslaved. In large city-states such as Ar, Turia, or Schendi, this can rise to a whopping 20%. Among the Torvis and Panis, it seems to be around 5 to 6%. If we take a general average, just over 3-4% of the female population of Gor is enslaved, which gives us about 7 million slaves out of an estimated population of about 200 million.
If you want to get an idea of what this represents on a map of Gor, I recently drew one (I also talk a little about demographics): https://www.psychee.org/gorpedia/the-map-of-gor-by-psychee/
2- The different types of slaves
I will focus mainly on slave girls, but in general, most types can also apply to male slaves. I will just specify the special cases.
I will divide the types of slaves into three main categories: domestic and labor slaves, pleasure and display slaves, and finally breeding and exotic slaves.
Let’s start with the most common slave girls, who make up the majority!
Editor’s note: Goreans, although not always, are generally relatively concerned about the health of their slaves, both physically and mentally. For example, a ship slave or a chamber slave will regularly be rewarded with a little freedom of movement and leisure time, at least if the master cares a little about their well-being. Norman often mentions that slave girls can walk around, rest, and entertain themselves if their services are not required, and that it is not uncommon for them to have a few hours, such as an afternoon, of relaxation during a Gorean week. While this is not a constant, it is certainly quite common, as it clearly helps to avoid losing a slave girl who has been driven mad or exhausted by the fate she must endure in general.
1- Pleasure & display slaves
80% of female slaves in Gor are slaves intended for sexual pleasure (of men, of course), but a small number of male slaves are also trained and educated for this purpose (and not just for women… if you want to know a little about homosexuality in Gor, I refer you to this article: https://www.psychee.org/gorpedia/homosexuality-on-gor-and-according-to-norman/ ).
There are two main types of pleasure slaves: on the one hand, there are girls who have been tamed and trained in a rudimentary manner and sent to perform their duties in a tavern, barracks, or on the street; and the girl who has been extensively trained and educated in the pleasures and refinements of the most sophisticated service, sometimes for years, to become an accomplished and perfect slave, destined to dance and seduce men in rich salons and palaces.
Coin slave: One of the worst statuses for slave girls, she is sent by her master with a coin box around her neck or attached to her hips, with a slot for coins, bells to attract attention, and a minimum of clothing, preferably of little value, so as not to damage it. They roamed the streets in search of clients to sell their sexual services (on the street or in a corner), usually for a copper tarsk per pass.
“The girls were a form of street slaves, usually sent out at dusk by their masters, who generally owned several of them, with a chain around their necks, to which was normally attached a bell to draw attention to their comings and goings, and a small locked coin box. And woe betide the girl who did not return with coins jingling in the box! Of course, in some places, you could even get a paga slave, or a brothel slave, for as little as a handful of tarsk.”
Renegades of Gor
Tavern slave (or paga girl): a slave who serves in a tavern, her sexual services are included in the price of the drink (often a bowl of paga or sul-paga). This can be a very miserable fate for a slave, because, as with the coin girl, the slave’s owner demands profitability.
Bath slave: she works in public baths (which are usually privately owned). It is the same as a tavern slave, sexual services included, the Free Man can use her in the price of the bath, until it closes. She has her hair cut to medium length, so that it dries faster, and she is often a good swimmer.
Girl-catching slave: a girl chosen for her athletic talents as much as her beauty, who is used as a “hare” in a popular sporting game, where the goal is for free male participants (usually about ten) to catch her on a course before she (blindfolded with a mask over her head and her wrists tied behind her back) reaches the finish line. Of course, when she is caught, she is raped, the winner leaves the game, and they start again. Among the many miserable fates for female slaves, this is surely one of the harshest.
Ship slave: a slave who serves the pleasures of men on a ship. She is usually locked in a cage or box, either on deck or in the hold, and is only let out to satisfy the sexual pleasures of the sailors on board. Yeah, there really are some slave fates that make me shudder with horror.
Dance slave: the name says it all, this is a slave carefully trained in erotic slave dances, who is employed to entertain guests in a salon, tavern, inn, or private or public show. It is not uncommon for a dance slave, depending on the context, to be raped by some of the spectators before she has time to finish her performance. On the other hand, she is generally better treated than a tavern slave, as her dance training represents a costly investment.
Chamber slave: slaves of pleasure chained in a room, serving every guest of their master, or anyone who enters the room where they are confined; they are generally the most beautiful and educated kajirae that money can buy, and they are very expensive.
Pleasure Garden Slave: pleasure slaves locked in the harem of a private estate, serving their master’s every need when he enters his personal pleasure garden; they are generally even more beautiful, educated, and expensive than chamber slaves.
Display slave: much like chamber slaves, they are chained to a piece of furniture, a throne, or a ring in the room where their master receives his guests, and are there for their beauty and their often exceptional education, like works of art, as living proof of the wealth of the owner of the premises.
Pet slave (or love girl): a pleasure slave dedicated exclusively to the service of her master. She follows him everywhere and serves him with a devotion that borders on self-sacrifice. In general, she is a slave in love with her master. This does not mean that she will be spared or treated better—at least not publicly. She may or may not be restricted, but she can sometimes keep her legs closed with masters other than her own. She is not necessarily an incredibly educated or refined slave, but this is often the case. And, yes, this is surely the best fate a slave girl in Gor can experience.
2- Domestic & labor slaves
These are the slaves who are exploited in workshops, construction sites, fields, and mines, but above all, they are the slave girls who do the housework and take care of the house, usually under the thumb of the Free Woman who is the mistress of the house. Norman describes a life of abuse and widespread misery that is quite terrible for most domestic and labor slaves, who, obviously, will receive little of the consideration that some Goreans have for pleasure slaves.
Labor slaves, workshop slaves, and field slaves are not very common: on the one hand, Goreans have great respect for manual labor and are proud of it, so they tend not to entrust it to slaves, and on the other hand, slaves are too rare and expensive for anyone but a few very wealthy individuals to confine them to work that can easily be done by free people who are paid for it, generally to a higher standard.
Kettle slave: usually a female slave, but I imagine that some male slaves are also found in this role, for example for tasks requiring strength, who is usually chained in a kitchen and prepares meals for the masters of the house, or for service in a tavern or inn.
Laundry slave: she spends her life washing, drying, and maintaining the laundry of the masters of the estate, but also that of her master’s clients, providing a public service. It is a grueling job that takes a heavy toll on the body.
Bucket slave: the nickname given to female slaves whose sole purpose is to wash, scrub, polishing, and shining the floors, walls, and furniture in their owner’s house. Here again, some masters rent slaves to their clients for this sole task, which is almost exclusively performed by women.
City slave: a slave belonging to the city, rented to high-caste families who cannot afford to own one. She usually has her hair cut short in a bob. They are generally intended to perform domestic work, as well as to carry loads.
Draft slave: these are slaves employed as beasts of burden to pull personal chariots, or carry palanquins and sedan chairs, in which the wealthiest free women travel. I use the word “slave” in the feminine here because the height of luxury and power for Goreans is to employ slave girls for this purpose, preferably the most beautiful ones, sometimes harnessed like real pony girls in the Gorean fashion.
“Lighter labors might be assigned to females used as draft slaves. They are often used, for example, to draw the cart of a peddler. Some free women enjoy using harnessed female slaves to draw their carriages, or, chained to their poles, to carry their palanquins.”
Plunder of Gor
Work slave: a generic term for slaves employed to carry loads, whether it be carrying a basket, lifting cinder blocks, or moving furniture. These are often male slaves, but as they are rare, it is not uncommon to hire female slaves for this purpose. However, you will find more free men doing this kind of work for pay than slaves.
Messenger slave: These are uncommon, as slaves are not generally trusted to carry a letter or a message to be repeated. However, they do exist.
Workshop slave: actually quite rare, given the scarcity of slaves and the Gorian mentality, these are slaves who are chained to a workbench or loom to make products for their master’s benefit. Again, these workshops are rare, as I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.
Fields slave: agricultural workers, mostly female slaves, who toil on the plantations of very large landowners—yes, the peasant caste of Gor is not made up solely of poor, penniless peasants. That said, as with workshop slaves, this remains rare, for the same reasons.
Mine slave: the general term for convicts who work in quarries or mines, places where life is short due to dust-related illnesses, miserable living conditions, and frequent workplace accidents. The Goreans generally send their prisoners of war who could not be exchanged for ransom, so most often men. Need I say that these convicts live a life of suffering and misery?
Secret messenger slave: did you think I had covered all the slaves with the most miserable fate that Norman could describe? Wrong. To sum up: you take a slave girl, shave her head, tattoo a secret message on her scalp, and lock her up until her hair grows back so that the message is invisible. Then you send her to the recipient via the usual slave trade route, so that no one suspects the slave’s role. Once she arrives, the recipient shaves the girl’s head, reads the message, and, once she has served her purpose, you kill her and dispose of the body so that no trace remains!
3- Breeding & exotic slaves.
Exotic slaves are generally, but not always, as I mention below, girls from breeding programs that practice hereditary genetic selection of humans, with the aim of selecting specific physical and mental traits. Gor has a very long history, and this form of breeding has existed for a long time, contributing to the remarkable genetic talents of the Goreans, despite their general technical backwardness. The fact that human being domestication at such an advanced stage is not necessarily very credible is another matter. On Gor, they have succeeded, and they play with it for their own interest and pleasure, creating lines of slaves who have never known freedom, carefully selected and, as a rule, trained and educated in a particularly sophisticated manner, which represents a significant financial windfall.
“These papers are, of course, of increased importance in the case of purebred or exotic slaves. The lineage of some purebred slaves goes back several generations. Collectors also tend to be interested in the origins of exotic slaves, for example, who raised them, where they were raised, etc.”
Prize of Gor
“There are certainly slave farms that, after a few years, produce their annual harvest, so to speak. On the other hand, these businesses generally require a significant initial investment, such as large physical facilities and hundreds of breeding slaves, both male and female, who must be carefully matched and crossbred, and it normally takes years before the first harvest is ready for market. Furthermore, these farms generally market exotic products. The most common exotic product is the virgin slave who has been raised without knowing that men exist. Slaves can also be bred for a variety of colors, coats, facial features, etc.
There is also a technique, based on a variant of stabilization serums, that can accelerate physical maturation, but it is rarely used because it only produces an unusual child. “
The Swordsmen of Gor
Exotic slave: Exotic slaves have rare physical traits (such as Ho-Hak and his pointed ears in Pirates of Gor, or Fina, who is from Earth and whose natural scent is a perfume that changes according to her moods, in Witness of Gor) or psychological (such as the virgins raised since birth in a closed garden in Cernus, ignorant of men, in Assassin of Gor). An exotic slave may also have been trained for truly strange purposes, such as sexual pleasure through pain (mentioned in Prize of Gor) or for kajirae races, hunting (the kajira is then the prey) or the game of catch-the-girl mentioned above.
There may also be albino slaves, or even a line of slaves bred to be so animalistic that they are truly incapable of speaking or walking upright! In this area, there are some rather fantastic cases, although Norman does not seek to detail how breeders have achieved this, but the strangeness is quite vast.
These slaves are sought after by “trait collectors.” These are people with considerable financial means who collect kajirae for their particular traits, as one might collect rare trinkets.
He laughed. “I mean that they have been raised from an early age in these gardens. They have never seen a man. They don’t know they exist.”
I then understood why only women had been seen in these rooms.
I looked again through the glass at the graceful young girls playing and having fun together by the pool.
“They have been raised in complete ignorance,” said Ho-Tu.
Assassin of Gor
Another slave, an exotic, bred for stripes, put more laundry beside her.
Prize of Gor
Tarl Cabot supposed that the blonde might be an exotic, in this case a slave raised without a language.
Kur of Gor
Slave of passion: this is a slave for pleasure, produced through controlled breeding, selected for her pedigree and for her desired physical and psychological qualities. Some are kept locked up in a Slave House breeding facility and spend their lives bearing children, but in general, most will have few children, as they are sold at a high price for their use, beauty, and pedigree.
“I glanced to the side and was surprised. A woman dressed in silk of pleasure, remarkably beautiful, but with a certain subtlety of harshness and contempt, was watching us. She wore a yellow collar, that of the House of Cernus, and yellow silk of pleasure. The slave bells, arranged in a double row, were attached to her left ankle. A slave whistle hung around her neck. In her right hand, wrapped around her wrist, hung a slave goad. She had a fair complexion, but extremely dark hair and eyes, and very red lips; the movement of her exquisite body was torture to watch; she looked at me with a slight smile, observing the black of the tunic, the mark of the dagger; her lips were full and beautifully shaped, probably an innate characteristic; I had no doubt that this black-haired woman of cruel beauty was a slave to racial passion. She was one of the most sensual creatures I had ever seen.
“I am Sura,” she said, looking at me, “I teach girls how to give pleasure to men. “
Assassin of Gor
Poison slave: a slave, usually a passion slave, who has been treated for a long time with mithridatization to withstand a poison that is now present in her saliva and can be used to kill a target. It is a particularly vicious and doubly cruel method of assassination: the kajira will obviously not survive her victim.
“The most exotic form of this sort of thing is the poison girl who, over months or years, is rendered immune to a poison, but whose bite is lethal.”
Plunder of Gor
Other exotic slaves: Not all exotic slaves come from sophisticated breeding and selection programs. Consider that a very wealthy buyer does not purchase a slave primarily for her use or function, but for her appearance and rarity. After all, if he is rich enough, he has an entire herd of domestic slaves working in his service. So he is there to collect! Thus, a girl with unusual features on Gor can easily be considered, and therefore offered for sale, as an exotic, without necessarily coming from a breeding program or having any pedigree. It is therefore primarily rare features that Gorans seek most, but this can vary regionally: red-haired girls, with auburn or fiery hair, Asians, who are very rare on the continent of Gor, or even mixed-race girls with exceptional beauty, who are even rarer. It can also be her overall figure; some Gorean men appreciate and seek out girls with slender, slim, and tapered bodies, as they are much rarer on Gor.
“She will be the continent’s delight,” said Pertinax. “She will be exotic and special. There are few Pani slaves there. “
Rebels of Gor
Editor’s note: What about Earth women? Considering their numbers on Gor, as you will see in the quote I have copied below, they are rare enough to sometimes reach the same value and price as exotics. But again, the term ”exotic slave” is a trait linked to rarity and what the customer is looking for. A beautiful red-haired Earth woman is the jackpot, but an Earth woman with no particular features will not command as high a price as an exotic.
“I mean,” she asked, “like me, a girl born and raised on Earth, then brought to Gor as a slave?
Statistically, I said, probably not many. How many I wouldn’t know.
Ten, she asked, twenty?
Maybe four or five thousand, I replied. I couldn’t say precisely. Such a number, I conjectured, would not even be lacking in a teeming population like that of Earth.”
The Beasts of Gor
3- The ranks of slaves
There is an internal hierarchy among slaves, in the absence of what could be called a true culture. This hierarchy is even rather formal, and is linked to the function their master assigns them, but also to the consequences and advantages of their education and experience.
However, and I will insist heavily on breaking unbearable onlinisms, this hierarchy is by no means public! It only applies in the private sphere: the slave owner gives a rank to one of his properties, and the responsibilities and duties that go with it. From then on, the slave has a rank and authority over the other slaves of his owner.
But outside their master’s house, the slave is just a slave in the eyes of the public, whether they are free men or slaves themselves. The city first girl does not exist, it is an onlinism! Similarly, the educator of a slave house or public kennel has no authority outside of the other slaves in that house! If she gives an order to a girl on the street, and the slave she is addressing tells her to fuck off, she is within her rights!
Kajirae are (and have) prestige
The only rank that is considered public and can be recognized is prestige, which remains informal but can be influential. The favorite kajira of one of the leaders of a city is not a street kajira. Damaging, injuring, assaulting, or abusing her has much broader and riskier social consequences, even if this kajira remains a slave, i.e., a piece of movable property. But she is a prestigious piece of movable property! The consequences are not the same if I break a mustard glass or a gold-encrusted crystal cup, are they?
Moreover, kajirae are much closer to domestic dogs in terms of their emotional relationship with their master than they are to utilitarian objects. A kajira who, through her behavior, her rarity, her education, or her talents, is surrounded by a certain prestige, is the pride of her owner, who cares deeply about her, both for his own prestige and from an emotional point of view. This prestige therefore has social consequences, even with other free people, who will recognize this prestige. A Gorean does not treat a high-slave in the same way as a coin-girl, because the consequences are very different. The slave has no power, of course… but her master does!
This prestige is also considered among slaves, because a slave with prestige has influence which, if well exploited, can be very useful, either to help or to harm. A low-ranking slave prefers not to pick a fight with a high-ranking slave, and, if she can, will try to make her an ally. A slave has no power, of course… but she can have real influence through the influence of her owner.
The high-slave: this is a generic term, which generally refers only to pleasure kajirae owned by the high-caste, but this is not always the case. These pleasure-slaves were the most educated and well-trained possible, capable of assisting and rivaling scribes in terms of general knowledge, while also being perfect dancers, musicians, lovers, singers, etc. A high-slave is always exceptionally refined, mannered, sophisticated, and sensual, and absolutely unforgettable in her beauty. Keep this in mind if you want to play one on Gor SL, because it’s really not that easy to pull off. Basically, they are the most expensive kajirae a man can afford. But don’t forget that it’s just a word. And that she is only a slave, whose word has little value in the face of the wishes and whims of men.
The educator: often a slave of passion, but not always; she is a slave girl of pleasure whose training and education in the arts of pleasure is considered to be as advanced as possible, and who has significant experience. It is also necessary for her to have real authority, great composure, and a certain lack of pity, in addition to being perfectly conditioned. For her role is to educate other slaves in the pleasures of men. There is never, ever, a male slave who plays this role. Reminder: “a master trains, an educator educates.” Playing an educator requires knowing your role as a pleasure kajira by heart, and truly understanding in depth how the training and education of Gor slaves works. To better understand this role, I invite you to read this article: https://www.psychee.org/gorpedia/slave-training-education-2/
The first girl: When a master has several slaves, he designates a First Girl, who is there to ensure discipline among the rest of his “chain.” She acts as a sort of forewoman to her chain sisters, who must call her mistress and owe her obedience and respect. She can punish them and often carries a switch or flat whip, or even an electric prod. A First Daughter is not the master’s favorite, but is generally a senior kajira who has shown stability and maturity. It is the master who designates her, of course. There may be several First Daughters in a large household, such as one for the Pleasure Kajirae and another for the domestic slaves.