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RP vs. Lifestyle… The BIG DEBATE!
I have read and heard many times that online role-play is somehow "dangerous" to the Gorean lifestyle.
After much thought and weighing of the issue, rather to my initial dismay, as I have always found the whole role-playing thing silly, I have to say that I cannot see any real problem with role-playing.
People play all kinds of role-playing games. Often, people who actually live what is being role-played scorn such games, as they (we) see it as an affront to what they do.
The problem, I think, is when role-players fail to distinguish between fantasy and reality.
I see no difference between someone who plays the video game, "911 Paramedic" REALLY well and says "I am a Paramedic", but who is a discount store night stocker in real life and can't even put a Band-Aid on a paper cut without getting queasy...
By the same token though, does a real life paramedic who happens to also enjoy playing "911 Paramedic" endanger other real life paramedics' reputation?
Perhaps, rather than scorning any who enjoy playing whatever games they like, lifestylers could be there to inform those discovering that maybe, just maybe, what began as a game for them may ring true more deeply. THEN, those who role-play and live the life, could point such people in the right direction.
Much like how that paramedic who's young niece or nephew has played the game a lot with him and decides they'd actually like to become a paramedic, would point out to the aspiring medic what parts of the game are true to life, what parts aren't and what they need to do to realize their ambitions.
I do not understand why so many people who are supposedly honorable go around slamming other people and implying, and in some cases, outright saying that anyone who role-plays is a liar!
Let me simplify this.
"Master_a" lives to the best of his abilities by the philosophies in the Gor books. He owns a girl who lives with him and serves him 24/7.
He has a firm grasp on reality and understands well how to apply "Gor" to real life. He does, however, enjoy the *fantasy* of tarns, the Kurri, sword fighting and the brutal living and dying from the Gor novels. He, for his pleasure, in his leisure time, plays a character in a role-play "tavern"
He will be the first to tell you that he would never dream of throwing his slave to a wild beast, should she displease him, nor does he go around slashing everyone who bugs him to pieces. The role-play is only a game, he says. To let off steam. For fun.
"Master_b" is married with children. He believes his wife should obey and be subservient to him because he believes in natural order, but she has been "stained by Earth ways" too much and chooses to be her own person.
So he "lives as a Gorean" online only when his wife isn't around since he feels he "needs" to be served. He claims that the character he plays is really who he is in real life. He would never admit to his "online life" to anyone in his "real life" or vise verse. He is going behind his wife's back and justifying it because she is "only a woman". He calls himself Gorean because he supposedly believes in the Gorean philosophy even though he doesn't live like he does.
Only one of them is a liar... Pretty simple from where I sit.
For the argument that in the RP games a slave can RP a FW, well, yes, I suppose she can, but if she is a slave, she knows that it is only a character and that in reality, she is at her owner's service and mercy.
Frankly, any girl who can't keep the RP and real life separate has no business being a slave.
Here's another thing. People keep saying that you "can't compare Star Trek RP games with Gor RP games, because one is a game and one a philosophy!"
Star Trek was originally a series of sci-fi books, that games were later based on and some people took more seriously and made into a lifestyle that the majority of "normal" people think is abnormal.
Gor was originally a series of sci-fi books, that games were later based on and some people took more seriously and made into a lifestyle that the majority of "normal" people think is abnormal.
I'm having a little trouble seeing the difference here.
It is true that there will always be deceivers in the world, both online and off. That is why it is so very important to do research.. To find out as best we can if the person on the other side of the screen is who and what they say they are.
Lastly, I might point out that when I first was introduced to the Gorean way of life, I had a very tough time finding like minded people. I could only find online role-play, which I couldn't stand and in which never participated, but I persevered.
If it hadn't been for that man, who so many would call a liar and/or say he is not Gorean because he enjoys a RP game, I WOULD have dismissed Gor as just a joke or a farce.
I may never have found the man with whom I shared 8 years of my life, seven of them in his collar, since the reason the person who introduced us did so because we were both Gorean.
How many others may have similar stories? And how many men and women, truly seeking something more, have been similarly turned away? Ones with whom you may have found friendship, sat table with. Perhaps some who would have been the perfect Master or Mistress for a lonely slave, but never got the chance to get beyond the role-play because some choose prejudice and contempt over accepting and guiding those who are seeking.
© Khaos WolfKat 2004 to respond to or discuss this writing. [Previous Page] [Contents] [Home] [Next Page]
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