for they are clearly of the same species, if not variety. Statistically, they may be larger, stronger, quicker, more supple, more intelligent, and such, this having to do, I suppose, with those brought to this world, but there are many men of Earth, I am sure, as large, as strong, as quick, as supple, as intelligent as those of Gor. The great difference then, I think, lies in other matters, presumably cultural. Gorean civilization is not at war with nature, but allied with her. The Gorean male tends to be confident, imaginative, self-reliant, ambitious, aggressive, possessive, and dominating. No one tells him it is wrong to be himself. On Gor, for example, as opposed to the social technologies of Earth, no point is served by blurring, identifying, diminishing, or repudiating sexualities. Culture does not prescribe, in the interests of unusual minorities, alienated from their own bodies, the falsification of nature.
The room is large. Straw is strewn about. Several stairs lead up to a barred door. There are rings, iron rings, set here and there in the wall. Some of us are fastened to them.
I am stripped. So, too, are the others. Why should animals be given clothing?
The chains are heavy. They would hold men. Lighter chains are quite sufficient for such as we.
I have been branded. It is a lovely mark. It is in me, high on my left thigh, below the hip. There will be no mistaking me on this world. I have been clearly marked. No, there will be no mistaking me on this world, or perhaps on any other.
They will soon serve the gruel.
I am hungry.
I have long known myself a woman who longed to submit, to belong, to be owned, to be mastered, to serve, to strive to please, to be subject to discipline. I have long known myself a natural, and rightful, slave.
Is this so terrible?
Is it wrong to be oneself?
Perhaps, perhaps not.
I do not claim to speak for others. Why then should they speak for me?
I have never wanted to relate to a man to whom I am an equal. Or more, what woman would? How pathetic that would be, how one would despise such a man, such a betrayer of his nature, or one lacking the nature of man, but rather to one who is incomparably superior to myself, naturally powerful, commanding, and virile, one who would see me as I am, and do with me as he wished, one to whom I could be only a slave.
But I never, on Earth, expected to meet such a man, a man strong enough to see me for what I was, and do with me what he should. Once I did not know such men could exist. Here, fearfully, I have found men who will take such as I in hand, and brand, collar, and train us as thoroughly and thoughtlessly as any other animal, which we are. I now kneel before such men and know myself a slave, and fittingly and rightfully so. They give me no choice. I want none. They bring me to my true self. I am fulfilled.
Why then do they so despise me, I in their collar, so weak and helpless?
Can I help it, if I am not one of their glorious free women?
Am I so different from them, I wonder? Or beneath those robes is another slave hidden?
I was sold last night.
I suppose many women, at least on my former world, do not understand that they can be sold. That is interesting, considering the fact that we have been sold, bartered, and exchanged for millennia, and doubtless for millennia before the records of such transactions were scratched on bark, or incised into tablets of moist clay. Is it so unusual to be exchanged for barley, or cattle, or sheep, or pigs, or bars of iron, or a jingling handful of metal disks? Have not women served often enough as loot, to be allotted amongst victors, to be auctioned in foreign capitals? In kingdoms have not princesses been bartered for land, for alliances and power? Have not the daughters of the rich often served as seals upon bargains? And have we ourselves not unoften sought to sell ourselves, for our own gain? Have we not sought avidly for the golden bed, and the highest bidder?
It is one thing, of course, to sell ourselves as goods for our own profit, while denying this, and quite another to find ourselves explicitly recognized as goods, undeniably so, openly and objectively so, and being