On Punishment I

(Reprinted from orig­i­nal pub­li­ca­tion in the Gorean Voice magazine)

From time to time, every man who fol­lows the Gorean Way will find him­self in a posi­tion where his woman has been suf­fi­cient­ly, and know­ing­ly, dis­pleas­ing enough to war­rant pun­ish­ment of some sort. The first ques­tion aris­es, how­ev­er, is pun­ish­ment actu­al­ly nec­es­sary? Some would say that an adult should be aware and intel­li­gent enough to not behave in a fash­ion that mer­its a pun­ish­ment, and that if such behav­ior occurs that it reflects oth­er, deep­er prob­lems to be resolved. This is quite pos­si­ble, how­ev­er, the basic fact that the woman has behaved in a man­ner that was very dis­pleas­ing to her man.

In the books, it’s stat­ed clear­ly that the dis­plea­sure of a man is not to be tak­en light­ly by his woman, be she free or slave.

If she has not pleased her Master of late, she may be, of course, as a dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sure, sim­ply chained nude to the slave ring in the bot­tom of the couch, sans both the blan­ket and the mat. The stones of the floor are hard and the Gorean nights cold and it is a rare girl who, when unchained in the morn­ing, does not seek more duti­ful­ly to serve her mas­ter. This harsh treat­ment, inci­den­tal­ly, when she is thought to deserve it, may even be inflict­ed on a free com­pan­ion, in spite of the fact that she is free and usu­al­ly much loved. According to the Gorean way of look­ing at things a taste of the slave ring is thought to be occa­sion­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial to all women, even the exalt­ed free woman. Thus when she has been irri­ta­ble or oth­er­wise trou­ble­some even a Free Companion may find her­self at the foot of the couch look­ing for­ward to a pleas­ant night on the stones, stripped, with nei­ther mat nor blan­ket, chained to the slave ring pre­cise­ly as though she were a low­ly slave girl. It is the Gorean way of remind­ing her, should she need to be remind­ed, that she, too, is a woman, and thus to be dom­i­nat­ed, to be sub­ject to men. Should she be tempt­ed to for­get this basic fact of Gorean life the slave ring set in the bot­tom of each Gorean couch is there to refresh her mem­o­ry. Gor is a mans world.

 — Priest-Kings of Gor page 67

So why would an adult, an oth­er­wise intel­li­gent woman, com­mit an act that she most like­ly was well aware would dis­please her man? Perhaps to gain atten­tion that she thinks is lack­ing. Perhaps to test his will, to see if he is strong enough to dis­ci­pline her. Perhaps sim­ply to reas­sure her­self that her bound­aries are yet intact. Or maybe it is to see if he still cares enough to do what is nec­es­sary, still cares enough about her and their rela­tion­ship to main­tain it. The rea­sons will vary, and ulti­mate­ly, what­ev­er the rea­son may be, it will not change the fact that the woman has done some­thing to mer­it dis­ci­pline, punishment.

On the oth­er hand, it is not too unusu­al a set of com­part­ments on Gor where the mas­ter, in effect, will­ing­ly wears the col­lar, and his love­ly slave, by the prac­tice of the delight­ful wiles of her sex, with scan­dalous suc­cess whee­dles her way tri­umphant­ly from the sat­is­fac­tion of one whim to the next.

 — Outlaws of Gor page 51

For all of those rea­sons it is nec­es­sary for the man to take action, and per­haps also to reaf­firm and know his own abil­i­ty and strength to mete out pun­ish­ment. It is alto­geth­er too easy for a woman to have been so pleas­ing that a man might begin to over­look small laps­es, to ratio­nal­ize and accept more and more excess­es and abus­es on the part of his woman.

Disciplinary mea­sures serve oth­er pur­pos­es as well. They not only declare to the woman that the dis­pleas­ing behav­ior will not be tol­er­at­ed, that she is being held to the man’s stan­dards. That he cares enough about her to ensure that she will be tru­ly superb to him. Discipline and pun­ish­ment give a clear sys­tem of con­se­quence to actions. This may seem obvi­ous, but if you com­pare it to a more con­ven­tion­al rela­tion­ship where con­se­quences are either non-exis­tant or pet­ty and vague, the val­ue can be more clear­ly seen.

We live in a world where con­se­quences for our actions are not always read­i­ly appar­ent, and are often not com­men­su­rate with the action, good or bad. This is one of the things that the books dis­play again and again; that there are always con­se­quences to what we choose to do, and this per­haps makes it much eas­i­er for peo­ple to see what the prop­er course of action is. In the Gorean rela­tion­ship between a man and a woman, clear con­se­quences means that each knows bet­ter how to behave, what to expect. Each knows their place with respect to the oth­er. Each knows what is accep­ti­ble to the oth­er, and what is not. It is a mea­sure of sure­ty and secu­ri­ty, a form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion that far exceeds that of many con­ven­tion­al relationships.

The best dis­ci­plines and pun­ish­ments are those which are exact­ly equal to the offense which was com­mit­ted. This can­not be over-stressed. The Gorean man holds in his hands the final jus­tice over his woman, he is the arbitor of her right and her wrong. If he dis­plays an uneven hand, unfair or capri­cious pun­ish­ments, he also dis­plays what is, at best, poor judge­ment. At worst, he becomes a tyrant, and an object of fear. Either way, he has lost face. His woman no longer knows pre­cise­ly what to expect, and accord­ing­ly her behav­ior and per­for­mance will suf­fer. She will become plagued with hes­i­ta­tion and doubt, nev­er know­ing if what was pleas­ing and accep­ti­ble yes­ter­day will mer­it a severe whip­ping today.

It is impor­tant to under­stand the nature of pun­ish­ment; it is not enjoy­able to either par­ty. If it was plea­sur­able, then quite sim­ply, it isn’t real­ly pun­ish­ment but at best, a game being played. If plea­sure is tak­en from the inflic­tion of pain, then sadism is what is actu­al­ly being prac­ticed. If that’s what some­one likes, that’s fine, but it is not the Gorean Way in any degree. Sadism is con­sid­ered a sick­ness amongst those of Gor, a dis­ease like any oth­er to be root­ed out and exterminated.

Perhaps it should only be added that the Gorean mas­ter, though often strict, is sel­dom cru­el. The girl knows, if she pleas­es him, her lot will be an easy one. She will almost nev­er encounter sadism or wan­ton cru­el­ty, for the psy­cho­log­i­cal envi­ron­ment that tends to breed these dis­eases is large­ly absent from Gor. This does not mean that she will not expect to be beat­en if she dis­obeys, or fails to please her master.

 — Priest-Kings of Gor page 51

To set­tle any ques­tion of the ter­mi­nol­o­gy, the Merriam Webster Dictionary offers the fol­low­ing definitions;

1. sadism
2. a sex­u­al per­ver­sion in which grat­i­fi­ca­tion is obtained by the inflic­tion of phys­i­cal or men­tal pain on oth­ers (as on a love object).
3. delight in cruelty
4. exces­sive cruelty

1. cru­el­ty
2. dis­posed to inflict pain or suf­fer­ing, devoid of humane feelings
3. caus­ing or con­ducive to grief, injury, or pain
4. unre­lieved by leniency

In the final analy­sis, the Gorean man is dom­i­nant over is Gorean woman. He makes the judge­ments and rules that they shall both abide by, in his hands rests final respon­si­bil­i­ty for both their well-beings. By the qual­i­ty of his deci­sions and his will in car­ry­ing them out, he is known. By his main­te­nance of his rela­tion­ship with his woman, with dis­ci­pline and if need be, pun­ish­ment, his woman will know the extent of his strength and his wisdom.

- LionHeart
Rarius, Intended of Nyre
Copyright © June 2000, LionHeart