The Cloak of Freedom; Key Elements to Understanding The Gorean Free Woman

Tal Goreans!

I was inspired to write again espe­cial­ly in regards to free women. What remains on many venues we once all loved, has tru­ly become void of Free women. Unfortunately too many sur­ren­dered women jump between the two posi­tions so much that many have writ­ten off the val­ue of a Gorean Free woman.

Someone dear to me has re-invig­o­rat­ed my pas­sion to revis­it my own sta­tion as a Free woman over many years, and to share with women who are com­mit­ted to fol­low­ing the path of a free cit­i­zen, and remain­ing one, rather then manip­u­lat­ing and using the posi­tion selfishly. 

Thank you so much, you are very spe­cial to me. Zero sum game.

The Cloak of Freedom, Gorean Free Women of Today,

What is the cloak of Freedom to a woman with­in the ethos of Gorean thought?

It, the cloak, might por­tray a phys­i­cal sym­bol of our refusal to bow to any­one or any­thing that may impede or destroy our free­dom. The cloak of free­dom is a foun­da­tion stone that deter­mines our inti­mate rela­tion­ships, com­pan­ion­ship’s based on Gorean ethos. Let’s explore this free­dom that many find so dif­fi­cult to under­stand. There are many keys to liv­ing a alter­na­tive lifestyle under the flag of Gor, I will be dis­cussing three of these real­is­tic keys to being a Gorean free woman.

Most women in the Gorean nov­els are free, this fact is indis­putable by Normans writ­ing itself. A very small per­cent of women are slaves. It is not a gigan­tic leap to advo­cate that free women in the nov­els must there­fore sat­is­fy roles that slaves can not. There are many quotes about men falling free women, that free women are pil­fered, enslaved, and ruined com­plete­ly. Still, the fact remains that the actu­al­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion on the fic­tion­al plan­et is prin­ci­pal­ly free even after so many tales of ter­ror, and enslavement.

The fic­tion­al free woman in the nov­els is a moth­er to her sons, her daugh­ters, and a home mak­er. She is head of her house. Her duties besides being a com­pan­ion to her man must range from large to small giv­en the finan­cial back­ground of each house. She has been taught from a young age many arts, cook­ing, danc­ing, how to walk, how to be beau­ti­ful, and how to be mod­est in pub­lic to name just a few.

Her mod­esty as a free woman is best expressed in cloth­ing in the books. The high­er the caste the more com­plex the cloth­ing is. Free women are for the most part treat­ed with respect, cour­tesy, and hon­or espe­cial­ly women in a high­er caste. Not unlike today’s soci­ety. A Presidents wife would be treat­ed with deep respect, where a farmer’s wife might only see that respect in her own small­er cir­cles of friends, and fam­i­ly. There is no doubt a com­mu­ni­ty sta­tus, and finan­cial back­ing defines the sta­tus of women in roles to this day.

How does a woman wear­ing the cloak of free­dom find her def­i­n­i­tion in today’s times, rather than the fic­tion of Normans books? If she par­tic­i­pates in defin­ing her­self in cloth­ing as the women in fic­tion have, she would cer­tain­ly look odd if she bore the today’s garb of say a Muslim woman when in fact she was a Caucasian, Asian, or even African woman, and not a reli­gious Muslim woman adher­ing to mid­dle east­ern cul­ture. Unfortunately, our Muslim women are often looked at odd­ly or chas­tised for their veils, or reli­gious garb in North America cul­ture. So then how can a free woman define her­self, if she can not describe her­self with robes of con­ceal­ment rang­ing from sim­ple to com­plex bar­ing her finan­cial back­ground to describe her freedom?

Modesty.

Modesty does not have a veil, it is an exis­tence of choice. There is no where in the world, nor in the books that state free women hate sex. In fact, the books them­selves state how women were taught to care for their men. The ever-present mes­sage of sub­mis­sive women that whis­pers that free women are unwel­come, unwant­ed, or unable to pro­vide for men sex­u­al­ly is sim­ply pet­ty gos­sip. Some men cer­tain­ly pre­fer one kind of woman over the oth­er. Just as they pre­fer a pant col­or, or a shirt col­or. It’s a sim­ple preference.

“girls who will be free com­pan­ions, and nev­er slaves, learn the prepa­ra­tion and serv­ing of exot­ic dish­es, the arts of walk­ing, and stand­ing and being beau­ti­ful, the care of a man’s equip­ment, the love dances of their city, and so on.” (Nomads)

Free women have the choice of free­dom, men too have choice over the com­pli­ment of woman they want at their side. Now, in online venues it is obvi­ous that men are choos­ing women who have stat­ed their sub­mis­sion to them. The com­mu­ni­ty from its ear­ly stages has dras­ti­cal­ly dwin­dled in num­bers so to com­pare the very small group remain­ing in online venues to those who came before and have now moved on to oth­er places would be sub­jec­tive at best. In oth­er words, to say men only desire the com­pan­ion­ship of con­sen­su­al slav­ery would be inac­cu­rate. Also, for the women who are spend­ing their focus on their free­dom, take some time ladies to observe the venues of online you are at. For exam­ple, should you be on an alter­na­tive lifestyle board, or group, you are look­ing at a mass of peo­ple that are not invest­ed sole­ly in Gorean ethos. In an small pool­ing of folks who are inter­est­ed in find­ing that some­one with the same val­ues, and or desire to be part of Gorean Philosophy it must be said, the odds are not in your favor giv­en just the num­ber of peo­ple avail­able or par­tic­i­pat­ing at this time. Available, or uncom­mit­ted Gorean men and women are rare.

What we see online, or even so at live gath­er­ings in the past is that some men do not treat free women with respect, cour­tesy, and hon­or. Some women have made a choice of using their free will behind the scenes to approach men they are attract­ed to and sub­mit qui­et­ly while pre­tend­ing a free­dom. They take on this choice in their minds to be safe­ly hid­den from the pub­lic eye as a sub­mis­sive to taste both worlds. This is not accept­able behav­ior for free women. It is not mod­est. Giving away their cloak of free­dom has the con­se­quence of los­ing their rights to respect, mod­esty and courtesy.

There are oth­er con­se­quences to these actions as well. They are mocked by sub­mis­sive women who are aware of their actions and like the game of tele­phone become half told whis­pered inti­ma­cies and are open­ly talked about behind their backs. Then you have con­sen­su­al sub­mis­sive women will­ing­ly approach men in hopes that they may out-man-oeu­vre a free woman from her rela­tion­ship or tat­tle for self­ish rea­sons. Many do so because they often feel they have more to offer a man and have a per­cep­tion or dis­like of the oth­er woman. If she was not there, I would have him, and so on. Many con­sen­su­al kaji­ra feel they are the only choice. This bick­er­ing and bat­tling between women is unbe­com­ing at best. It belit­tles us as human beings, and quite frankly a rela­tion­ship will fail regard­less of oth­er people’s inter­fer­ence because of the two involved, not the actions of a third par­ty push­ing in. We are each respon­si­ble for what we bring to the table of a rela­tion­ship. Free women, and kaji­ra are both valid choic­es to men. Men are more than capa­ble in choos­ing what woman com­pli­ments his life the best. Sometimes only one of them some­times both.

Dating and find­ing part­ners is very chal­leng­ing under the eas­i­est of terms, let alone adding anoth­er com­po­nent such as an under­ling alter­na­tive lifestyle. It seem­ing­ly is appar­ent that few can describe what a free woman is or accept valid def­i­n­i­tions over the years in var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties. There are many peo­ple that state free­dom is based only on human instinct and that we are pro­grammed to remove our­selves by instinct from dan­ger­ous, or painful results, there­fore it is our built-in instinct in our brains that con­trol our actions, not a will. I dis­pute this giv­en the fact that we often ignore what our instincts tell us to do, will­ful­ly, and choose oth­er paths by deter­mi­na­tion, val­ue, or our own sense of morality.
With free­dom comes respon­si­bil­i­ty. It is a con­se­quence of free will. Given we can decide and choose, we must there­fore accept the con­se­quences of all our actions as our fault whether neg­a­tive or pos­i­tive. After all we choose them.

Consensual slav­ery, sub­mis­sion is loose­ly asso­ci­at­ed with hav­ing mate­ri­al­ist under­tones. For these human beings give up their claim to free will and act in their best inter­est. Simply put they bring the illu­sion that con­trol­ling a human being is pos­si­ble by con­sent. That by con­sent they give away their free will. I am not a per­son will­ing to give my cloak of free­dom away at any price. My free­dom is price­less, and it is mine. Being a cit­i­zen and car­ry­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty has always been a huge hon­or to me to car­ry on my shoul­ders. In my com­mu­ni­ty, in rais­ing suc­cess­ful men, in being part of change in soci­ety, and devel­op­ing myself I thank my free­dom for those choic­es, and expe­ri­ences. Consensual slav­ery denies those choic­es. You are not a cit­i­zen, you are not your own, you belong to anoth­er. There are con­se­quences to con­sen­su­al slav­ery, you do not get to taste both worlds.

We have spo­ken of one of the found­ing keys of free­dom, mod­esty. Now let us bring in the sec­ond key, respect.

Respect.

As a free woman you are required to respect your­self, and oth­ers in your cir­cle. Your respect is returned among those you have earned it from. Your author­i­ty as a woman who rais­es chil­dren, heads a house­hold, or is a part­ner of, gain­says the rest. A stranger who does not agree with your posi­tion, your opin­ion, your knowl­edge makes no dif­fer­ence. As a woman with­in her com­mu­ni­ty who has built rela­tion­ships and trust among her peers does not need to win over strangers who are nei­ther wel­come or want­ed with­in the pro­tect­ed cir­cle of a Gorean free woman.

There are con­se­quences for not respect­ing your­self. For exam­ple, if you share nude pic­tures of your­self with every­one, if you share sto­ries of your­self par­tic­i­pat­ing in sex­u­al acts pub­licly expect that you will have no respect from oth­ers. Expect that men will judge you for your actions, and that your cloak of free­dom will fall from your shoul­ders. Its not a ques­tion of if a Gorean woman can be sex­u­al­ly pleas­ing to her com­pan­ion, pri­vate­ly or not. It is a ques­tion in how her mod­esty and respect of self is car­ried. She does not share such pri­vate and inti­mate details ever. She is not a voyeur, she doesn’t find plea­sure in being part of pub­lic humil­i­a­tion, or sex­u­al­i­ty. She is pri­vate, guard­ed, mod­est, and most cer­tain­ly a lady.

“The Blue Tooth did not gain­say her. The woman of the Jarl had spo­ken. Free women in the north have much pow­er. The Jarl’s Woman, in the Kaissa of the north, is a more pow­er­ful piece than the Ubara in the Kaissa of the south. This is not to deny that the Ubara in the south, in fact, exer­cis­es as much or more pow­er than her north­ern coun­ter­part. It is only to rec­og­nize that her pow­er in the south is less explic­it­ly acknowl­edged.” (Marauders)

We have spo­ken of mod­esty, and respect. We will now speak of Gorean cour­tesy. Free women are grant­ed the action of cour­tesy. It is part and par­cel of their freedom.

Courtesy.

A free woman who has clear­ly ded­i­cat­ed her­self to her craft as a free woman and wears her def­i­n­i­tion nat­u­ral­ly will be giv­en great pow­er in cour­tesy. She is giv­en def­er­ence because it is her due. Her actions as a lady show her in a class above con­sen­su­al sub­mis­sion. Property is beneath her sta­tus, and her caste. She is a cit­i­zen and she can car­ry the bur­dens that free­dom brings. There is again a con­se­quence to free­dom. Often men and women who are free find them­selves at odds with each oth­er, or their opinions.

For the record there is no law in Normans books that say a woman may be enslaved for being inso­lent, insult­ing, mak­ing fun of, or demean­ing a man. She is free, she is enti­tled by her sta­tion to do so with­out pun­ish­ment. Again, there are con­se­quences, you may lose a friend, or a peer in such dis­agree­ments. It’s a price you pay for stand­ing on moral ground or stand­ing up for what you believe in. You bare the sum of all that you do, and why you do it. You can not rewind the clock of time to avoid judge­ment of your actions, you can not share respon­si­bil­i­ty with oth­ers. As a free woman you are ful­ly, and whol­ly cul­pa­ble for every­thing you do, every day, forever.

“I inclined my head, “Lady,” said I, acknowl­edg­ing the intro­duc­tion. To a free woman con­sid­er­able def­er­ence is due, par­tic­u­lar­ly to one such as the Lady Rowena, one obvi­ous­ly, at least hith­er­to, of high sta­tion. She inclined her head to me, and then lift­ed it, acknowl­edg­ing my greet­ing.” (Players)

The cloak of free­dom has three pri­ma­ry keys, mod­esty, respect, and cour­tesy. None of these things require com­plex cloth­ing rather they are actions. Replace your fic­tion­al veils and robes of con­ceal­ment with Normans own ethos, and require­ments above real­is­ti­cal­ly and in our world today. You as a free woman are in con­trol of how you will behave, and who you will align your­self with in your com­mu­ni­ty, and rela­tion­ships. Pick wise­ly, ladies. We only have one life to live.

“But remem­ber,” he said, smil­ing, “it is slaves who are assessed and have prices. Free women are price­less.” (Kajira)

Human beings who car­ry the man­tle of free­dom are price­less, and we cer­tain­ly could learn a les­son from our past his­to­ries that harm­ing or hurt­ing peo­ple for no oth­er rea­son than hurt­ing them is a point­less endeav­or. You are bet­ter to offer your absolute silence to those who do not fit, or val­ue your moral­i­ty, then spend time in the mud with them, or even begin to exam­ine their lives against your own. Gorean cit­i­zens judge of this there is no doubt, but they also deter­mine. They can and will deter­mine access to their homes and lives.

Perhaps if we had gat­ed our lives to begin with, those who do not fit into our pref­er­ences would have lit­tle to noth­ing to feast on with our backs turned on them. Do not allow peo­ple you do not know to be invit­ed to your life. You don’t know what strange things, or hor­ri­ble acts they could bring to you. Considering online cyber bul­ly­ing, and expos­ing peo­ple to destroy employ­ment, and play online war­rior games, please be very care­ful in who you select to be part of your life.

Last, there is a place for both kinds of women with­in the lives of men. Women who espouse and live under the cloak of free­dom, and for the women that fold and spend their lives in con­sen­su­al sub­mis­sion. There is absolute­ly no need in the world for these two types of women to bat­tle over the rem­nants of what remains of Gorean ethos. It is beneath them, and quite frankly unbe­com­ing con­duct. When a man choos­es a woman to love, his heart doesn’t lie, he belongs to her, as much as she does to him.

 

All rights reserved, Copyright NG 2018

If you want to use my work on a web­site, or oth­er­wise please ask me, I am a writer and expect the cour­tesy of grant­i­ng per­mis­sion to those who ask me. Do not steal my work.

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