Restricted or Unrestricted? The use of the gorean kajira

Once again posting an essay written by my Master Chaz Messmer. Please do feel free to contact him in world if you'd like to discuss his words with him. Or comment here and I'll forward them to him.

Restricted or Unrestricted? The use of the gorean kajira
Written by Chaz Messmer

The issue of restricted or unrestricted slaves is subject to perennial debate in Gor. Some feel that it is perfectly appropriate to have their girl(s) restricted to them alone while others feel that a true gorean Master would make his girls unrestricted and allow their use by any who chance by. I think it is important to note that goreans have somewhat of a split personality with regards to the status of female slaves. On the one hand they often refer to them as "beasts" or "animals" and make very clear that their status is that of property. Nevertheless it is clear from reading the books that girls are a very special kind of proprety as noted in the following quote:

A slave girl is a delight to a man; she is extremely prized and precious; that the day of her acquisition should be celebrated each month with special ceremonies and rites is not surprising. These numerous anniversaries are deliciously celebrated, as they may be with a girl who is only a slave, and seldom forgotten; should such an anniversary be forgotten, should it be such that it is commonly celebrated, the girl redoubles her efforts to please, fearing she is to be soon sold.
Slave Girl of Gor - Page 66

It is most unlikely that a man would celebrate with his Bosk the anniversary of each coming into his possession nor would he celebrate whenever one of his vulo's has a chick. A kajra may be property but she is a very unique, special, and precious kind of property.

So what is the continum of slaves within a gorean context? Some girls may be kettle or mat slaves, usually those who are less attractive and will be confined to menial tasks such as cleaning and scrubbing. These girls are also commonly available to the Free should one desire to make use of them, though it is likely that a girl covered with filth from scrubbing heavy iron pots all day is not likely to be that desirable. One step up the ladder one will find tavern girls, coin sluts, and paga wenches. In some cases these girls work in taverns or paga dens in other cases their masters send them out to ply their trade in the streets. Typically one of these girls can be had for a few copper coins, and her use is often included with the price of a bowl of paga in some establishments. In the case of a coin slut one simply deposits a coin in the box she wears around her neck in order to make use of her, in most cases her Master will be watching nearby to make sure none of the customers use a girl without paying first. It could be argued that these girls are "restricted" in the sense that one has to pay for their use but in reality this is nothing more than a commercial transaction. If someone used such a girl without paying he might be subject to a clout to the head or a civil suit, but it would simply be a business matter, no feelings involved.

Moving a little higher up the ladder of the slave hierarchy one comes to the more common sorts of girls who might end up being purchased by a Low Caster gorean or by a less well to do member of one of the High Castes. Girls in this category may be a little brighter, a little prettier, but in most instances they will not be highly trained kajirae. Most newly captured earth girls will start out here, taken for their beauty and intelligence but still raw and untrained. The more spirit and fire they have the better:

The Gorean Master, commonly, likes a spirited girl, one who fights the whip and collar, resisting until the last, perhaps months later, she is overwhelmed and must acknowledge herself his, utterly and without reservation, then fearing only that he might tire of her and sell her to another.
Nomads of Gor - Page 29

Some of these girls may become very dear and precious to their Masters but they would not command particularly high prices on the open market. Continuing up from this level one will go to the progressively more expensive and highly trained girls, ending up with specially trained exotics and pleasure slaves who may spend all their days chained and belted in the chambers of their Masters. Such girls would command high prices indeed.

So at one extreme you will have girls who are chained and belted and never leave their Master's side and other who may be freely used by any who chances by. This continum revolves largely around the degree of personal attachment a Master might have to his girl. If the girl is not very important to her Master then the matter of her use is not of much importance either:

Unauthorized uses of female slaves are almost always by free men. They have little, or nothing, to fear, for the girls are only slaves. The masters, if they are concerned about such things, may put the girls in the iron belt, particularly if they are sending them on late errands, or into disreputable neighborhoods. - Magicians of Gor

If a Master finds someone has used his girl without permission he is likely to either ignore it or if he knows who the guilty party is he could demand a few coins in compensation, however, if the girl is damaged or used in such a way as to bring dishonor to the Master then a quite different set of priorities come into play and the whole matter becomes far more serious I am going to quote now a fairly lengthy passage from "Slave Girl" which explains this matter in more detail:

But what had been done today to me was clearly different in its intent and gravity from the casual, expected, fierce exhibitions of male aggression to which imbonded girls such as I must become accustomed.
"I have been patient with you, Bran Loort," said Thurnus. "We are grateful for your patience," said Bran Loort. He looked about, at his cohorts, grinning. He set his staff, butt down, in the dirt.
I sensed that the codes were to be invoked. What Bran Loort and his fellows had done exceeded the normal rights of custom, the leniencies and tacit permissions of a peasant community; commonly the codes are invisible; they exist not to control human life, but to make it possible. The rapes of Verr Tail and Radish, interestingly, had not counted as code breaches, though in neither case had explicit permission for their conquest been granted by Thurnus; such permission, in such cases, was implicit in the customs of the community; it did not constitute a "taking from" but a brief use of, an "enjoyment of," without the intent to do injury to the honor of the master; "taking from," in the sense of the code is not, strictly, theft, though theft would be "taking from." "Taking from," in the sense of the codes, implies the feature of being done against the presumed will of the master, of infringing his rights, more significantly, of offending his honor. In what Bran Loort had done, insult had been intended. The Gorean peasant, like Goreans in general, has a fierce sense of honor. Bran Loort had known exactly what he had been doing.
"Slave Girl of Gor: Chapter 9"

In this particular instance the village leader, Thurnus had overlooked the use and rape of his girls even though it was technically without his permission up until this point. Nevertheless at this point Bran Loort decided to use the brutal rape of the slave girl Dina as a means to challenge the rights of Thurnus to serve as village headman. In this case honor and the caste codes had been invoked. It was this intended insult and challenge which Thurnus was forced to respond to, not the mere use of a slave girl. In the end the challenger Bran Loort is beaten to the dirt and exiled from the village in disgrace but the slave girl was only the proximate not the immediate cause of his downfall, the real issue was a matter of personal honor.

I now want to turn attention to one quote in particular that is used frequently to justify the restrictions that are placed on slave girls:

Although Marcus was harsh with his slave, pretending even to a casual and brutal disdain for her, he was also, it might be mentioned, extremely possessive where she was concerned. Indeed, he was almost insanely jealous of her. She was not the sort of girl, for example, whom he, as a host, even at the cost of a certain rudeness and inhospitality, would be likely to hand over for the nightly comfort of a guest. It would be at his slave ring alone that she would be likely to find herself chained."
~Magicians of Gor, page 27~

Many slave girls and Master's in SL Gor have this quote displayed prominently in their profiles and wear it as a badge of honor. "See!", they seem to say "It is too gorean to be really jealous of your girl!" However a closer reading of the text will call this interpretation into question. It should be noted first of all that the Marcus in question is a young man and new come to mastery. In the first chapter of Magicians Tarl Cabot cautions Marcus to allow her some small garment so that her naked beauty might be covered as it was attracting far too much attention on the city streets. However, Marcus not only refuses he then hot headedly and forcefully uses her in plain view on the streets while referring to her as a "Cosian slut". This display of a hated Cosian enemy of Ar causes a near riot and is averted only by the unexpected passage of a procession of Initiates. This incident alone should be enough to indicate that Marcus is not some shining example of gorean mastery that we should all emulate.

Following a considerable display of veiled desire Marcus slaps his slave for speaking without permission an the following exchange takes place:
"Were you given permission to speak?" he asked.

"Forgive me, Master," she whispered. She then crawled to his feet and, putting her head down, kissed them. "A slave begs the forgiveness of her Master," she said.

Marcus looked down at her, angrily. Then he turned to me. "Her use, of course," he said, "is yours, whenever you might please."

"Thank you," I said, "but I think that I can find a rent wench outside in the camp, or, if I wish, buy a slut, for they are cheap in the vicinity of Ar these days."

"As you wish," said Marcus.

Magicians of Gor page 27

Immediately after this exchange there is the quote which I referenced at the begining of this section about Marcus being insanely jealous of his slave. However, note that even so Marcus offered the use of his slave to Tarl Cabot and with that permission given Tarl would have been within his rights to take her right then and there. But being older and wiser Tarl prudently declined this invitation, knowing the likely reaction of Marcus had he acted upon it. Therefore Tarl was merely being diplomatic saying in effect, "Fine since you are so besotted with her and being so rude I'll go find a slave of my own to use." We should not forget that "Marcus was a young man and, as far as I knew, had never owned a personal slave before Phoebe, he, as a Gorean, would be familiar with slaves." Magicians of Gor page 28

So there are a couple of conclusions we can draw from this. First of all Marcus is a young hot head, newly come to the business of owning slaves. He rejects Tarl's wise advice at every turn and repeatedly gets himself into trouble as a result. Secondly, those who loudly proclaim their allegiance to the Marcus of Ar's Station philosophy are comparing themselves to a young immature hothead who has not yet learned to fully master himself. The outcome of this exchange is one in which the slave Phoebe actually gets the best of her Master if only for a moment:

Already, it seemed, Phoebe had returned to her normal mode of relating to him, as a mere, docile slave, not daring to confess her love openly. Yet I think there was not something subtly different in their relationship. Phoebe now, given his recent intensity, his denunciation of her mendacity, his fury, his excessive reaction to them, had more than ample evidence of the depth of his feelings toward her. She was more than satisfied with what had occurred. Such things, to the softness and intelligence of her woman?s heart, spoke clearly to her. She was not in the position of the helplessly loving female slave at the feet of a beloved master who regarded her with indifference as merely another of his women, or was even cold to her, perhaps disdaining her as a trivial, meaningless possession.
Magicians of Gor page 29

Note especially that one line "She was more than satisfied with what had occurred". The question then is should a gorean Master be in the business of giving satisfaction to a slave without intending to? My answer to this would be no. Undoubtedly a more mature and thoughtful Master would have handled the situation far better and kept the slave in a deeper submission rather than allowing her to goad him into making his feelings clear. Indeed Marcus does regain the upper hand a short time later by denying here piteous demands to be used. Nevertheless he need not have been bested in the first place had he exercised greater control.

So having disposed of Marcus of Ar's Station we can now return to the question that was first posed. Is the restricting of slaves gorean or not? The texts state plainly that a Master may use his slave as he sees fit and he is within his rights to restrict her use. If he is really concerned about such matters he will have her belted so that she cannot be used by others. Let us suppose though that I entrust my slave to the care of my friend and tell him that none may touch her but me. In this instance it becomes a matter of his honor being at stake and he would likely die rather than let another touch them. An example of this kind of situation can be seen in Beasts of Gor:

"I heard the miserable cries of two girls. A man was coming from the cook shack, where Thimble and Thistle had hidden themselves. He now dragged them before us, bent over, a hand in the hair of each. "What have we here!" cried a man cheerfully.
"Slaves!" cried others.
"Hold," said I. "We are honest men, and are not thieves. Release them."
The man loosed the hair of the girls. Swiftly they knelt, frightened.
"These girls," said I, "belong to Imnak."
"He is a red hunter," said a man.
"He is one with us," I said.
There was an angry cry.
I drew my blade. "None may use them without his permission," I said. "I shall maintain discipline, if need be, my comrades, by the blade."
~Beasts of Gor, page 174~

Once more though the real issue is not the use of a slave girl it is a matter of honor between free men as the girls were entrusted to his care. So yes some Master's are jealous, some restrict the use of their girls but the idea of extreme overreactions based on the mere use of a girl is a matter of earth behavior and not really gorean. I might be angry my girl was used and I might demand compensation in the form of coin but it is unlikely that the matter is going to end with drawn swords and blood shed unless my honor is being impugned in some manner and an insult was intended. A close reading indicates that most slave girls were either what we would commonly term "unrestricted" or else could be had for the payment of a few coins. The idea of the precious, princess love slave who cannot be touched and who's Master will kill anyone that approaches her is not in keeping with the way most slaves were treated most of the time. Obviously such things can and do happen since goreans are also human beings with the full panoply of emotions that that would entail. The concept though that this is an ideal to be attained is fallacious and not in keeping with the gorean ethos.