Stupid Gor and Foolish Censors...

I absolutely DESPISE the Gor novels.  Each book is a tedious bondage fantasy delivered in a literary monotone that makes me want to burn the thing after reading "I serve priest-kings" for the millionth time.  I can only imagine what juvenile mind created this drivel and try to picture who actually LIKES it... 

But I respect its right to exist...

The world imagined by Norman is personally offensive, being a cavalcade of abuse dressed up as honor, a dehumanizing exercise in tyranny.  Half the population (female) either live in slavery or live in fear of it, and the values of freedom and equality we fight to preserve are disdained by an author who would most likely go fetal if asked to defend his own back yard.  

Even so, I respect his right to exist as well...

In Norman's world, young girls are raised as family and then consigned to the slave pens when they come of age by adults who feel no remorse because they haven't connected with a child as being fully human.  And all the while, Norman defends this parody of life as actually SUPERIOR to our best intuitions over endless rambling pages filled with the exploits of an unsympathetic hero.    

But I'll defend his right to churn it out...

Actually, I did.  I was combat injured in Iraq.  A spinal cord injury from when our ground assault convoy was attacked just outside of An Najaf in the early days of the war.  I'm medically retired, being unfit for military service and walk with a cane when I'm not on my back working out pain.  But I'm still ALIVE...

Many others DIED.  They died defending the freedom of people like John Norman to churn out what I call TRASH.

You see, if anyone actually tried to enslave women and/or pass legislation making the practice legal, I'd fight it tooth and nail to my last breath.  The inherent dignity and worth of ALL people, regardless of race or gender MATTERS to me.  But as long as the only thing getting hurt is my sensibilities, I'll tolerate this crap because that's the VERY DEFINITION OF FREEDOM...

Now, I'm a MALE, so let's try this: I'm also JEWISH, but I'll absolutely defend the right of ANYONE to purchase Mein Kampf and wallpaper their house with its pages so long as its terrifying rhetoric isn't put into action.  Good?

Unfortunately, there are still those who would bully publishers, blacklist artists, and censor media they find offensive in flagrant disregard of these values.  Sorry, but freedom isn't secured nor equality gained in this manner, and people don't get to sit at the grownup table of American life until they understand this.

The censor's view is one-sided and self-directed.  They think censorship protects others, but it doesn't.  It only protects the opinions of whoever CURRENTLY has the power to impose their will upon society, and this changes.  How long until THEIR views become subject to the censor's power over what we can think? 

In truth, it's the perfection of narcissism and the height of cowardly self-indulgence.  And it's WRONG... 

Thirty years ago, our hobby (D&D) was under attack by those who objected on religious grounds, and they employed everything in the censor's playbook.  Bullying retailers, everything.  Thankfully, they failed, and every gamer alive today benefits from this triumph of free expression, including the newest crop of censors...

Just something to consider coming off the Memorial Day weekend!