Talk:Kajira

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[edit] IP 206.11.112.251 edits

The "Philosophy" section is somewhat problematic as it stands (if no one improves it, eventually it will probably end up getting deleted), but I don't think that your additions were really an enhancement, since many would say that Tarl Cabot etc. regard Kajirae BOTH as "great prizes" AND as "lowly objects". AnonMoos 19:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for tackling that, AnonMoos; it's still a mess, but the section has been needing attention for a while. Eventually I'd like to see the whole Kajira page remodeled, with the Literary Influence entry moved over to the Gor page into a (currently nonexistant) listing of influences that shaped the Gor novels. That section would be followed by commentary on the influences of the Gor books on subsequent fiction, of course. I just haven't gotten my Round Tuit yet. Wyvern 11:22, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
I added a template to the page just for the principle of the thing, but I'm afraid that that's just the Wikipedia equivalent of tying a string around one's finger...  ;-) AnonMoos 23:16, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is the Chinese character appropriate?

While some Gorean lifestylers on Earth may use the Chinese character, I don't know that it's so relevant to the kajira article as to warrant a large display of the symbol. (The kef, on the other hand, is closely associated with kajirae; we should keep that.) I suggest removing the picture and linking to another page — perhaps one that notes the use of the symbol in BDSM circles, as use of it in non-Chinese speaking groups is not limited to Goreans. Wyvern 11:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I didn't know that its use wasn't limited to Goreans, but I'm not sure on what particular non-Gor-specific page it would go. It is used by a number of self-proclaimed Goreans on the internet. AnonMoos 03:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
P.S. If the images are overwhelming the text, the solution is clearly to write more text ;-) AnonMoos 06:49, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I propose moving the Chinese symbol to the Gorean page, somewhere near the paragraphs on real-world Goreans, or possibly net.goreans if that seems more appropos. It seems to fit with that subject well, as it does not with the "kajira" topic. Wyvern 11:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
It already is on the Gorean page. AnonMoos 18:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
And it is no longer here. Malkinius 02:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SVG conversion

OK, I replaced all the PNGs of the quasi-Gorean symbols with SVGs, and since vector SVGs don't have any "natural" size, this gets around my previous reluctance to unnecessarily resize the PNG's. So I reduced the size of the images on the article page (and you can reduce them further, if you really want). AnonMoos 07:34, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The "Philosophy" sub-section:

No one undertook to clean up this initial attempt for two months, so I (AnonMoos) moved it from the article page to here:

"According to the Gorean philosophy, all women are natural slaves. As slaves, or Kajira, they are naturally submissive to their male counterparts. This extreme form of submission is evident in all events of life, from speaking to punishment to sexual interaction. For example, Kajira can be stripped completely naked and made to walk around or severely beaten for only to show their power. However, Goreans claim such abuse does not occur, because they value their property and affirm that it is the natural order of humanity."

If anyone eventually decides to do anything with this, here are some semi-balanced and not entirely random Norman quotes which may be of some usefulness and relevance:

"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. On the other hand, it is not too unusual a set of [a]partments 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." -- Book 2, chapt. 6
"She was in chains. Though the girl loves the master with all her heart and would never dream of fleeing from him (absurd though such a dream might be on Gor, given the branding, the collaring, the closeness of the society, and such), she knows that she is upon occasion to be put in chains. In this act is symbolized his desire of her, that she is worth chaining and keeping. And in this act is symbolized his power over her. Despite their love, she is still his, and a slave." -- Book 23, chapt. 21

[edit] Stub

This is a stub of an article but it should be a Gorean stub, not a BDSM stub. Can someone who knows how to make a template please do so. I don't have the time at the moment to find out how to do it or I would do so. It would be a good thing if all the Gorean pages were considered part of a whole unit. Malkinius 02:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the stub mavens don't like to set up stubs which likely won't be used in more than a rather few articles in the near future, so they probably would not appreciate an effort to create such a stub. Futhermore, a "Gorean" stub wouldn't cover Time Slave, Telnarian Histories, etc., so the idea isn't that great in the first place. As for whether Gor can be said to be part of BDSM, look at Talk:Gorean#Gor and BDSM and especially Talk:Gorean#2006 discussion. Furthermore, since your efforts at editing the Gorean articles do not find favor with the other long-term consistent editors of these articles, you might not be the person to oversee a reorganization of things... AnonMoos 15:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
And by the way, your edit left Kajira without any categories at all (which is a Wikipedia no-no). AnonMoos 18:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Is this article a stub? It looks pretty well-rounded to me. MavrikGandalf 20:01, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

By length alone, it might not be, but those who have read the books will be aware that it mainly nibbles around the edges of the subject matter... I won't oppose removing the stub template (as long as the article isn't left without appropriate categories). AnonMoos 20:11, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clothing

What evidence do you find that the common Kajira clothing convention of the Northern Temperate Zone cities of Gor was influenced by ancient Classical attire? I don't think you'll be able to find any evidence of a difference between ancient non-slave women and slave women in this respect. (Though servant-women -- whether slave or free -- did sometimes wear shorter clothes than upper-class women in certain times and places in the ancient world, the difference was rather slight according to modern standards, or in comparison to Norman's Gor, and in any case, the analogous aspect of Kajira attire is actually not what's being discussed in the article). AnonMoos 15:33, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation?

A fairly dumb question: How should the word "kajira" be pronounced? I can see half a dozen or so possible "logical" pronunciations. -- 201.50.248.179 11:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't really know, but I always assumed with the stress on the middle syllable (like "Hegira", the actually-existing word of English which it most closely reembles). Norman was always sporadic on tangential technical matters (like language, alphabet, board-game rules, etc.). His site has an official reference/FAQ section http://www.worldofgor.com/ref/refmain.asp , but the question doesn't appear to be answered there... AnonMoos 12:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I asked on the official Norman site forum, and from user (unofficial) replies there, it seems that the customary pronunciation most prevalent among English-speakers is ka-JEER-a (where "a" can be IPA [ə], schwa); however, this does not seem to be reliably-documented enough to add a pronunciation guide to the article... AnonMoos 11:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

From reports of actual discussions with Norman on the new official http://www.gorchronicles.com/ site, it appears that the pronunciation for English-language purposes would be [kəˈdʒiɹə] (using the transcription conventions on page IPA_chart_for_English), but I hesitate to add this to the article page, since the person who was asking Norman the questions and reporting back Norman's replies is completely linguistically untrained, and his remarks are a little difficult to interpret -- and in any case, these discussions are only accessible to registered users of the gorchronicles.com site (and so can't really be linked to from this article). However, an interesting tidbit that emerged from the Norman interview is that the pronunciation of southern Gor apparently often has [ʃ] instead of [dʒ]... AnonMoos 03:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "In-universe style"

If we're going to mention "the basic nadu position", then we should mention somewhere what this means. :-) -- 201.50.248.179 11:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

This is the kind of thing which is described in lavish loving detail on a thousand individual webpages out there, but which we've hesitated to put on the Wikipedia Gor pages, because it could lead to "listcruft" or "fancruft". If someone put a description of Nadu on the page (which is admittedly probably the most important position, but is just one among many), then someone else will put up other positions, and soon we'll have a list of 15 positions and start arguing over which are accurate to the book, etc.... AnonMoos 12:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
This (a separate page with this list) being something that we wouldn't want? It seems like this would be in line with other Wikipedia-acceptable fancruft pages. -- "201.50.248.179" replying, 6 February 2007
Fancruft, did you say? Check this out. :-) Skeletor#The_question_of_Skeletor.27s_head -- "201.50.248.179" again, 6 February 2007
We can link to the John Norman site reference section, or to http://www.londonfetishscene.com/wipi/index.php/Gor_-_Dictionary , instead. AnonMoos 16:19, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Seems logical, I'm going to boldly make that link. -- "201.50.248.179", 9 February 2007

[edit] Private Parts?

It seems there must be a less-ridiculous way of describing this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.205.233.205 (talk) 17:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC).

It was phrased that way to avoid going into detailed specifics, while avoiding both 4-letter words and Latinate medical terminology. If you have alternative ideas to suggest, offer them here. AnonMoos 17:48, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
P.S. In the terminology Norman uses in the books, this would be expressed by saying something such as -- the "garb" of Kajirae must not have any "nether closure" which would serve to "shield" their "intimacies". Not sure using such words would add anything to this article... AnonMoos 08:50, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Story of O influence

Here are quotes from the Story of O relevant to practices described in the Gor books: AnonMoos 17:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Nadu position -

"So she lifted her nightgown and, on her knees, or, rather, squatting on her heels in the manner of Carmelites or of Japanese women, she waited. ... he came back to it again: she was not opening her legs wide enough. ... So she remained motionless, and her hands were lying palm upward beside her knees, between which the material of her nightgown was spread, with the pleats reforming."

"No nether closure" -

"What her lover wanted from her was very simple: that she be constantly and immediately accessible. It was not enough for him to know that she was: she was to be so without the slightest obstacle intervening, and her bearing and clothing both were to bespeak, as it were, the symbol of that availability to experienced eyes. ... She would hand over to him absolutely everything she found in the way of belts and panties, all the blouses and dresses which did not open up the front, and any skirts too tight to be raised with a single movement."