Culture?

Normally when I sit down to write a column it writes itself pretty easily.  I make a few changes here and there but the original draft is normally pretty much what the final product is.
I've been working on this column for several days.  I am on draft 9 or 10 or 100 right now and all because a girl on the block at a Gorean slave auction asked me some difficult and serious questions. 

Generally I don't care for slave auctions in Second Life, but I've had some chain luck lately and with nothing better to do I popped into the middle of three lovely, but barely trained, kajira on the block.  While role playing the role of an interested buyer some real questions popped up.  One of the girls asked me questions were fair, insightful and cut to the very heart of what I try to do with this blog.

She asked about reading the books and is it worth it before beginning to role play.   Did I think she should be owned before reading the books?
Well I do believe it's possible to learn how to be a good slave without the books, I personally think it supplements the training.  For example:  I expected the girls to beg to be bought.  It was expected from a Gorean slave in the books, and in Prize of Gor the girls almost make a competition out of it!  None of them did that.
Plus I feel that if a slave is trained by one Master he trains the slave to be pleasing to him...not what it means to be pleasing to all.  A kajira must be found pleasing to all.

She asked if I thought what a a slave girl must devote herself to in the real world to become a kajira?  Because while she was trying to become a good slave she would never be able to do the same in reality (more due to where she lived in RL than anything).  I was honest with her.

Time.  To be a slave, either online or off, requires a commitment.  A commitment to put the hours in to learn, to watch, to read and to be willing to sacrifice.  Yes, we live in the real world full of family, friends, jobs and kids.  We live with pressing issues but you have to be willing to put that aside at times to serve.  If YOUR feeling your submissiveness in real life, I told her, then what does it matter if you can't be naked 24/7?  If you can't be at his feet?  If you can't wear a collar in public and call him Master?  But you have to give them time.  You have to give of yourself.

To be Gorean, means that we have joined a particular cultural group.  Culture, in its most basic form, is shared values.  It's our mutual touchstone on we we act and expect other to act.  Our history and our basis for defining the "who" and "what" we are.  Without a basic understanding of the culture, how can we "live" in it.  Slavery is more than throwing on a collar and sexy barely there silks.   It's a commitment to a lifestyle, an understanding of your role in that lifestyle and in the community.
People may argue that a Bond is different from a silk clad Kajira but I look at them the same way.  They are girls in collars, they are property and to the Gorean male their only purpose is to serve him.  That is the culture.  It does not matter if your little slice of Gor is based on Norse culture or Arabic.  You have a role in that culture to serve. 
Now, how do you take that role into real life? 

What will your role be in reality?  Is this something you wish to peruse in your real, everyday life and do you know what that means? 

I have stressed communication in this blog so many times that I've grown sick of the word.  So instead I'm going to stress another word.  Self-realization.  When you decide what you want, what that means to you...then your ready for the next step.  What ever that step is.  Once you do that then you figure out how to bring your new life into the culture that surrounds you.