Anthropologist of Gor, Book 1 Preparations (4)

 

Diary of Dr Claudia Skimmerhorn, Head of Anthropology at Queens College City University of New York
Thursday, Jan 5, 2017.

Antichthon

Oliver and I are waiting in my office for the Zoom call for the final decision on our grant to travel to Gor. I had never been in contact with the Remote Anthropology Foundation before last year when I began research to find funding for a true scientific expedition to Gor. I had heard of them for years of course, a shadowy group that funded expeditions to remote areas, but I had never expected to be needing their funding. Once Oliver and I found Dr John Norman’s language tapes and his method of going to the Antichthon, the planet on the other side of the sun first posited by Aristotle, things changed. Now our proposal, mine really with Oliver tagging along and helping, to actually go to the mysterious planet is before their board.

            I don’t really trust this new communications method of remote meeting, but technological advance on Earth is relentless and unrestrained, and all of us must accept it or fall behind. How different it was on that other planet when I made my solo exploratory ‘proof of concept’ trip. There people of all ranks and castes would stop to gaze at a sunset, watch some birds swoop and dip in the air, exclaim over a lovely bit of carving. Now Oliver and I wait, anxiously, for the meeting to begin.

     

       I am not a submissive or patient woman. Even though Oliver and I celebrated last night once we heard that our (my) proposal had been provisionally accepted, and Oliver managed to get it up twice, which is not bad for a 52-year-old man, I have still not totally forgotten or forgiven that on Tuesday night he broke our date to spend time with his teaching assistant, Denielle McCabe. So we are waiting in my office, I at my two-screen desk-top set-up, while he balances his laptop on his knees. If he hadn’t been fucking that little perfect titted bitch, we would have used the conference room. Not that I’m bitter, I know what men are, but I have my self-respect.

It would be a while before we were called to join the meeting, I understood that they were completing their final discussions. We did have up on our screens, the Remote Anthropology Foundation’s version of my grant request. Oliver pointed out that all references to Gor had been replaced by the Antichthon, or the place of the Antichthon. All words in the Gorean language had been removed, and replaced with equivalent words; many in English, and some in Latin!. I told Oliver my guess for the reasons for the changes.

“Anyone searching for keywords like Gorean or kajira in Academic papers on websites will not find this proposal or any reference to it. No one doing a general search for Gorean words or concepts will come across it by accident. I think this means that they are taking the whole thing very seriously.”

Oliver replied:

“Unless some philosophy student is studying Philolaus and his Antichthon theory comes across it.”[i]

“I think that student will just assume it is some spoof and ignore it.” I replied. “True. I find the idea that Philolaus posited a Central Fire between Earth and Counter-Earth is interesting, as the Central Fire in his idea was not the sun. So it was not a heliocentric cosmology, but it still contained a Central Fire.”

“Perhaps Philolaus incorporated an idea he heard from somewhere else or someone else into a general cosmology,” I posited. “Perhaps from Gorean visitors?”

“Now that is an interesting idea, not provable of course, but not unlikely. We know, or believe, from the Chronicles that the Priest-Kings collected Earth humans quite extensively from this period and geographical area. Just a hypothesis of course, and not really testable, so it does not rise to the level of a theory.”

I nodded. A theory needs to be testable and provable. Just as I had proved the existence of Gor by actually going there and returning, with artifacts could not have been made on Earth, trace elements etc. Oliver took a sip from his coffee.

“I have another hypothesis. It relates to the ‘happy kajira’ question.”

The happy kajira question was how Oliver and I referred to the conundrum that women recently enslaved fought bitterly against their collars at first and then, apparently suddenly, declared their love for their collars and their condition, becoming insatiable in their lusts and sexual needs. All the narratives in the chronicles, written either by owners, or by owned girls illustrated this phenomenon. The prevailing explanation of

‘Stockholm Syndrome’ did not seem persuasive to me, or to Oliver.[ii] I looked at my watch. We had a lot of time until the meeting was opened to us.

“Go ahead,” I said.

Oliver looked around. He picked up his coffee and took a sip. He has been looking for something to do with his hand while discoursing on intellectual topics. He gave up smoking his pipe ten years ago and has not really found a substitute to occupy his hands.

“I started thinking of this hypothesis started a couple of weeks ago when I received a text from my cousin that his son had had his appendix removed. That started me thinking on vestigial organs and other artifacts in our bodies left over from our ancient pasts.”

“Dr Norman and other of the Gorean chroniclers mention that the Master-slave relationship is deeply rooted in humanity’s past,” I commented. “Jason Marshall was very long-winded on the topic, I recall”

Oliver nodded, “He went on for at length about it. I think he had trouble reconciling his Gorean reality with his Earth upbringing. Tarl Cabot took several years before he fully embraced Gorean ethos.”

“As I recall,” I again interjected, “the female narrators took a far shorter time to adapt to their Gorean reality. Of course it was brought very forcibly to their attention.”

Oliver nodded his head.

“Very true, however I suspect there was another factor at work in addition, or should I say, in conjunction with brute force. What do you know of the changes that a near starvation diet brings about in the metabolism.”

“Not much,” I admitted. “The body begins to use calories more efficiently. At the extreme it shuts down systems one by one starting with the least important. It also priorizes the ability to digest those foods which it does receive, while losing the ability to digest those foods no longer in its diet.”

Oliver nodded.

“Close enough. This ability is in our genes, our genetic code and inheritance but is not activated until the caloric situation becomes dire. It is genetic ability not usually activated and usually as vestigial as the appendix. My hypothesis, it in no way has enough evidence to be a testable theory, is that deep in the older parts of the brain, specifically the female brain, is buried an old propensity to a reaction designed to protect the female from death in a severe captured situation. I think it lurks in an older part of the brain, below conscious thought, buried in the subconscious. When I woman has been collared, branded in a way that means that the captivity, the bonds are permanent, the propensity to serve, to love service begins to stir, until suddenly it breaks forth in the slavefire, the slave belly”

Oliver had used the Gorean terms for the slave’s helpless condition, likely without knowing it.

“Of course it does not come immediately, it comes after a time of strict confinement, of always feeling the chains on her, always locked into obedience, always on her knees, receiving her Masters into her. Swallowing, responding. Of course her body perceives pain and receives pleasure and responds appropriately, but the need to submit, the desire to submit, the joy of embracing being a kajira, does not occur until, like the starvation metabolism, it kicks in. Then she becomes slave-hot, insatiable, needy.”

“Like an addiction then,” I ventured. “The slave needs the rush of submission that the released vestigial mental adjustment requires. She becomes addicted to the feeling, addicted to the rush of endorphins and dopamine that come from her condition. Basically, addicted to cock, needful of penetration, needful of submission. It could be, it fits the situations described in the chronicles, that is true. It was simplistic though, for the chroniclers to describe it as ‘innate from time immemorable’ etc. It would require prolonged, at least for a time, captivity, usage, and training. Just binding for a short time, would not do it, nor just having a collar put on, although I imagine that would have quite an effect. I think you may be one to something there, Oliver.”

I glanced at my computer screen; I did not want to look Oliver in the face. He was a man, and I was breathing a little more quickly than I should have been. There was a message on the screen asking us to be patient while the committee worked out a few more details. I told Oliver of the message and we speculated for a bit about the reason for the delay. We hoped it was just about the amount to grant us, rather than whether to fund us at all.

I found my voice.

“Do you hypothesize that this submission response is deeply buried, Oliver. It seems as though it takes some time to develop?”

“The full response is, I suspect buried deeply and is well hidden. But I also think that it has tentacles into the newer parts of the brain. Consider how many women dream of being seized and taken off by strong men in their fantasies. It is so common as to be a cliché.”

“Surely”, I asked, “Such is just a dream or a late-night fantasy.”

Oliver was quiet for a moment, then,

“It is in dreams and when drifting off to sleep that the barrier between the conscious, and the subconscious is the weakest; it is then that the distance between the two is the smallest. I took the liberty of questioning Denny, Denielle McCabe, my teaching assistant, if even she, an accomplished and intelligent young woman, had such dreams. It was an outrageous liberty, I know. Eventually she answered that sometimes she dreamt that she was carried off and ravished. She blushed, actually blushed, I did not know young women still did that, or even could.”

I did not inform Oliver that the rush of blood to Denny’s face, or whatever part of her that Oliver was observing at the time, was more likely arousal than embarrassment. When Oliver, pushing his luck, asked if I had such dreams, I said that I had not had any such fantasies since I was young. I had no intention of letting Oliver know that I had had such a dream the night before last. I had dreamt that I had encountered Denny on a public street and had had to talk to her rather than be impolite. Suddenly, in my dream, Denny was grabbed by three masked men, and I as well. The scene shifted and Denny and I were collared and chained in a sort of harem, both naked. But I was not the present day me, I was the me of thirty years ago. My hair was not gray, I had no wrinkles; my skin was clear and smooth. I was hot. I was hotter than Denny. And it was I that the three men had ravished, ignoring Denny and her perfect tits.

Of course, in my case, the dream did not signify any unconscious desire, it was merely that I had been thinking of the Antichthon, the counter-Earth. It had no deeper significance. When I looked up, Oliver was still talking.

“There are other indicators of a deeply buried submission instinct. For instance, many women find the idea of being bound or restrained during sex to be arousing….”

“Oliver! Have you ever?

“No, No, of course not. I have heard though that it is common.”

I did not believe his denials. I asked another question.

“Do you think that the Gorean women in general have this buried submissive reflex more strongly than do Earth women?”

Oliver replied, “I think it likely, the Priest-Kings or whoever really rules Gor, would have selected for that trait when stocking their experiment in the first place. Just as they would have selected men who would be most likely to trigger buried instinct in captive women.”

I raised yet another question.

“Yet the chronicles tell us that Earth women are particularly prone to make the most adject of slaves.”

“The chronicles also tell us that the Earth women taken to Gor are specially selected and chosen, not just grabbed willy-nilly. Furthermore, those doing the selecting are from the Warrior Caste and the Slaver Caste, the two Castes who deal most with capturing and assessing slave women, so those most skilled at selecting women most likely to become paga-hot.”

“It is a possible hypothesis, and it raises the possibility that the two more predatory of the castes have a finer instinct for the women most likely to become the hottest slaves.” I admitted. “However difficult to test and prove”

“We would need to run a series of double-blind experiments,” Oliver said.

“Run psychological profiles, before and after.”

“Run the likelihood of a strong buried submission reflex  against perceived beauty or otherwise.”

“And socio-economic standing.”

“And intelligence”

“And emotional intelligence.”

“Run it in different countries.”

“It would be very expensive.”

“Not to mention highly unethical.”

“Yes, there is that.”

We burst out laughing at our academic silliness, mocking the rules of our profession.

“Seriously, Oliver, it is a good working hypothesis. I am impressed.”

Actually I really was. Oliver was a good colleague despite cheating with that tart, Denny with the perfect tits.

“Do you have any ideas on why the condition does not appear immediately once the woman is enslaved, but only emerges later, after a few days or weeks?”

“I do, and it is even more speculative. It is that the older, more animal part of brain in a kajira is gradually triggered by dopamine, the additive chemical as the sensations of slavery become more and more engrained in her.”

Oliver was more animated now. We had switched to speaking Gorean, the language of the Antichthon, except for a few technical terms in English. The Antichthonian language was better suited to the concepts of the kajira super-orgasm and the happiness in the collar. Oliver got up, refilled his coffee cup from my pot, without asking, and continued. I ascribed his lack of courtesy in asking for permission to help himself to my coffee to the fact that he was male and we were conversing in a language where males took and women acquiesced. Language brings its own concepts with it. I made a mental note to perhaps study the phenomenon.

“The slave is praised for perfect adject service and is punished for falling short. So both positive and negative reinforcement. Although the writings in the chronicles lay stress on the latter, I consider, at least for the purposes of constructing this hypothesis that the former is more important. Positive reinforcement brings pleasure and release dopamine. This creates new pathways in the brain in what is a new situation for the slave. Recall too, that new situations put the brain in its most receptive state to changed wiring. The slave has been stripped of her clothing, the robes of concealment that were her protection. For the first time she feels the wind and the sun on her skin. New sensations. Recall as well, that she receives her food at the hand of her master or his designates, and that she must eat in a new way, often kneeling, without eating implements, often denied the use of her hands. When she eats the food provided by her master, she is praised, or at least as her needs met. More pleasure; a full belly is better than an empty one. She feels that she valued, at least valued enough to be fed. She feels that she is valued, at least enough to be given water. She receives something at the hand of the master; she is valued and receives a dose of pleasure.

Before she would clothe herself and in the fashion she chose and could afford. As a slave, she wears clothes only when her master permits and she wears only what her master commands. When given a scrap of silk, she is overjoyed. Consider now, that that scrap of silk likely could not be afforded by her as a free woman.

Soon then, she becomes addicted to her slavery. And one last thing, the collar. The collar sends signals to her all her waking moments. Every second she feels its weight, she feels it every time she turns her head, she feels it when she lowers her head in submission to her master; she feels it when she dares raise her eyes to his face. Most of all, she feels it every time she takes a breath. One of the most fundamental things humans do. Several times a minute, she feels she is a slave, her body tells her so every time she breathes in; every time she breathes out. She feels the collar her master put on her. When her master changes, so does the collar. It is his, and he put it on her and she begins to feel grateful.”

“That sounds reasonable and persuasive,” I said, “but there are other aspects, like the super-orgasms that the chronicles, written both by masters, and those written by kajirae report.”

Oliver nodded, “That is a separate but linked discussion, as is why certain types of women seem to fall into slavery more often on the Antichthon, but I think we should continue on this one line of inquiry right now.”

I am not a submissive woman, but the combination of recognizing that Oliver was right academically to stick to one subject, plus the fact of speaking in the language of the Antichthon, which favors deference to the male speaker led me to signal my assent by lowering my head for a moment.

Our computers ‘dinged’. A message appeared: Prepare to join the meeting in six minutes. A digital countdown appeared counting down the time until we could join the meeting and find out how generously or otherwise we would be funded. If we would be funded. I hoped we would be funded for a full year’s expedition and with enough staff to make a start on understanding the society of the Antichthon and its applications to we on Earth. Oliver stood up putting his coffee cup aside.

“I need to visit the facilities, I think I have had to much coffee this morning,”

He got up and left. I had been quite happy to see how engaged in discussion Oliver had been this morning. Over the past two and a half years, he had been interested but distant, but today he had been truly engaging with the material. I was pleased. I needed Oliver to be truly part of the project, heart and soul, and not just as a figurehead. A male figurehead was needed, of course, both on Earth and especially on the Antichthon, but a partner was what I needed.

A thought struck me then. I had always imagined Oliver in Antichthon Caste terms as a scribe. Not as a writing drudge, but a scholar, immersed in old scrolls seeking out truths as an explorer seeks out new mountains. Given his enthusiasm for slave training and responses this morning though, I wonder if the possibility of a different caste has been unearthed: a more predatory caste, one whose colors were yellow and blue: The Slavers. That put his trip to the facilities in a different light. After all, a man’s penis has uses other than urination, perhaps Oliver had needed to deal with inconvenient arousal? I will have to watch his tendencies, especially as his enthusiasm grew when we were using the language of the Antichthon.

---

[i] Oliver and Claudia’s discussion was freely adapted from this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Earth

[ii] From Wikipedia: Stockholm syndrome is a disputed disorder in pop psychology characterized by the tendency of hostages to develop a psychological bond with their captors.^[1][2] It is named after an attempted bank robbery in 1973, in Stockholm.