Having extracated herself from the hands of the DC police department this snoopy reporter was off at a dash to the country of Denmark to catch up with her next appointed interviewee. In a small municipality called Frederiksberg within the municipality of Copenhagen, she met up with Master Old Viking.

Master Old Viking is a physicist and is retiring soon after 40 years with a technical university. He has worked half of his time with solid state physics, and the remainder with the problems of establishing an environmentally sustainable energy technology, especially in the developing countries.

The 64 year old Master is married and states that he plans to stay that way. His wife understands his involvement in the Gorean community. But she does not, yet at least, see herself as Gorean. He has two sons, a daughter and two grandsons.

When asked about slave ownership and hobbies (are those two related?) Master replied: "I did once own an offline slave, but that was long before I knew of the fiction of Gor, most likely even before that fiction was invented or at least made known to the public. I have “owned”two or three slaves online over the last three or four years. The last one requested to be freed just a few days ago after being in my collar for almost two years. For many reasons of hers and mine I agreed to remove my cyber collar from her neck."

"Hobbies? A long list, including electronics, photos, computer programming, woodwork, maintenance of an old house (in which I happen to live), skiing, high mountain hiking, classical music, translation of Gor-books into Danish, wondering about what Gor means, wondering of the greatest problem at our planet these decades or centuries: the anthropogenic greenhouse effect and the climate change it causes... but then we are maybe not talking of hobbies in the true sense of that word any more?"

Not sure about anyone else, but this girl found the list of hobbies fascinating about this point and had to restrain her impulse to just ask him about those :)

How did you find Gor, Master?
--I found Gor when three or four years ago I got a connection to the internet from my office. Fairly simple. Using Alta Vista I searched hoping to find some information on people sharing my interest for what at that time I did not know I would end up naming as Gor.

Master, if you had never heard of the gorean lifestyle, do you envision your life being any different than it is now? If so, in what ways?

--Yes, my life would have been different in many ways. My inner life would have been more confused, much more confused, maybe, as I have now learned ways to structure my thoughts of what I call Gor. My outer life would have been spent more on the rest of my list of hobbies, less on communicating via my computer. These two changes of my life caused by Gor are probably the most fundamental ones. I have found a basis that makes me feel comfortable with myself.

What is one thing that you think would be important for anyone who knows you to know about you, Master? And what is the one thing you wouldn't want anyone to know about you?

--What I would like people to know or not to know about me? Those seem to me to be rather strange questions. I want people that I find interesting to know as much of me as possible. I try to be very open to those people. If I don’t find people interesting, I see no reason for them to know much of me.

When did you first realize that something about you was different from other men in todays society, Master? How did you first cope with that realization?

--From other men? No, at that time from other boys only. I remember it clearly, it was in 1943 or ’44. I was around 8 at that time. My father read some stories from, "1001 Arabian Nights" to me. There was a word I didn’t know or understand at that time, "slave", or "female slave", rather.

My father did his best to explain the concept of owning human beings. I recall he had problems in doing so. It was during the German occupation of my country, we were not too far from the German concentration camps and forced labour in Germany. The concept of slavery there was rather different from the more romantic concept of slavery in the book, he was reading. But I immediately got the idea and for the next 50+ years fantasies of owning females were never far from my mind.

Fantasies of communities where such was not only accepted, but the normal thing to do. Fantasies of communities where girls were offered as slaves when they reached a certain age, and only remained free, if no men wanted them as their slaves. A situation a little similar to what happened in Norman’s book of Tarna, when the men finally took power over the silvermasks.

I became afraid of myself, I thought myself a sadist, as I knew of no other words to use. I tried to encapsulate the whole thing, hoping it would die if not fed. Which it did not. Now I have of course learned that that is a hopeless way to treat such :) I had great troubles in containing both that dream and my firm conviction as a pacifist at the same time. A conviction I find quite natural after having seen or heard what big war machines had done to Europe during WWII.

What Gor has brought me is mainly ways to handle these problems or contrasts, teaching me that I’m not sadistic, that what I want is not to cause other human beings bodily or mental pain, but rather to own them, see them flourish in being owned, in being allowed (or forced) to concentrate on serving, on being used, rather than concentrating on their own problems, which often seem to be parallel my own ones, which I have just tried to describe; parallel, but yet in another medium.

Pacifism, is that at all compatible with Gor? With all these "warriors" running around in ircGor? Yes, to me at least, there is no contradiction in that. Even when I don’t remember reading of any true pacifists in any of Norman’s books. To me pacifism is about taking care, being careful. A parallel to the concern for our environment that is so evident in those books. A concern I share, and have used the last half of my active career to try to imprint in my students. In order to try to illustrate this basic conviction of mine I have "chosen" the yellow caste, the caste that builds and rebuilds rather than tearing down.

With age my belief in "pure" pacifism has reduced, however. I now see the need for physical power in, for instance, peacekeeping or peacemaking operations. And when reading Norman’s books, I see that is very often what the scarlet caste is in fact doing there.

"What advice would you give to anyone asking you about this lifestyle, Master? "

--My advice would be to be as open as possible about themselves. But not to get too heavily involved in the lifestyle immediately. Learn of yourself,learn of other people, experience that you are not alone, that there are a lot of people around who share your own views and needs, or important parts of them at least. I would maybe tell them how shy I had been in my youth, simply because I knew (or rather thought) myself so different from all other people. I would tell them to do something about it, to get involved with the lifestyle, because they in the long run would suffer much if they did not.

Master, do you feel that your home environment contributed to the realization that you were gorean? Especially your upbringing.

--No. My father was a sculptor, my mother a school teacher. I think she at times contributed most to the economy of my home. Apart from my father explaining the objective meaning of a central word (as I mentioned before), I don’t think my home environment or upbringing contributed much to my self-realization as what has later been known as Gorean.

What is the one mistake, Master, (if any) that you have made that you feel has taught you the greatest lessons about yourself?

--Certainly the mistake of trying to encapsulate my feeling of being Gorean.

Do you see any limitations to your ownership of the slave because of it being online, Master? Why or why not?

--As I don’t "own" any slaves online at the present time , I’ll answer this with the girls in mind I have "owned" online.

I see two, rather different, groups of limitations. The first one can be illustrated by the fact that even when I "own" a female slave I still need to make my own tea, to do the dishwashing myself, if I go shopping, I need to carry the goods home myself (if my wife doesn’t do these things). I can’t have the slave kneeling at my side with my mug of tea ready for me in her hands. I can only imagine she is, and then take my mug from the table.

The second group of limitations is maybe somewhat more basic. I’m only in contact with my property the few hours a day when I’m online with her, or talking with her via the phone. I have nothing but her own honesty to convince me she is obedient to my orders the rest of the time. I have in fact nothing but her honesty to convince me she is obedient even when I have her online or on the phone. And I have nothing but her honesty to convince me of her honesty.

A girl owned online only normally has her "own" life going on in parallel to being her owner’s slave. She might have kids to care for, for instance, she most probably has a job of some kind. There are lots of things her online owner must accept she has to concentrate on, but which have little, or rather nothing, to do with him. He would be a monster, did he not allow her to concentrate on them too.

But that said, I would add that I have experienced many of the same mental processes in my mind by owning a slave online as I would have done offline. It may be called playing or imagination only, but the mental processes are the same, only maybe sometimes a bit less intense. So if you go for these mental processes, which I have found to be very healthy to do, online "ownership" (and slavery too I would suppose) still offers a great deal, and can teach you a lot of yourself.

How did bringing a slave into your home fulltime change your life, Master?

--I have only owned a slave in my home for a fairly short period, and very long ago. It probably didn’t last long enough to really let me accustom myself to think of her as mere property. So I’ll not go deeper into that question.

Do you see any major differences between your relationship with your slave and any previous long-term relationships that did not involve a slave,Master... outside of the obvious ones because of the dynamic?

--Yes, I do. With both online and offline slaves. Owning a girl brings an openness into the relationship, that I for one have difficulties in obtaining in other kinds of relationships. As my offline slave once expressed it, the channels between the minds of a master and his slave are extremely open. I would add: If they are not, the girl is not really owned, not really thinking of herself as owned property.

The interview complete, this girl drew in a deep breath and did a whirlwind tour of Copenhagen. She was not looking for more Vikings, honest.She did not stand naked on the coastline and wait for hours for one of those nifty long boats, she swears. Besides, it's far too cold this time of year for standing around naked.

Does anyone know how to get rid of frostbite?

Until next month readers...

snoopy