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February 26 1998Two years.
It does not really seem like a long time, in the big scheme of things.
But in the strange places that make up the online world, and IRC and chat channels in particular, 2 years is a lifetime. Considering the average life of a chat channel must be measured in the single-digit weeks, if not days, 730 days of constant, heavy use of a chat channel is something to remark on. Moreso if that channel is not geared at all towards the general populace. I have given much thought to this lately and, at the risk of patting myself, my brother, and my friends on the back, too much, I offer the following.
On Feb 22nd, 1998, the #silk&Steel on DALnet and online GOR in its entirety, turned two years old. The S&S remains to this day, the largest, most popular (and I think, most effective) Gorean gathering ground online.
Some history. Before that day, there were a very few online IRC who used some Gorean phrases; who had Gorean references in their nicks. They were scattered and spent time in bdsm IRC channels, watching the subbies run amok. In these cases, (as is today) almost all of these people were not living the lifestyle, and were using the vernacular simply as a game, a tool to peak the interest of the opposite (at times) sex and to engage in netsex.
Things don't change much, do they? Indeed.
However, the S&S brought something new online, something that spoke to people deep inside. To many, to be sure, it was still a game; simply a way to get laid. But to a few, it spoke to them on a deeper level, and changed their lives forever. The ones who could not handle the intensity, those who could not live with the harsh concept of Gorean honor in their lives, or who were made uncomfortable by the depth of what those gathered there sought to do, soon made their own "gorean" channels. Before long, there were "slave girl protection/haven/healing/cherish/ worship" channels, and "Gorean Brothels" and "Treve Bathhouses" (promising "XXX-rated" action)(No, unfortunately, I did not make that last one up) and the worst, the "training channels" (the most infamous of which is in truth run by a subbie who once tried to fake her *actual death*, and then show up the same day as her own daughter to attend the online "funeral" that was to be held. (It did not last long, she was found out the truth in a matter of an hour, with calls placed to the hospital where she supposedly "died". After being exposed, her "husband", now online in place of the daughter, told us how mentally ill the woman in question was. At that point, we needed no convincing.) Now, this same woman is the "first girl"of this training channel, who tops its "owner" to whom she is collared to, and who switches from Free woman to collared slave nicks to uncollared slave nicks on a whim, and yet still "trains" poor new girls whose owners have no idea of the "quality" of what they are getting. All this while men of "honor" sit and watch. <shrug> You get what you pay for).
Popularizing the Gorean philosophy online is one thing. Reflecting that in a medium as limited as IRC and chat is another. Whether it is IRC, the WWW, usenet newsgroups, powwow, Yahoo, AOL, Comupserve, Prodigy, MSN or any of the other offshoots, the S&S has brought most of the daily conventions thought of as "Gorean" and used in chat to the medium.
Among these are:
The collar {}. When S&S was new, there were few patrons (aside from the raging "doms" who came by to tell us we were "ruining (the) subs here"), so there was no need for designating slave girls. However, as we became more popular and the community began to grow, it became clear that when there were two 'dinas' in the channel, we would have to come up with a way to tell them apart. Hence, the collar. Two notes on this. First, the use of the online collar convention has spread beyond IRC Gor now, back even to vanilla bdsm and one sees its use now all over the world. Second, Dalnet itself was taken aback when they noticed about 6 months ago there were over Five Thousand nicks registered with the collar {} in them. By now, I would imagine that number has nearly doubled.
Asking to leave/enter a channel. Again, created in S&S as a means to impress further on some their place in our philosophy. This too has become standard use, not only for Gorean communities, but for many who have anything to do with D/s issues.
Holding to the traditions Prior to the S&S's inception, the few who identified themselves as Gorean online had no place to gather, and the one place that offhandedly welcomed Goreans was in reality a vanilla bdsm channel. Subbies ran amok, references to non-Gorean issues abounded and men were topped, berated, kicked and banned by "slaves" who held operator's status. (It is interesting to note that after about half a year in S&S, when it became popular, I was asked to op in this channel, to "help it be more Gorean". I did op for a time, but it became apparent that the owners of the channel did not wish it to change, and did not wish to run an actual Gorean channel. I left, after refusing the ops offer of the gift of the channel in a hostile take-over and soon a number of the ops there (some "slaves" who held ops) joined us in S&S and became some of our most valued patrons).
Two years is not a long time. Two years to start a community, is even less. But in the two years since S&S has brought Gor back to popularity from the obscurity that political correctness forced it into in the 1980's, much has happened. It is this popularity, translated into numbers online, that spurs the current re-interest in publishing the Gor books. It is this interest, traced back to its roots at the S&S, that influenced a publisher to contact John Norman Lange and to purchase the 26th book in the series "Witness of Gor", to schedule this work for publication this summer and to begin work on a monthly magazine.
And it is each and every one of you, who seek Gor truly or who play at it just to get laid, who owe those who work in the S&S and those who patronize it, those who worked for the Gorean philosophy it espouses and those who tried (and still try) in vain to destroy it, a deep debt of gratitude. For from such small beginnings as two men and a chat channel, we see the reawakening of something special, something that has touched thousands of lives all over the world.
I wish you well.
Bear-
Remember, you can write Bear- at [email protected]. All letters will be read and few answered, but he might comment from time to time.