Something that I didn't realize but hurt my brain to learn:
John Norman (aka John Frederick Lange Jr.), of the Gor series of sci-fi/BDSM novels, is still alive.
He released two books (one of them a Gor book, #35), in 2019.

I guess with the fact that the series started in 1966 and feels like it's always a historical thing... I assumed he had to have quit writing and/or died back in like 1986.

Nope. Still alive, he's 89, and was apparently still writing as of 2 years ago.
also, my brain being what it is, I totally just googled for the book's cover image by entering "trans man of gor" which is NOT the title.
in my defense, how many book serieses look like this WITH THE SAMEAUTHOR FROM BOOK #1 to BOOK #35?
Anyway if you look at any this and think it's a suggestion that you should try reading any of these novels or learning anything about them, you are quite mistaken.

Gor is bad sci-fi and bad BDSM, and you should skip it for either reason.
and when I say "bad BDSM" I don't mean like how people have complained about 50 shades of grey for being bad BDSM, as in it doesn't follow proper BDSM rules of consent and safety and such.

I mean, it is that too, but it's also bad the sense of not just being very BDSMy
so you shouldn't go look it up just because I say it's "bad BDSM". I'm not saying "it's the wrong kind of BDSM", and you might want to rebel against my GATEKEEPING and read it anyway.
I'm saying that even if it was "good BDSM" in the sense of doing things right and safely and giving people good examples of what BDSM is in case they want to get into it:
IT'S SHITTY AT DOING IT
so the books are bad sci-fi and bad BDSM (in at least two ways) but in 1966 there wasn't a lot of content about anything BDSM related so it got a subculture growing up around it and THAT'S WHY THERE ARE 35 BOOKS
but my point is that in 2021 we have better options
so if you want scifi, there are better books (hell, if you want 60s pulp sci-fi, there are better books)
and if you want BDSM erotica, there are better books
WE DO NOT NEED GOR

and your brain will be happier if you don't learn anything more about Gor.
Anyway in the late 80s they made two novels based on Gor. They mostly removed the overt BDSM stuff (which was never that intense in the first couple novels anyway) to just do standard 80s scantily-clad barbarian women fodder.
Those two movies were Gor and Outlaw of Gor.
Outlaw of Gor was also known as "Outlaw", which is the title it showed up on MST3K as. Season 5, episode 19.
"Cabot!"
Anyway, the fact it showed up on MST3K should tell you something about the quality of the movies.

It's also probably the safest way to enjoy any Gor content: through the medium of a guy and some robots mocking it

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Great article from @AsheSchow. I lived thru the 'Satanic Panic' of the 1980's/early 1990's asking myself "Has eveyrbody lost their GODDAMN MINDS?!"


The 3 big things that made the 1980's/early 1990's surreal for me.

1) Satanic Panic - satanism in the day cares ahhhh!

2) "Repressed memory" syndrome

3) Facilitated Communication [FC]

All 3 led to massive abuse.

"Therapists" -and I use the term to describe these quacks loosely - would hypnotize people & convince they they were 'reliving' past memories of Mom & Dad killing babies in Satanic rituals in the basement while they were growing up.

Other 'therapists' would badger kids until they invented stories about watching alligators eat babies dropped into a lake from a hot air balloon. Kids would deny anything happened for hours until the therapist 'broke through' and 'found' the 'truth'.

FC was a movement that started with the claim severely handicapped individuals were able to 'type' legible sentences & communicate if a 'helper' guided their hands over a keyboard.
A thread of very good, wonderful, truly Super Bowls.

Translucent agate bowl with ornamental grooves and coffee-and-cream marbling. Found near Qift in southern Egypt. 300 - 1,000 BC. 📷 Getty Museum https://t.co/W1HfQZIG2V


Technicolor dreambowl, found in a grave near Zadar on Croatia's Dalmatian Coast. Made by melding and winding thin bars of glass, each adulterated with different minerals to get different colors. 1st century AD. 📷 Zadar Museum of Ancient Glass
https://t.co/H9VfNrXKQK


100,000-year-old abalone shells used to mix red ocher, marrow, charcoal, and water into a colorful paste. Possibly the oldest artist's palettes ever discovered. Blombos Cave, South Africa. 📷https://t.co/0fMeYlOsXG


Reed basket bowl with shell and feather ornaments. Possibly from the Southern Pomo or Lake Miwok cultures. Found in Santa Barbara, CA, circa 1770. 📷 British Museum https://t.co/F4Ix0mXAu6


Wooden bowl with concentric circles and rounded rim, most likely made of umbrella thorn acacia (Vachellia/Acacia tortilis). Qumran. 1st Century BCE. 📷 https://t.co/XZCw67Ho03

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I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.

In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.

So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.

Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.