Gorean Commands and Positions

Palm Positions

Check out the other positions listed, if you wish to see how the palms may be positioned, such as in Obeisance or Tower.

As I looked into the eyes of Vika I saw there the tears of relief and gratitude but I saw too the tears of another emotion, infinitely tender and vulnerable, which I could not read.
She knelt in the position of the Pleasure Slave but her hands on her thighs had unconsciously, pleadingly, turned their palms to me, and she no longer knelt quite back on her heels. It was as though she begged to be allowed to lift and open her arms and rise and come to my arms. But as I looked upon her sternly she turned her palms again to her thighs, knelt back on her heels and dropped her head, holding her eyes as if by force of will fixed on the plastic beneath my sandals.
Her entire body trembled with the ache of her desire.
But she was a slave girl and dare not speak.
I looked down at her sternly. “Look up, Slave Girl,” I said.
She looked up.
I smiled.
“To my lips, Slave Girl,” I commanded.  PRIEST KINGS OF GOR; 3; Pages 234-235

“Remove you clothing, and stand,” said Marlenus.
The slave did so.
“You see?” asked Marlenus.
I studied her. The girl looked away. She was incredibly beautiful. Yet there did seem something subtly different about her, something which separated her softness, proud and vulnerable in the tent of her master, from the incomparable, delicious yielded softness, eager, tender, at times pleading, of a girl such as Cara.
Perhaps it was partly a stiffness in the shoulders. Perhaps it was something about the wrists. The backs of her hands faced us. The normal fall of a girl’s hands places her palms at her thighs.
“Place your palms on your thighs,” said Marlenus.
“Beast,” she hissed. She did so. She felt her brand.  HUNTERS OF GOR; 8; Pages 151-152

She stood beautifully. She did not stand as might have Cara, or another girl, who had well known the touch of a man, but she did stand as though owned. The resistance was gone from her shoulders and diaphragm. Even the palms of her hands, naturally now fell at her thighs, her left palm over her brand. She had not been taught to stand in this fashion. The difference, subtle and interesting, had been accomplished in the enslavement of the afternoon. Now, naturally, unaware of it, she stood as a slave girl. She knew now she stood before the man who was her complete master, open to him, his slave. She stood as a slave, because she now knew herself as a slave, and this knowledge was reflected, inevitably, in her stance. It was natural that she now stand as a slave. She was a slave.  HUNTERS OF GOR; 8; Page 165

Yesterday the blond-haired girl had been permitted to walk about the deck. I had stopped near her and she had, immediately, knelt, for she was in the presence of a free man. I had walked slowly about her. She was very nice. I had then stood before her, and she had, suddenly, dropped her eyes. I saw a tiny movement in her hands, on her thighs, as though she would turn them, exposing the palms to me, but then she pressed them down her thighs, hard. I crouched beside her. Then I smiled. I smelled slave heat. Then I got up and went about my business. I saw her later leaning against the main mast. Later I looked at it, and saw that she had made marks in it with her nails.  EXPLORERS OF GOR; 13; Page 81-82

She looked up at me, and then, turning her head and lifting herself on her elbows, she again kissed my feet. She then rolled from my feet a yard or so away in the straw. She lay on her back and regarded me, happily. “It will not be necessary to strike me again, Master,” she said. “I will be docile, and obedient and loving.” She looked up at me, smiling, her left knee raised, her hands beside her, palms up, in the straw. “Have me, Master,” she said. “Subject me, uncompromisingly, to your pleasure.”
“Do you beg it?” I asked. I did not know why I asked the question.
“Yes, Master,” she said, smiling, “I beg it.”  FIGHTING SLAVE OF GOR; 14; Page 105

“Spread the furs,” I said, “and light the ravishment lamp.”
I removed my tunic, throwing it aside.
In a few moments, Lola lay on the furs a the foot of the couch on her belly, her hands at her sides, the backs of her hands to the furs, the palms of her hands vulnerably up, exposed.  ROGUE OF GOR; 15; Page 136

I turned my attention to the dancer on the floor. She lay now on her back, one knee lifted, her arms at her sides, palms down, before the brute with his whip, who towered over her. Her head, too, was turned to the side. Then she turned her head to face the brute, who tyrannized her. She looked deeply into his eyes. Then delicately, in a graceful gesture, she turned her hands, putting their backs to the floor, exposing her palms and the soft flesh of her palms to him, indicating her surrender, her submission, her vulnerability and her readiness.
There was applause, the striking of the left shoulder from the tables.  ROGUE OF GOR; 15; Page 196

I lowered my sword until the point of it was at the back of her neck.
“Please, do not kill me,” she begged.
She was at my feet, on her belly, in the darkness.
“Cross your wrists,” I told her, “palms facing one another, and touch your fingers to my ankle.”
She did this, lying on her stomach. With her hands in this position, a girl can exert almost no leverage, and it may be determined, too, that her hands are empty. This is a simple Gorean procedure, not uncommon, for determining that a girl encountered in the darkness is both helpless and unarmed.  GUARDSMAN OF GOR; 16; Page 84

“She does not even know how to lie at a man’s feet,” said Lola. She then crouched down and turned the girl’s hands so that their backs rested on the tiles, and the soft, open palms were vulnerably exposed to me. Also she lifted her left knee, that it might be flexed. “There,” she said, “that is better.” There are many ways, of course, for a woman to lie at a man’s feet. Lola had selected, however, one of the loveliest.  GUARDSMAN OF GOR; 16; Page 229

"Very good, Tupa," I heard the floor manager say. He, too, was weary.
"On your backs, all of you, on the floor," said the whip master, "right knees raised, hands at your sides, palms of your hands facing upwards."
We assumed this position. We felt the tiles on our backs. We had worked hard. We were exhausted. The whip master then conversed with the floor manager and his aide. While they talked we lay on the floor, resting, but each of us, by the will of the whip master, in exactly the same position, a slave position.  KAJIRA OF GOR; 19; Page 302

“Don’t you recognize me?” she asked.
I looked at her, puzzled. To be sure, something about her seemed familiar.
“Crouch before me,” she said.
I did so.
She put her hands before her face, the strings of the sack looped twice now about her left wrist. As she held her hands before her, rather to the bridge of the nose, they concealed the lower portions of her face, much as would a veil.
“Ah!” I said. It was not so much at first, however, that I recalled her upper facial features, as hey would have appeared over the veil, if only because it had been very dark in the upper level when I had sought my space last night, as I recalled immediately, vividly, the appearance and positioning of her small hands. The small palms of them, with their delicate, extremely sensitive, exposed openness, faced outwards. It was in this way that I first realized who she was. During the night she had perhaps realized what she had done. Perhaps, then, she had sobbed with shame. Yet now, in the morning, presumably by now fully aware of what she was doing, she dared to again so hold her hands before a man. Even last night, once she must have realized how her hands were positioned, I recalled she had not quickly, shamed, turned them about, presenting their backs to me. One expects a Gorean woman, attempting to conceal her features from a man, to place her hands, cuplike, over her nose and mouth. As I have indicated, the lips and mouth of a female are commonly regarded as extremely sensuous features to a Gorean, hence the concern of many free women, particularly of high caste, in the high cities, to conceal them. A simple way to uncup the woman’s hands is to take the small finger of her left hand in your right hand and pull that hand to the side, and then take the small finger of the right hand in your left hand, and pull that, too, to the side. This opens the barrier and reveals the mouth and lips of the woman to you. In this case, however, as she held her hands, with the palms facing me, I simply took her wrists and, gently, drew them apart. This exposed her lips and mouth to me. Her lips were slightly parted. She was breathing quickly.  RENEGADES OF GOR; 23; Pages 124-125

“And this?” I asked, holding the wicked point, the dangerous steel, still sticky from the blood of the ul, of the unsheathed sword to her bosom.
“Yes,” she said, looking up at me.
“Lie on your back,” I said, “your arms at your sides, the palms of your hands up, your knees lifted, your heels back, up a bit, your toes pressed down into the sand, your legs closely together.”
I looked upon her.
Her wrists, on each side of her, were still encircled with thongs, their dangling ends dark in the sand.
“Am I favorably assessed?” she asked.
I then wiped the blade clean, carefully, using the interior of her thighs, and belly. I used also sand, and, lastly, her hair.
“Am I again to clean myself?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “The delta is not a place for the excessively fastidious.”
“I see,” she said, shuddering.
I sheathed the sword smartly, cracking it into the scabbard.
She reacted, shrinking down, frightened, in the sand. I saw that on some level or another she understood the sheathing of the sword.
“Position!” I snapped.
Swiftly she knelt again, as she had been commanded earlier.
“You obey with the alacrity of a slave girl,” I observed.
“If I do not,” she said, “I could be punished as one, could I not?”
“Yes,” I said, “and would be.”
I walked about her, examining her. She kept her back very straight, and her head up.
I was then again before her.
I noted that the palm of her hands, so soft, so vulnerable, had turned on her thighs, so that they faced up. Among slave girls this is a common way of signaling need, helplessness, a desire to please. As she probably did not know that I took it to be instinctive, or semi-instinctive, perhaps a subconscious, or only partially understood, utilization of the symbolic aspects of the palm of the female’s hand. One reason for thinking this is a very natural behavior is that almost all female slaves, in certain situations, will use it, even before it has been explicitly called to their attention by, say, a whip-master or trainer. Also, it is not uncommon, in certain situations, among captive free women, as witness the Lady Ina, in the repertoire of an experienced slave, of course, it is one of her nonverbal signals, one of those numerous signals, such as need knots, body touchings, and such, by means of which she may express herself, even if forbidden to speak. It may also be used as a begging, placatory behavior. The thongs on the Lady Ina’s wrists, the ends over, and down, beside her thighs, were lovely.  VAGABONDS OF GOR; 24; Pages 208-210

“Lie on your back,” I told her, “your arms at your sides, the palms of your hands up, your left knee raised.”
She did so.  MAGICIANS OF GOR; 25; Page 35

“Slaves,” said I, “as you must now know, have many ways of calling themselves to the attention of a man, subtly, effectively, pleadingly, vulnerably, helplessly, deferentially, humbly.”
She looked up at me.
“The palms of your hands are facing upward,” I said.
“Oh!” she said, and quickly turned them downward, and clutched her thighs. The rag she wore, given her knee position, that of a pleasure slave, was high on her thighs. Her hands, her fingers on her thighs, digging into them, as though they would anchor themselves there, half covered it. He grip was partly through the cloth and partly on her thighs. Midway in her grip came the garment’s frayed hem, pressed down on her fair, sweet thighs. The contrast was attractive, like slave silk against flesh, or a narrow cord sustaining such silk at the shoulder, perhaps an inch from a disrobing loop, or the metal of slave bracelets locked on small, downy wrists, a rope on a waist, snug above a sweetly, rounded belly, or a collar on the neck.  MAGICIANS OF GOR; 25; Page 320

“Position,” I snapped.
Instantly Lavinia rose from her belly to her knees, placing herself in a position common among Gorean pleasure slaves, kneeling back on heels, back straight, head up, palms down on thighs, knees spread.  MAGICIANS OF GOR; 25; Page 431
 

Kudos to you, Mr. Norman for writing the Gorean series!
A rich, yet utterly simple saga; a world, a time, a people;
those of the Counter-Earth .. the planet .. Gor.
Thank you!

The material presented herein was researched and compiled by me, naia{Saul}.
The material referenced comes from John Norman's Gor Series, The Counter-Earth Saga.
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