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"Who are you?" he said.
I again did not respond. This time he seemed angry.
"Do you choose to be face-stripped before men?" he asked.
I shook my head, negatively.
His hands were at the first veil, the street veil.
"Well?" he asked.
I did not answer.
I felt the veil lifted away from my face. "Remove your gloves," he said.
I slipped the gloves from my hands. He took them and threw them to my feet.
My hands felt the night air.
"Speak," he said.
When I did not respond to him, he pulled away the house veil. The men crowded more closely about. The flesh of my face was now concealed from the direct vision of the strong males by only three veils, the pride veil, the veil of the citizeness and the sheer fifth, or last, veil. Already, in stripping me of the house veil, outrage had been done to me. It was as though the privacy and intimacy of my house had been violated. It was as though they had invaded my house and taken my dress from me, forcing me to stand before them in my slip.
"Who are you?" asked the man again. How could I tell him who I was? My master had not even given me a name.
"The pride veil will be next, if you do not speak," said the man.
- Slave Girl

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I dared not speak. I turned my head to the side, with a wild sob, as the veil of the citizeness was torn away. I wore now only the last veil. It was as though in my own home an almost final shield of modesty had been taken from me, leaving me only a bit of wide-strung netting, inviting the ripping hand of a master.
- Slave Girl

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I felt his hand tighten in the veil. Then he jerked it away. I was face-stripped, completely. I closed my eyes, with shame. I reddened. It was as though the last bit of netting, mockery of modesty though it might be, had been ripped away. My face, my feelings, my emotions, now lay bare to them. My face, though I wore robes of concealment, was as naked as that of a slave girl.
"I wonder if you are free, my beauty," said the captain.
My mouth, now that he had torn away the veil, was fully exposed to his. Nothing now separated his mouth, his tongue, his teeth, from mine. From his point of view I then, though I might be free, might as well have been a slave girl.
- Slave Girl

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The eyes of the soldiers were mostly on the crowd. There seemed little doubt such men formed an efficient guard. The chair, I noted, was not borne by male draft slaves, but was supported by tharlarion. There might be various reasons for this. One might be ostentation, a simple display of wealth, for good tharlarion are generally more expensive than male slaves, particularly draft slaves. But perhaps, even more, the cargo might be regarded as too precious to be risked in the vicinity of male slaves. After all, they are men. Too, perhaps it was felt appropriate, if the cargo was deemed of sufficient beauty, that it even be borne by male slaves. After all, might there not be some danger, as the fair occupant entered into, or descended gracefully from, the sedan chair, that there might be the careless movement of a veil, revealing a bit of throat, or the inadvertent lifting of a robe of concealment, giving them the glimpse of a briefly exposed ankle?
- Mercenaries

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“She has fallen far from the favor of Belnar,” he said. “In Brundisium I am confident she will be permitted only a brevity of skirting, one suitable for slaves. Similarly I am confident she will be denied footwear and face veiling.”
“Excellent,” I said.
- Players

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“You were the cause of my reduction in rank,” she cried. “You were the cause of my loss of status in Brundisium, my descent from favor in the eyes of my Ubar, Belnar, the reason I have been denied the right to conceal my features, my right as a free female, the reason I have been placed in brief, shameful garments, forcing me to make clear to men my femaleness, the reason I may not bind my hair, but must wear it as though it might be that of a slave, but that is all finished now. Now all changes! No, fool, you will be the reason not only for my restoration to privilege and station in Brundisium, the reason for my new rise to favor in the court, in the eyes of Belnar, my Ubar, but the cause, as well, of my attaining there, in the palace and in the service of my Ubar and the state, new heights of prestige, status and power! Let Flaminius weep with envy! I shall be a thousand times higher than he!”
- Players

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“It is Milo,” whispered one free woman to another. They were together, veiled.
“Let us hurry after him, to catch a glimpse of him,” said one of them.
“Do not be shameless!” chided the first.
“We are veiled,” the second reminded her.
“Let us hurry,” urged the first then, and the two pressed forward, through the crowd, after the purple-clad figure.
- Magicians

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At one secluded point in one of the gardens I had paused and, pretending to adjust my veil, had stood quite close to Drusus Rencius, but he bad stepped back, and looked away. He had not kissed me. I had then, angrily, refastened my veil. I wondered why he had not kissed me. Was it because I was a Tatrix? I wondered what it would be like to be kissed by him. I wondered if he might, touching my lips, I in his arms, helplessly held there, suddenly rape my lips with his kiss, and then, unable to help himself, hurl me to his feet, crouching over me then ferociously, to remove my robes and force me to his service.
I felt the wind, over the parapet, move my veil.
- Kajira

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I missed the shrill, interminable calls of the vendors, each different; the good- natured banter of friends in the marketplace exchanging gossip and dinner invitations; the shouts of burly porters threading their way through the tumult; the cries of children escaped from their tutors and playing tag among the stalls; the laughter of veiled girls teasing and being teased by young men, girls purportedly on errands for their families, yet somehow finding the time to taunt the young swains of the city, if only by a flash of their dark eyes and a perhaps too casual adjustment of their veil.
Though on Gor the free maiden is by custom expected to see her future companion only after her parents have selected him, it is common knowledge that he is often a youth she has met in the marketplace. He who speaks for he hand, especially if she is of low caste, is seldom unknown to her, although the parents and the young people as well solemnly act as though this were the case. The same maiden whom her father must harshly order into the presence of her suitor, the same shy girl who, her parents approvingly note, finds herself delicately unable to raise her eyes in his presence, is probably the same girl who slapped him with a fish yesterday and hurled such a stream of invective at him that his ears still smart, and all because he accidentally happened to be looking in her direction when an unpredictable wind had, in spite of her best efforts, temporarily disarranged the folds of her veil.
- Outlaw

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On Gor, for free women, both body veiling and face veiling are cultural, and tend to be widely practiced. I suppose, objectively, there is something more to be said for face veiling than body veiling. Bodies, though differing remarkably, one to the other, tend perhaps to be somewhat more similar than faces. Accordingly, if one should be concerned to protect one’s privacy and one’s feelings, and such, it seems that the face might preferably be veiled. In the face, surely, it is easier to read emotion and individuality than in a body. Should not the face then, if one is concerned with concealment and privacy, be veiled? Is the face not more personal and revealing than the body? Does it not make sense then to consider it a proper object of concealment in a free person? Is one not entitled, so to speak, to privacy in the matter of one’s thoughts and feelings, sometimes so manifest in one’s facial expressions? However this may be, there are congruences and dispositions which seem appropriate in given contexts. Veils seem correct, and right, with the robes of concealment. Too, seeing the lust of men to discern your features, and understanding what face veiling and unveiling means to them, tends to influence one’s views of these matters. I was terrified that such men see my face. I did not want my face to be seen by them. In many Gorean cities, only a slave girl goes unveiled.
- Slave Girl

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Beneath it, of course, the Lady Sabina had been face-stripped. She turned her face away, that we be unable to look upon it. My master, to my pleasure, simply took her by the hair and turned her face brazenly to all of us, exposing and baring it to all of us for our full gaze. She twisted but, hurt, could not turn her face away. He held it before us, letting us savor it, for a full Ehn. Then, after an Ehn, he released her hair. She sobbed. She regarded us, angrily. But no longer did she try to hide her face. It was pointless now to do so. My master had not seen fit to tolerate her game of modesty. She had been face-stripped, publicly.
- Slave Girl

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"Keep me for ransom, Warrior," she said, frightened. I think she knew her face and throat were being assessed, as might have been those of a slave.
He removed his thumb from under her chin.
"It would be irrational not to keep me for ransom," she said. "My ransom will be far higher than any price you could realize on me in a market."
This was surely true, though it was true, too, she was quite beautiful.
"Surely," said she, "you did not attack my retinue merely to carry off a girl to wear your collar."
"No," said my master. "There is, of course, the matter of the treasure dowry."
"Of course," she said. She now breathed more easily. "You are common bandits," she said. Then she said, "You have done well, stout fellows. Your loot is valuable. The dowry is immense and rich. And I, too, in ransom, will bring you much, more even than the dowry you have so boldly taken. But return to me now my veils, and my sandals, too, for my ransom surely will be less if it understood my modesty has been so grievously compromised. Your boldness, for the honor of my name and the security of your skin, may remain our secret."
- Slave Girl

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Thereafter the free woman had seemed strange and restless. She began to take to walking upon the high bridges. Once, when a tarnsman snapped by, pursued by guardsmen, mounted, too, on tarns, she had torn the veils from her face and, boldly, supplicatingly, had lifted her robes, revealing her left thigh to the hip. The tarnsman, circling about, took mercy upon her and it is said she cried out with joy as his braided leather rope dropped about her and tightened on her body, jerking her, its prisoner, from the high bridge.
- Slave Girl

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"Give us the woman," said the man.
"No," said Drusus Rencius.
I suddenly cried out, seized from the side, and I saw Drusus Rencius, the torch flung to the side, lunge toward the man who had been in the center of the first two. One man, one of two who had been approaching us from the side, threw me back against a wall. I could not move because of his presence. My veil, not even unpinned, was wadded and thrust back, deeply in my mouth. I heard swords clashing.
- Kajira

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Miles of Argentum sheathed his sword. He handed his helmet to one
of the men with him.
He approached the throne.
"Please, don't," I said.
Then fiend jerked away the veil of state from my features. I, though a free woman, had been face-stripped before free men. My face was as bare to them as though I might be a slave. Face-stripping a free woman, against her will, can be a serious crime on Gor. On the other hand, Corcyrus had now fallen. Her women, thusly, now at the feet of her conquerors, would be little better than slaves. Any fate could now be inflicted on them that the conquerors might wish, including making them actual slaves. The hand of Miles of Argentum then brushed back my robes, that my whole head and features, to the throat, might be
revealed to the crowd.
- Kajira

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What happened then was done very swiftly. Kamchak lifted from the box an object indeed intended to grace the throat of a girl. But it was a round metal ring, a Turian collar, the collar of a slave. There was a firm snap of the heavy lock in the back of the collar and the throat of Aphris of Turia had been encircled with slave steel! At the same instant Kamchak lifted her startled to her feet and turned her to face him, with both hands tearing the veil from her face!
Then, before any of the startled Turians could stop him, he had purchased by his audacity a bold kiss from the lips of the astounded Aphris of Turia! Then he hurled her from him across and over the low table until she fell to the floor where Tuchuk slaves had danced for her pleasure. The quiva, appearing as if by magic in his hand, warned back those who would press in upon him to revenge the daughter of their city. I stood beside Kamchak, ready to defend him with my
life, yet as startled as any in the room at what had been done.
The girl now had struggled to her knees tearing at the collar. Her tiny gloved fingers were locked in it, pulling at it, as though by brute force she would tear it from her throat.
Kamchak was looking at her. "Beneath your robes of white and gold," he said, "I smelled the body of a slave girl."
"Sleen! Sleen! Sleen!" she cried.
"Replace your veil!" ordered Saphrar.
"Remove the collar immediately," commanded Kamras, plenipotentiary of Phanius Turmus, Administrator of Turia.
Kamchak smiled. "It seems," he said, "that I have forgotten the key."
"Send for one of the Caste of Metal Workers!" cried Saphrar.
There were cries on all sides, "Slay the Tuchuk sleen!"
"Torture for him!" "The oil of tharlarions!" "Leech plants""
"Impalement!" "Tongs and fire!" But Kamchak seemed unmoved. And none rushed upon him, for in his hand, and he was Tuchuk, there gleamed the quiva.
"Slay him!" screamed Aphris of Turia, "Slay him!"
"Replace your veil," repeated Saphrar to the girl. "Have you no shame?"
The girl attempted to rearrange the folds of the veil, but could only hold it before her face, for Kamchak had ripped away the pins by which it was customarily fastened.
- Nomads

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The girl, not unaware I am sure of the eyes upon her, stopped on the stairway and loftily surveyed the scene of the banquet. I could sense that she had almost immediately seen myself and Kamchak, strangers at the tables. Something in her carriage suggested that she might be amused.
I heard Saphrar whisper to Kamchak, whose eyes glowed as they rested on the figure in white and gold on the distant stairway.
"Is she not worth the golden sphere?" asked the merchant.
"It is hard to tell," said Kamchak.
"I have the word of her serving slaves," insisted Saphrar.
"She is said to be marvelous."
- Nomads

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The girl was now quite close to me, and yet had not seen me. Her head was down. She was clad in Robes of Concealment, but their texture and color were a far cry from the glorious vanities often expressed in such garments, the silken purples, yellows and scarlets that the Gorean maiden delighted in; the robes were of coarse brown cloth, tattered and caked with dirt. Everything about her bespoke misery and dejection.
"Tal," I said, quietly, that I might not startle her too much, lifting my arm in gentle salute.
She had not known of my presence, and yet she did not seem much surprised. This was a moment she had apparently expected for many days, and now it had come. Her head lifted and her eyes, fine, grey eyes, dulled with sorrow and perhaps hunger, regarded me. She seemed to take no great interest in me, or her fate. I gathered that I might have been anyone.
We faced one another without speaking for a moment.
"Tal, Warrior," she said, softly, her voice emotionless.
Then, for a Gorean woman, she did an incredible thing.
Without speaking, she slowly unwound the veil from her face and dropped it to her shoulders. She stood before me, as it is said, face-stripped, and that by her own hand. She looked at me, openly, directly, not brazenly, but without fear. Her hair was brown and fine, the splendid grey eyes seemed even more clear, and her face, I saw, was beautiful, even more beautiful than I had imagined.
"Do I please you?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "You please me very much."
I knew that this might be the first time a man had looked upon her face, except perhaps a member of her own family, if she had such.
- Outlaw

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She stood before me. She had dared to brush back her hood. She had unpinned her shimmering veils, permitting them to fall about her throat and shoulders. A soft movement of hands and a shake of her head had thrown her long, dark hair behind her back. She had dark eyes. Her face was softly rounded. It was delicate and beautiful.
"You have unpinned your veil," I observed.
"Yes," she said.
"You are brazen," I said.
"Yes," she said, insolently.
I mused, considering this. It is not difficult, of course, to take insolence from a woman.
"Why have you unpinned your veil before me?" I asked.
"Perhaps you will like what you see," she said.
"Bold female," I observed.
She tossed her head, impatiently.
"Do you have the least inkling as to what it might be, to belong to a man, wholly?"
"Do you find me pleasing?" she asked.
"Answer my question," I said.
"Yes," she said.
I wondered if this is true. It might be. She was Gorean.
"Now, she said. "Answer mine!"
"Do not court an altercation in your condition, unless you are prepared to accept it, in its full consequences," I said.
She shuddered. She lowered her eyes. "It is said that there is in every woman that which I sense so fearfully, yet longingly, in myself."
"I wonder if that is true," I said.
"I do not know," she said, "but I know that it is in me, passionately, strongly, irresistibly."
"You are bold," I said.
"A free woman may be bold," she said.
"True," I granted her.
"I need this for my fulfillment, to be one with myself," she said.
"Speak clearly," I said. She was free. I saw no point in making it easy for her.
"I want to be a total woman, in the order of nature," she said.
I shrugged.
"My heart cries out," she wept, "with the need to be accepted, to be acquired, to be owned, to be mastered, to be forced to submit, to be forced to will-lessly and selflessly serve and love!"
I did not respond to her.
"I beg this of you, for you are a man," she said.
"Speak with greater precision," I said.
She shook her head. "Please, no," she said.
I shrugged.
"Mine is the slave sex!" she said, angrily, defiantly.
"The slave sex?" I asked.
"Yes!" she said.
"And you are a member of that sex?" I asked.
"Yes!" she said, angrily.
"I see," I said.
"I am tired of trying to be like a man!" she said. "It is a lie which robs me of myself!"
- Mercenaries

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"Throw back your hoods, pull down your veils, females!" laughed the wagoner.
The women crowding about the back of the wagon, many with their hands outstretched, the sleeves of their robes falling back, cried out in consternation.
"3/4 of you would be fed!" he added.
These women must be new, I thought. Probably they had come only recently to the wagons, probably trekking overland from some contacted village, perhaps one from as far away as fifty pasangs, a common range for the excursions, the searches and collections of mounted foragers. Most of the women I had seen following the wagons, at any rate, knew enough by now to approach them only bareheaded, as female supplicants, too, to be more pleasing to the men who might possibly be persuaded to feed them, with their hair visible and loose as that of slaves. Similarly, most had already discarded or hidden their veils, even when not begging. They did not even wear them in their own small, foul, often-fireless makeshift camps near the wagons, camps, to be sure, to which men might sometimes come. It had been discovered that a woman who is seen with a veil, even if she has lowered the veil, abjectly and piteously face-stripping1 herself, is less likely to be fed than one with no veil in evidence. Too, of course, it had been quickly noted that such women, too, tended to be less frequently selected for the pleasure of the drivers. The men with the wagons had not seen fit to permit the women the dignity of veiling. In this, of course, they treated them like slaves. "Please!" cried a woman, thrusting back her hood and
tearing away her veil. "Feed me! Please, feed me!' The others, too, then almost instantly, hastily, each seeming to hurry to be before the others, some moaning and crying out in misery, unhooded and unveiled themselves.
"That is better, females," laughed the driver.
Many of the women moaned and wept.
- Mercenaries

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She still wore the brief, exciting leather of a Tuchuk wagon girl and, when striding the high bridges, her hair in the wind, she attracted much attention, not only, obviously, from the men, but from women, both slave and free.
Once a slave girl bumped into her on one of the bridges and struck at her, thinking she was only slave, but Elizabeth, with a swift blow of her small fist, downed the girl, and managed to seize one ankle and prevent her from tumbling from the bridge. "Slave!" cried the girl. At this point Elizabeth hit her again, almost knocking her once more from the bridge. Then, when they had their hands in one another's hair, kicking, the slave girl suddenly stopped, terrified, not seeing the gleaming, narrow band of steel locked on Elizabeth's throat. "Where is your collar?" she stammered.
"What collar?" asked Elizabeth, her fists clenched in the girl's hair.
"The collar," repeated the girl numbly.
"I'm free," said Elizabeth.
Suddenly the girl howled and fell to her knees before Elizabeth, kneeling trembling to the whip. "Forgive me, Mistress," she cried. "Forgive me!"
When one who is slave strikes a free person the penalty is not infrequently death by impalement, preceded by lengthy torture.
"Oh, get up!" said Elizabeth irritably, jerking the poor gift to her feet.
They stood there looking at one another.
"After all," said Elizabeth, "why should it be only slave girls who are comfortable and can move freely?"
"Aren't you slave?" asked one of the men nearby, a Warrior, looking closely.
Elizabeth slapped him rather hard and he staggered back, "No, I am not," she informed him.
He stood there rubbing his face, puzzled. A number of people had gathered about, among them several free women.
"If you are free," said one of them, "you should be ashamed of yourself, being seen on the bridges so clad."
"Well," said Elizabeth, "if you like walking around wrapped up in blankets, you are free to do so."
"Shameless!" cried the free girl.
"You probably have ugly legs," said Elizabeth.
"I do not!" retorted the girl.
"Don't choke on your veil," advised Elizabeth.
"I am really beautiful!" cried the free girl.
"I doubt it," said Elizabeth.
"I am!" she cried.
"Well then," said Elizabeth, "what are you ashamed of?" Then Elizabeth strode to her and, to the girl's horror, on one of the public high bridges, face-stripped her. The girl screamed but no one came to her aid, and Elizabeth spun her about, peeling off layers of Robes of Concealment until, in a heavy pile of silk, brocade, satin and starched muslin the girl stood in a sleeveless, rather brief orange tunic, attractive, of a sort sometimes worn by free women in the privacy of their own quarters.
The girl stood there, wringing her hands and wailing. The slave girl had backed off, looking as though she might topple off the bridge in sheer terror.
Elizabeth regarded the free woman. "Well," she said, "you are rather beautiful, aren't you?"
The free woman stopped wailing. "Do you think so?" she asked.
"Twenty gold pieces, I'd say," appraised Elizabeth.
"I'd give twenty-three," said one of the men watching, the same fellow whom Elizabeth had slapped.
In fury the free woman turned about and slapped him again, it not being his day in Ko-ro-ba.
- Assassin

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Many Gorean woman in their haughtiness and pride, do not choose to have their features exposed to the common view. They are too fine and noble to be looked upon by the casual rabble. Similarly the robes of concealment worn by many Gorean women are doubtless dictated by similar sentiments. On the other hand veiling is a not impractical modesty in a culture n which capture, and the chain and the whip are not known.
One justification for the veiling and for the robes of concealment, which is not regarded as inconsiderable, is that it is supposed to provide something of a protection against abduction and predation. Who would risk his life, it is said, to carry off a woman who might when roped to a tree and stripped, turn out to be as ugly as a tharlarion? Slave girls, by contract, are almost never permitted veils. Similarly, they are usually clad in such a say that their charms are manifest and obvious to even the casual onlookers. This, aside from having such utilities as reminding the girls that they are total slaves and giving pleasure to the men who look upon them, is supposed to make them, rather than free women, the desiderated objects of capture and rapine. I think there is something to this theory for statistically, it is almost always the female slave and not her free sister who finds herself abducted and struggling in the lashings of captors or slavers. On the other hand, in spite of the theories pertaining to such matters, free women are certainly not immune to the fates of capture and enslavement. Many men, despite the theories pertaining to such matters, and accepting the risks involved, enjoy taking them. Some slavers specialize in the capture of free women. Indeed, it is thought by some, perhaps largely because of the additional risks involved, and the interest in seeing what one has caught, that there is a special spice and flavor about taking them. Similarly it is said to be pleasant, if one has the time and patience, first to their horror and then to their joy, training them to the collar.
- Rogue

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There seem to be two major reasons why free women are seldom raped on Gor. First, it is thought that they, being free, are to be accorded the highest respect, and, secondly, slave females are regarded as being much more desirable. There is little difficulty, commonly, incidentally, in distinguishing between the free woman and the slave. The garment of the slave is usually brief, distinctive and sexually exciting; it is designed to show her to men; the garments of the free woman, on the other hand, are commonly multitudinous, concealing and cumbersome; they are designed to protect her modesty, and hide her from the eyes of men.
In many cities it is a capital offense for the slave girl to don such garments. They are not for her. She is only a slave. Similarly, free women will almost never touch the garment of a slave. They would be scandalized to do so. Such garments are just too sexually exciting. On the other hand, there have been cases when a free woman, boldly, has donned such a garment and dared to walk in the streets and upon the bridges, masquerading as a mere slave upon an errand for her master. She will not be recognized for, commonly, when she goes out, she is veiled.
On the streets, now, of course, she will be taken for only another slave. She revels in this new-found freedom; she exults in the bold appraisals to which she now finds herself subjected, those which free men may fittingly bestow upon a slave; she inclines her head submissively as she passes. free men; should they stop her, perhaps to question her, or inquire after directions, she falls to her knees before them; then, later, aroused, excited, trembling, breathless, she returns to her home and enters her compartment, perhaps there to throw herself on her couch, to bite and tear at the coverlets, sobbing with unrelieved passion.

The excursions of such women, commonly, grow more bold. Perhaps they take to walking the high bridges, under the Gorean moons. Perhaps they fall to the noose of a passing tarnsman. Perhaps they attract the attention of a visiting slaver. His men receive their orders. She is brought to him and subjected to rude assessments. If she is found sufficiently comely she is gagged and hooded, and slave iron is locked upon her body. When this caravan leaves the city she is carried away with it, another girl, another piece of merchandise, in chains, bound for a distant market, and a master.
-Guardsman

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