This is something I've noticed at a couple of hypnokink workshops, where the presenter seems to otherwise have some grasp on ethics. It's in the part of the early patter where he's saying that hypnosis doesn't work like it does in the movies: it's not mind control, it can't make people do things they don't already want to do on some level. Then he goes on to say something like: "If it did work like that, I'd be a millionaire, and polygamously married to Emma Stone, Scarlett Johansson, and Olivia Wilde!"
So, you'd be a rapist?
Friday, August 30, 2013
An MC Short Story: Schlong
Here is a ridiculous hypnotic fantasy I wrote. As far as I know, this is not possible in real life, definitely not to this extent. I also want to say it's from a point of view that's very naive of transgender perspectives - it's just an idea I found hot. This one has no nonconsensual sex; in EMCSA terms it would be coded "mc ma".
SCHLONG
By Divney
SCHLONG
By Divney
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
The Obstinate Questions
As I begin to learn about hypnosis, there are a few questions that I think are going to be with me for a very long time; never getting solved, but always leading to fruitful observations and ideas.
1. What is depth of trance, and what is its importance?
2. How do hypnosis and dominance/submission interact and enhance each other?
3. How powerful and bizarre can hypnotic delusions and hallucinations get?
4. What's up with conversational hypnosis - can it work with people who aren't always about to go into a trance anyway? How can it be learned?
5. Besides "depth", what are the dimensions along which trances vary subjectively - their "flavours" - and how can I manipulate them for my partner's in-trance enjoyment?
I'm sure this list will grow...
1. What is depth of trance, and what is its importance?
2. How do hypnosis and dominance/submission interact and enhance each other?
3. How powerful and bizarre can hypnotic delusions and hallucinations get?
4. What's up with conversational hypnosis - can it work with people who aren't always about to go into a trance anyway? How can it be learned?
5. Besides "depth", what are the dimensions along which trances vary subjectively - their "flavours" - and how can I manipulate them for my partner's in-trance enjoyment?
I'm sure this list will grow...
Where I'm At
All going well, by the end of the week I will have had some major new experiences, so this is a good time to take stock.
I have hypnotized 7 people. Five women, one man, and one genderqueer person. Some very deeply, some not very deeply. So far I and my trancees have achieved the following hypnotic things together, at least to a minor extent:
- 4 or 5 different types of induction
- Auditory hallucination
- Touch hallucination
- Body freeze
- Mannequin
- Sexual pleasure
- Arousal
- Selective amnesia
And here are the major things I have not yet achieved with a trance partner, but would love to:
- Visual hallucination
- Hypnotic orgasm
- Trance trigger
- Struggling to resist trance trigger
- Remote erogenous zones
- Hypnotic bondage
- Role play/delusions
- Mantras
- Submission triggers
- Rapid inductions
- Sensitization
- Blank trigger
- Unusual trigger conditions (time, other external event)
It's a little juvenile to think of it in terms of a checklist, of course these are only the first baby steps to becoming a good hypnotist, but at this point it's very exciting to me to contemplate all the "firsts" to come.
I have hypnotized 7 people. Five women, one man, and one genderqueer person. Some very deeply, some not very deeply. So far I and my trancees have achieved the following hypnotic things together, at least to a minor extent:
- 4 or 5 different types of induction
- Auditory hallucination
- Touch hallucination
- Body freeze
- Mannequin
- Sexual pleasure
- Arousal
- Selective amnesia
And here are the major things I have not yet achieved with a trance partner, but would love to:
- Visual hallucination
- Hypnotic orgasm
- Trance trigger
- Struggling to resist trance trigger
- Remote erogenous zones
- Hypnotic bondage
- Role play/delusions
- Mantras
- Submission triggers
- Rapid inductions
- Sensitization
- Blank trigger
- Unusual trigger conditions (time, other external event)
It's a little juvenile to think of it in terms of a checklist, of course these are only the first baby steps to becoming a good hypnotist, but at this point it's very exciting to me to contemplate all the "firsts" to come.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
What to Expect from the Boston HypnoMunch
Every month in Cambridge, Massachusetts I help to run a low key get-together for erotic hypnosis enthusiasts, under the banner of the New England Hypnosis Group. If you're not familiar with the concept of munches, the idea is that it's a way to meet people face to face who may share similar kinky interests, in a nonsexual, public setting. In our case, a table at a restaurant. I think this is a brilliant invention that helps to overcome a lot of the justified nervousness people might have in making first contact with strangers who are into some freaky shit (even if it's the same freaky shit that you're into!)
But it still takes a lot of courage just to show up for the first time. I know, I remember how nervous I was my first time going to the Prudential munch, way back in November 2012. I passed the entrance to the food court 2, maybe 3 times before I got the nerve to go in. We had a bunch of new people last night, some who had never been to a munch of any kind before, and I really applaud them for stepping into the unknown. To make it a bit easier, here's some information from the hypnomunch we had last night, to give you an idea of what to expect. There have only been 5 so far, so it's hard to say what's typical, but this didn't seem so different from the others I've attended.
We had a long table at the back of an italian restaurant (with appetizers paid for by our sponsor organization NELA!) Eventually there were 15 people, including 7 male-identified people, 6 female-identified people, and two folks who identify as gender fluid or gender queer (this is my best attempt to characterize based on people's FL profiles). There was a wide age range, with the median probably being around 30. It was a great mix of hypno tops and bottoms, people who do hypnosis online or not, and people with a lot of experience, a little experience, or just curious.
The munch starts at around 5 pm, and we chatted and ate food until around 7 or maybe a bit earlier. The conversation around me was about half hypnosis stuff and half everything under the sun: medieval playwriting, how Harvard square used to be cooler, Canadian accents.
A new thing we are trying to get going is the option of some low-level play after the munch, i.e. hypnotic trances without a sexual component (except in how all hypnosis is sexy to hypnofetishists like me). The idea is that you can peel off at that point, the official end of the munch, or continue if you have the desire to try trancing with someone or seeing it done. In this case, 10 people elected to continue. The actual space for this to occur is a problem: we all walked to another local restaurant where there was supposed to be a meeting room we could use, but it turned out they don't formally book it, so there were people already in there eating who they couldn't displace. So, no privacy.
Instead we wandered into a local park, and split into two groups at the picnic tables. I did one trance and PhotoJoseph did another, with suggestions including a freeze trigger, a giggle trigger, and the sensation of a feather brushing the nose (all temporary).
So, simple and fun stuff - both because of the setting and the mandate of the post-munch, we didn't get too far into it. The park worked out ok, except for some mosquito bites, but rest assured we are working hard to find a better space, where you don't have to go into trance sitting on a wooden board. The post munch ended around 8:30 due to darkness, and we all walked back to cars/subway together. Lots of great talk on the way back about hypnotic technique (and fun periodic deployment of the freeze trigger).
I feel so grateful to be living here at the moment, which has to be one of the best places in North America for erotic hypnosis, thanks in no small part to PhotoJoseph's efforts in getting this munch off the ground.
If you're in the area and any of this sounds good to you, you should come check one out. We would love to meet you. The next one is on Saturday, November 23rd at 5 pm (Fetlife event link)
and you can always get updates about them from the New England Hypnosis Group fetlife group.
But it still takes a lot of courage just to show up for the first time. I know, I remember how nervous I was my first time going to the Prudential munch, way back in November 2012. I passed the entrance to the food court 2, maybe 3 times before I got the nerve to go in. We had a bunch of new people last night, some who had never been to a munch of any kind before, and I really applaud them for stepping into the unknown. To make it a bit easier, here's some information from the hypnomunch we had last night, to give you an idea of what to expect. There have only been 5 so far, so it's hard to say what's typical, but this didn't seem so different from the others I've attended.
We had a long table at the back of an italian restaurant (with appetizers paid for by our sponsor organization NELA!) Eventually there were 15 people, including 7 male-identified people, 6 female-identified people, and two folks who identify as gender fluid or gender queer (this is my best attempt to characterize based on people's FL profiles). There was a wide age range, with the median probably being around 30. It was a great mix of hypno tops and bottoms, people who do hypnosis online or not, and people with a lot of experience, a little experience, or just curious.
The munch starts at around 5 pm, and we chatted and ate food until around 7 or maybe a bit earlier. The conversation around me was about half hypnosis stuff and half everything under the sun: medieval playwriting, how Harvard square used to be cooler, Canadian accents.
A new thing we are trying to get going is the option of some low-level play after the munch, i.e. hypnotic trances without a sexual component (except in how all hypnosis is sexy to hypnofetishists like me). The idea is that you can peel off at that point, the official end of the munch, or continue if you have the desire to try trancing with someone or seeing it done. In this case, 10 people elected to continue. The actual space for this to occur is a problem: we all walked to another local restaurant where there was supposed to be a meeting room we could use, but it turned out they don't formally book it, so there were people already in there eating who they couldn't displace. So, no privacy.
Instead we wandered into a local park, and split into two groups at the picnic tables. I did one trance and PhotoJoseph did another, with suggestions including a freeze trigger, a giggle trigger, and the sensation of a feather brushing the nose (all temporary).
So, simple and fun stuff - both because of the setting and the mandate of the post-munch, we didn't get too far into it. The park worked out ok, except for some mosquito bites, but rest assured we are working hard to find a better space, where you don't have to go into trance sitting on a wooden board. The post munch ended around 8:30 due to darkness, and we all walked back to cars/subway together. Lots of great talk on the way back about hypnotic technique (and fun periodic deployment of the freeze trigger).
I feel so grateful to be living here at the moment, which has to be one of the best places in North America for erotic hypnosis, thanks in no small part to PhotoJoseph's efforts in getting this munch off the ground.
If you're in the area and any of this sounds good to you, you should come check one out. We would love to meet you. The next one is on Saturday, November 23rd at 5 pm (Fetlife event link)
and you can always get updates about them from the New England Hypnosis Group fetlife group.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
The Chicken and the Car Crash
"I just don't want to be made to cluck like a chicken!" This is usually said as a joke, but there is a very real fear behind it: that a hypnotist might make them do something humiliating without their consent. This is one of the reasons I think the existence of stage hypnotism is incredibly harmful to hypnokink people like myself. It lets people know that it's real, and maybe even sexy, but there is also a widespread acceptance of stage hypnotists giving people types of suggestions that they haven't negotiated, and that many people would find humiliating. This gives people an understandable fear of hypnosis.
I haven't actually been to a stage show, but my friend gave me a typical example, from when a stage hypnotist came to provide entertainment at his middle school. After this grown man selected the most suggestible of the 13 year olds (already creepy), he proceeded to give them suggestions to act out in various ways, like impersonating celebrities or having different sensations, provoking laughter from their classmates. (by the way, this gave me some insight into how real hypnotism could be possible under such high pressure, low trust conditions: he conducted tests to find the most responsive 5 out of a room of 500) At the end, he told the people on stage that they wouldn't remember much, except that they did some silly, fun things in front of their friends, and should feel good about it.
I realize that I'm painting this in the worst possible way, and there are things that might make it not quite so gross: maybe the people onstage wanted an excuse to act out of the ordinary and be the center of attention, and probably the hypnotist had some patter to make them feel special for having volunteered and getting laughs. Nevertheless, there was probably a huge portion of that audience who laughed and thought to themselves that day, "I will never try hypnotism." I won't even get into the problems with using amnesia that way, or the way social pressure and authority are wielded to get compliance.
A lot of standard hypnosis tricks and demonstrations are based around making someone look foolish. I really started to realize that thanks to one of my first trance partners, who specified that she does not want to be humiliated in any way. I give her so much credit for, first, having the self awareneness to know that about herself, and second, having the courage to insist on that. So many people would just have felt very uncomfortable with certain suggestions in their first trance session, but not known why, and just avoided it ever after.
So it's a challenge, but I want to rewrite the standards of hypnosis to involve no humiliation without consent. Of course some people really dig a little humiliation, and that can be a fun and erotic part of hypnosis play. But many people don't, and there are still plenty of pleasurable and fascinating effects that can be achieved that don't have that element to it - always keeping in mind that different people find different things humiliating, even things such as forgetting numbers or uncontrollably falling into a trance in front of others (although it seems like even humiliation fans draw a hard line before clucking like a chicken, further demonstrating how it's terrible PR). I pledge to always include that as part of my negotiation before a trance.
As for the car crash, this same friend that I was talking to last weekend told me that his other exposure to hypnosis had been in high school, when a hypnotist had taken a group of students into a trance onstage and led them through a scenario where they were driving drunk and killed one of their friends. This produced realistic reactions of shock and grief onstage. It was part of a travelling presentation to fight drunk driving among teens. I have no words for how horrifyingly unethical this is - it's stunning that it happened in the early 1990s, and not the early 1960s. Can you imagine getting permission from a research ethics committee to do this to people? And I am positive they did not agree to have such a traumatic experience. I suppose this is another example of how young people's rights and autonomy are not taken seriously. There's not a problem with hypnosis here: there's a problem with lack of consent culture.
I haven't actually been to a stage show, but my friend gave me a typical example, from when a stage hypnotist came to provide entertainment at his middle school. After this grown man selected the most suggestible of the 13 year olds (already creepy), he proceeded to give them suggestions to act out in various ways, like impersonating celebrities or having different sensations, provoking laughter from their classmates. (by the way, this gave me some insight into how real hypnotism could be possible under such high pressure, low trust conditions: he conducted tests to find the most responsive 5 out of a room of 500) At the end, he told the people on stage that they wouldn't remember much, except that they did some silly, fun things in front of their friends, and should feel good about it.
I realize that I'm painting this in the worst possible way, and there are things that might make it not quite so gross: maybe the people onstage wanted an excuse to act out of the ordinary and be the center of attention, and probably the hypnotist had some patter to make them feel special for having volunteered and getting laughs. Nevertheless, there was probably a huge portion of that audience who laughed and thought to themselves that day, "I will never try hypnotism." I won't even get into the problems with using amnesia that way, or the way social pressure and authority are wielded to get compliance.
A lot of standard hypnosis tricks and demonstrations are based around making someone look foolish. I really started to realize that thanks to one of my first trance partners, who specified that she does not want to be humiliated in any way. I give her so much credit for, first, having the self awareneness to know that about herself, and second, having the courage to insist on that. So many people would just have felt very uncomfortable with certain suggestions in their first trance session, but not known why, and just avoided it ever after.
So it's a challenge, but I want to rewrite the standards of hypnosis to involve no humiliation without consent. Of course some people really dig a little humiliation, and that can be a fun and erotic part of hypnosis play. But many people don't, and there are still plenty of pleasurable and fascinating effects that can be achieved that don't have that element to it - always keeping in mind that different people find different things humiliating, even things such as forgetting numbers or uncontrollably falling into a trance in front of others (although it seems like even humiliation fans draw a hard line before clucking like a chicken, further demonstrating how it's terrible PR). I pledge to always include that as part of my negotiation before a trance.
As for the car crash, this same friend that I was talking to last weekend told me that his other exposure to hypnosis had been in high school, when a hypnotist had taken a group of students into a trance onstage and led them through a scenario where they were driving drunk and killed one of their friends. This produced realistic reactions of shock and grief onstage. It was part of a travelling presentation to fight drunk driving among teens. I have no words for how horrifyingly unethical this is - it's stunning that it happened in the early 1990s, and not the early 1960s. Can you imagine getting permission from a research ethics committee to do this to people? And I am positive they did not agree to have such a traumatic experience. I suppose this is another example of how young people's rights and autonomy are not taken seriously. There's not a problem with hypnosis here: there's a problem with lack of consent culture.
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