The Either/Or Construction for Asking for Consent

I bought this delightful erotic hypnosis video by Lex of entrancement.co.uk, and there was a nice moment towards the end that showed a smooth way to ask for consent. His model, Ziva Knight, had been having a very sexy shower where she had gone in and out of trance and the shower gel, by his suggestion, was arousing on her skin. She was obviously getting turned on. After a while (and when she was not in trance) he asked:

Tell me, do you want this to feel sexual - do you want a climax - or do you want to cool down now and just enjoy the rest of your shower?

And, notably, she said, "Cool down". And he launched into his "cool down" patter.

I like this either/or construction, because it gives someone an easy out, which I think is so important for meaningful and easy negotiation. Women in particular are trained that it's a big deal to say "no", and if Ziva was asked only, "do you want a climax?" and wasn't skilled at deflecting the question, they might have felt pressured.

And how it was done was just as important as the form: he spoke in a neutral voice, giving both possibilities equal emphasis, and so conveying that he didn't care whether it went one way or the other. I know Lex is into hypnotic orgasms, and has included it in shoots where the model is comfortable with the idea, but he did a good job of hiding it. And then when she chose the "cool down" option, he accepted it immediately and without discussion, like she had just chosen between his offers of toast or waffles. (also a good reminder that even if someone is visibly turned on, that doesn't mean they necessarily want to have an orgasm, or even continue with the sexy sensations, and it shouldn't be taken as consent to escalate)

The either/or approach takes a little bit of practice and care, since you have to project that both choices are equally ok, and the "escape route"  should be something that actually is in the other person's mind (which might take a couple of tries). Often it can be something simple like, "or do you just want to keep enjoying this trance for now" or "would you like to come out of trance and take a break". Even though it's very tricky to as for permission from someone in a trance, as well as in the spacy state of mind between trances, and it certainly shouldn't be done for the big things, during a particular session, I think the either/or approach is an effective tool for tuning into what someone is in the mood for, even while hypnotized. All of Lex's videos that I've seen do a great job of modelling erotic hypnosis consent, with frequent use of either/or and many other techniques to make his models feel comfortable and in control.

Don't Pressure People to Have Hypnotic Orgasms

This valuable essay has been showing up on my Fetlife friends feed, Don’t pressure me to come. by Vonka. She writes:

It’s hard to tell your partner over and over “No, its okay, I’m good without one” when they take it as a challenge. You know they’ll be sad or disappointed if you don’t come. It can be way too much pressure. ... Even if I’d like an orgasm, when I tell you I’m not going to for whatever reason, please don’t insist I do anyway. It’s not about your ego. It’s not about a challenge.

(The comments are extremely valuable too) This makes me think how grateful I am that I read similar advice more than 10 years ago, before I had any sexual experience to speak of, in an entry on the amazing blog Why Your Wife Won’t Have Sex with You. Because it takes that long to absorb the lesson: that people, especially people with vaginas, have a huge amount of variance in how easy it is for them to have orgasms, and how important orgasms are to them. Looking back on my sexual history, it might be the most important piece of sex advice I ever had. Not respecting this reality will lead to anxiety, frustration, and a pulling away.

(Another good analogy is pressure on people to squirt, as described in this Fetlife writing by Ferrett Steinmeltz)

I think it’s important to bring up here, because I don’t always see this acknowledged where erotic hypnosis is discussed. For example, Wiseguy provides excellent tips for encouraging hands-free orgasms, but doesn’t bring up the possibility that some people might never have them. Considering that some partners I have had require quite a bit of intense physical stimulation, that seems like something that should be considered. He then goes on to describe many fun things to do with hypnotic orgasms, like “orgasm pills” or using them to reinforce suggestions, which seems like jumping up several dozen levels in terms of aptitude. And Wiseguy’s stuff is on the high end of grounded and trustworthy - many less careful teachers and performers make hypnotic orgasms look like something that should be easy, and a necessary part of erotic hypnosis play. (Peter Masters is the exception, although I think he goes too far in advising to stay away from orgasm talk altogether)

We as hypnotists get advised to speak with more confidence than may be justified, and I understand why: the unconscious understands confidence, and the unconscious is what will be making the suggestions work. By acting like you have no doubts, it increases the probability of success. But this is a case where it can actually hurt the situation. Pressuring someone to have an orgasm when it's not going to happen can kill their buzz, make an orgasm or other kinds of pleasure harder to access, and, if in a trance, bring them out of it. Making someone feel bad for not responding the way you want isn’t just shitty; if you’re a heterosexual man, it’s shitty in a very typical way.

Of course, I love it when a partner has an orgasm with me. It makes me feel reassured that I’m doing something right, and I’m into it aesthetically. If it’s a hypnotic orgasm, in a D/s context, it can give me a power thrill (I’m very into the idea of controlling someone’s pleasure). What the mind turns into during the moment of orgasm is not so far from the overwhelmed mush that I find so appealing in deep hypnosis. But there are lots of other things I love in sex and hypnosis too. And you will note those were purely selfish reasons. It’s not just about me, and it’s not about achievements or checking off boxes: what it should be about is pleasure and connection, and creating unique and amazing memories in the time you have together.

I will say that hypnosis is about expanding what the hypnotee thought their mind was capable of. To that extent I don’t think there’s anything wrong with experimenting with orgasmic response. IF - and only if - your partner is into the idea. Although I’m against the idea of hypnotic suggestions to change or “fix” your partner long term, when it comes to individual orgasms, relaxation and focus are things that might help, and things that hypnosis is good for. With the help of techniques from the likes of Wiseguy, and especially with practice by the hypnotee, more people are able to have hands-free orgasms on command than thought they could. But it should be presented as just one of many activities that are available. And if you run out of sexy things to play with when hypnosis is in the mix, you are seriously lacking in imagination.

Here are my guidelines for hypnosis and orgasms, which I wish I had always followed - I have screwed up with partners in the past, which is why I’m thinking so much about this. It shouldn’t need to be said, but these are in the context of a hypnotic relationship with an agreed-upon sexual dimension, as per rule #7 of my hypotist ethics.

1. Don’t bring up hypnotic orgasms until you have gotten to know your partner’s orgasms. Ideally by learning, firsthand, how they like to get off outside of trance. You also want to understand how much they care about orgasms, how many and when they like to have them, and whether they have insecurities about them - maybe from a past partner who pressured them. You also might want to ask if they have had bad or good experiences with orgasming on command (not just a hypnosis thing as I have learned recently). Of course it’s different if your partner brings up the topic! In the case where this happened with me, it wasn’t a big surprise that she turned out to be talented at hypnotic orgasms.

2. If you have the go-ahead, especially in the early occasions use permissive, open-ended language. That is, phrase your hypnotic suggestions without a specific expectation, that it will definitively happen at a certain time. Instead merely introduce the possibility of having an orgasm, phrases like, “as your arousal grows you might find that your body wants the pleasure of an orgasm, and it can have it, at any time it wishes.” If you do it right, then it will plant the seeds that can lead to an orgasm if one is within reach, and not make it a big deal if not.

3. Before giving someone a direct command to come, be very sure they will. I will ask, “Are you ready to come?” or “Nod your head when you’re ready.” This seems to work - even in trance people know where they’re at. Of course as you get to know a partner better, you can get to the point of feeling confident you see the signs without asking. But I think it’s so important to avoid giving someone the feeling of failing at an orgasm suggestion.

4. Mention that hypnotic orgasms may feel different than you expect (thought clearly identifiable), just as clitoral and g-spot orgasms feel different. And just like the different types of physical orgasms, it may take practice to find your hypnotic orgasm, and more practice to start having really good ones.

I will share with you another reason this issue is personal for me: I have trouble having hypnotic orgasms. At one time I was listening to two mp3 files repeatedly from different web-based hypnotists that were intended to produce hands-free orgasms. It was always a pleasant and very sexy experience, but when nothing happened at the end I would feel like a failure. Now I know that there are a lot of things more personalized hypnosis could do better, and I’m not ruling out that it might happen for me some day (fortunately I don’t think of it anymore as “the ultimate test” of whether hypnosis is real). But I don’t want my partners to suffer from the same thing, of a few seconds of suggestions ruining the afterglow of a very hot time.

Guest post: Kinetic Sculptures and Trance

Now it can be told (a year and a bit after the original post): this occurred at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA, and we tranced in front of a bunch of different kinetic sculptures. The lovely one my partner wrote about, and which gave me the whole idea when I saw it on a previous trip, is called Ialu by John Douglas Powers. Here's a video of it.

This was my first "art trancing", and the first I've ever heard of, so I'm pleased I got to do it some more at the MFA, and even inspired my friends djpynchon and Lee Allure to do it at the Art Institute of Chicago, which also has an awesome writeup.
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I'm always dying to know what my trance partner is experiencing during hypnosis, and so I always enjoy the post-trance chat almost as much as the hypnosis itself. But it's rare that I get a beautiful description, in writing, of how it felt. The backstory is that I had the idea of taking this partner into trance while she was looking at a kinetic art sculpture, and letting her lose herself in it for an extended period of time. All kinks have pluses and minuses (not that we get to choose our kinks), and while hypnosis is hard to do in noisy environments, and often isn't too exciting for others to watch, unlike say flogging it has the plus that it can easily be done outside and in public places without getting into trouble. Or disturbing others at all: to anyone giving us a second glance it would just have looked like someone who was really, really into the art. As was her far less still companion, who sometimes leaned over to murmur into her ear. We began by finding a quiet corner and doing a few short trances, using her reinduction trigger, which included practicing standing while in trance (in heels!) and staying in trance with eyes open. Then we sat in front of the sculpture and I gave her the trigger. On her request, we went back for seconds later, meaning that she might have stared at it for as much as 20 minutes in total - that has to be some kind of record for appreciating that piece of art!

Here is my trance partner's Fetlife post about the experience, reprinted with her permission. This was so compelling, not to mention immensely gratifying, for me to read. What a great way to spend an afternoon.

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Kinetic Sculptures and Trance

My body is relaxed. It's beyond relaxed. It's weight, it's matter, it doesn't belong to me anymore. It's on the ground and I am in the clouds. The reeds swayed back and forth, back and forth, the clouds rolled through the sky dark then light. Rolling clouds, swimming through tall, tan reeds. My eyes rarely blinking, engulfed in the sculpture. The passers by don't phase me, they don't disturb my trance. I was in the reeds, I was in the clouds. I could feel my body sway with them, trusting my subconscious to keep me upright. I felt the storm coming, the darkness approaching, the birds chirping wildly to warn me. I felt the reeds swish along my skin, enveloping my body. I was in a field somewhere far away.

Most intense, full body hypnosis experience to date. Incredible.

Now You’re Playing with Power (A Hypno Freeze Scene)

"The game is very simple. I ask you to do something, and you do it."
 - Slow Surrender, Cecilia Tan

I'm completely confused about what D/s is at the moment. I've read books about it, talked to people in long term D/s relationships and watched them interact, and had a fair number of what you could call D/s scenes of my own, but everyone seems to have a different definition, and many I don't relate to. All I have to go by is what sends an electric current up my spine and down to my cock, and the common denominator seems to be power and control. For many years, my kinky fantasies were all about mind control: making women do sexual things, usually through some fantastical means like telepathy, and shaping their perception and responses. (Now I know that many of those fantasies fall under the heading of con-noncon rather than D/s - that's something for a future entry.)

Then I found out that there are women who enjoy being given orders in a sexual context, and that changed everything. It took one particular partner in my late 20s to make me understand, way deep down, that she got a massive sexual charge from the idea of obedience, from having responsibility taken away, from having demands placed on her and earning praise by living up to them (or “punishment” when she doesn’t fulfill the challenges - usually rigged ones). With her I learned that I could inspire a wonderful squishy altered state of submissiveness, and my dominant side grew as I learned how to push those buttons more and more skillfully and take what I wanted. It was incredibly exciting to, say, demand that she strip naked and suck me off, knowing that not only was I getting exactly what I wanted at that moment, but that she was getting off on being directed in that way.

Although this felt intense, even dangerous, for both of us, it was a far cry from a 24/7 master/slave relationship: every scene had a beginning and end with an explicit return to being equals, and we also had hot non-kinky sex. I don't have many models for this, whether in books or blog posts, besides Slow Surrender by Cecilia Tan - a book I wish I could forcibly swap for 50 Shades of Grey whenever I see someone holding it (and I have read every word of that messed up book). Though it has the same premise as 50 Shades, as mandated by her publisher - young handsome billionaire courts a female grad student he randomly met - the emphasis is on consent, with the heroine being invited and enticed into power games ("Are you bored? Tired of the rat race? Looking for a little adventure?") but always given an explicit out ("If you don't want to play, that's fine," he added. "I'll leave and never come back if you say no.") I love the early scenes such as that one, where he's essentially teaching her how exciting and comfortable it can be to follow instructions and be sexually controlled. Even though the instructions aren’t explicitly sexual at first, the fact she is carrying them out means that she has willingly stepped into another world, that looks like ours on the surface but is full of dark and delicious possibilities.

That’s a digression. Anyway, although it's not as big of a commitment as full time Dom/sub relationships, to have these type of scenes still requires plenty of trust and mutual comprehension, which doesn't come right away (well, except in fiction) - not to mention the difficulty of finding people who have that interest. So I've only experienced flickers of that over the last couple of years. But now thanks mostly to the Boston kink scene it's happening again, more play with submissive partners. I try to keep acutely aware that each person's kink is a unique fingerprint, and each person has a different view of D/s and what they want from a dom, some of which I can't fulfill - for example, anyone who's met me knows I'm not about to dominate or intimidate my partners physically in any but the most symbolic ways. However, I'm finding overlap with some partners when it comes to mental domination, and that's fantastic - and in particular the eroticism is turbocharged for me by the newfound incorporation of hypnosis.

So I want to give an example of how D/s and hypnosis go together. I like hypnosis without D/s plenty, but together it’s like chocolate and peanut butter, or frozen montreal  bagels and a toaster. In an earlier entry http://deeperforme.blogspot.com/2013/10/reinduction-triggers-are-greatest.html I talked about the sexy power kick I get from reinduction triggers, taking partners into trance at a moment's notice, and how much I enjoy when I have permission to do that in a playful, surprising way. Recently I experienced a spin on that, with a very submissive partner  (she not so subtly hinted her interest in submission on an early date by casually kneeling on the floor beside my chair) who shall be Michelle on this blog. We got a strong "freeze in place” post-hypnotic trigger working for her. I benefitted from watching MrDream masterfully work with a freeze trigger for a novice hypnotee at Deepmind Darkwood, which also helped to convince me that there is an enormous amount of fun to be had with such a simple posthypnotic standby.

The nature of the trigger was that Michelle would find herself aware but unable to move, except for breathing and blinking and adjustments for her own safety (e.g. balance), whenever I said the word "freeze", and this would continue until I said the word "melt". When I would touch a body part, it would temporarily melt so I could reposition it, and then freeze again when I let go. When I brought her out of the trance, my heart was racing. She was sitting in my armchair, looking centered and normal, and I was sitting facing her. After we exchanged a few words, I couldn’t stand postponing finding out, so I said, "FREEZE."

It would have looked very unremarkable from the outside, but I was elated watching Michelle sit there very still. After only a few moments I said, "MELT", and she immediately started to shift in the chair. She smiled and said, "That was cool!" My previous attempts to get freezing in place to work (both as a hypnotist and as a hypnotee!) had failed, so I was incredibly pleased. It felt at least partially real for her. Both a game, and not a game. She could have broken the spell at any time, but chose not to.

So we played. While she was in the armchair I had her put her arms and hands in different positions, and repeatedly froze her and melted her. I stroked her breasts and the side of her neck while she was frozen and helpless. Then I had her stand up, and put her hands behind her on her ass, and froze her in that position. I walked around her and admired her form from every side. I stood in front of her and melted her, and we made out passionately, losing a lot of clothes in the process. While we had our arms around each other I said “freeze” into her ear, and extracted myself, leaving her arms circling the air. Then I hugged her from behind and melted her again.

I had Michelle kneel on the floor and lace her hands behind her head. I froze her in that position, and took more time to admire her and feel her up. Then I froze her on her hands and knees, and I flipped up her skirt and ran my hand over her ass and mound. When I melted her she bucked against my hand. We were both wildly turned on - I felt like I was vibrating. I said, “I’d like to fuck you right here,” and she caught her breath and said, “Maybe you should.”

The power games didn’t stop while we were fucking. I called out “FREEZE” a few minutes in, and her hips immediately stopped pulsing and pushing back on me. I gripped her and pumped in and out, with her unable to reciprocate or resist. When I melted her a few seconds later, she was even more desperate than before. I still have scabs on my knees from the friction on my cheap carpet.

There was more to that night, but that was a unique and mindblowing experience for me as a dominant and a hypnotist: it might be my first time truly being both at once. When I was waiting with Michelle for her train, as a train roared by in the opposite direction I leaned over to her ear and said “freeze.” I left her that way for less than 10 seconds, but to see her outside of my bedroom and fully dressed in nice overcoat, gloves and handbag, but frozen helplessly in place on the platform, under my control, with no one around the wiser, was incredibly hot to me. And to her too: when released she said, “are you trying to turn me on for the ride home?”

Maybe you don’t find something interesting or sexy in this game. Your brain has to be bent in a very particular way. But mine is, and I’m so happy that it’s not the only one.

Lex's Many Flavours of Trance

I found this gem on the personal blog of Lex, who sells very sexy videos featuring real hypnosis, with almost everything left in (including failures!) so you can actually learn from it, at entrancement.co.uk. It's in a very valuable post on How to hypnotize others. He's making the point that there are a lot of ways that someone might want trance to feel, and it's your job to be sensitive to that so you can "be the hypnotist of their dreams." Flavours of trance:

Safe & Protected
Aroused & Erotic
Blank & Mindless
Dazed & Drugged
Playful & Naughty
Captive & Helpless
Detached & Passive
Disarmed & Seduced
Beautiful & Sensuous
Emotionless & Empty
Empowered & Focused
Submissive & Obedient
Energised & Meditative
Objectified & Impersonal
Brainwashed & Mind Controlled

A similar terrific resource is his Hypnotic Induction Questionnaire, a survey for how people like to feel in trance and how they want their hypnotist to behave (e.g. "Protective & Benevolent", "Evil & Controlling"), plus a selection of settings ranging from "Lying on a sun-drenched beach" to "Brainwashed through technology".  (the results are interesting: yay to programmed and controlled, boo to both drained and energized)

At this point, I'm not really skilled enough to be in control of the feel of my trances. I'm using everything I've got to achieve liftoff and make some sexy things happen. But what these are great for is sparking the imagination of potential hypnotees and uncovering potential hypnofetishism they never knew - it's fun to send them the list and ask them, "which of these sound good to you?" And for those with some experience, these can help them to become critical consumers of trance and able to articulate what they like. I do aim for that kind of control over the flavour of the trance someday, so that the hypnosis I do with one partner might appear radically different than that with another. This is happening organically to a great extent, as I carefully learn what each of my partner's respond to and what they enjoy, but I want to stay aware of the full palette.

As a postscript I'd like to share two things that amused me from last week's post-Boston Hypnomunch practice: "Here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors and you will go to sleeple." (from MST3k) "The number 4 has been replaced by the number cheese." (that's due to oneEyedstranger)