Note: I drafted this before @sleepingirl's book on brainwashing
came out, and I have bought it but not yet read it. I'm sure my
thinking will evolve based on my reading, but this captures my thoughts
at one point in time!
Brainwashing - or conditioning, training, programming, personality modification - is hot. It's really hot. How much porn have I watched, read, and occasionally written, about people being gradually broken and reshaped over time, obedience and trained responses permanently rewriting their mind?
There's fantasy, and then there's reality, and when it comes to making fantasies real, it's one of the edgier Things We Do. In the last couple months alone, I've read several accounts in my feed of people getting hurt from this kind of play. Orgasm conditioning having negative aftereffects when a relationship ended; an account of an online predator, who reels people in via videos and escalating submissive suggestions; and posts nearly every week in hypnosis FL groups asking strangers for help shaking off sticky suggestions. I also know two different firsthand stories of people getting hypnotized to sleep by their partner every night, and then getting insomnia when they broke up.
Of course lovers leave tire tracks across our brains, for better and worse. There's songs, movies, locations, turns of phrase, that force me to think of someone, and I even find myself copying past and current partners' habits and opinions. In that way, intimate partners are always modifying each other, and this is as it should be. But here I'm talking about deliberate tactics, often in the realm of hypnokink or D/s training, to get into a consenting partner's head and rearrange the furniture according to the top's plans.
I would never tell someone not to pursue their brainwashing kink - I have this kink, and I pursue it! But even when consent practices are excellent, I think long term modification play, for both the top and bottom, should be calibrated in terms of the emotional commitment with the partner.
By emotional commitment I mean something like, trust that the top will care about the bottom's wellbeing some ways into the future, and will listen to them and work with their needs. So this involves thinking about the level of commitment you have with a person, and where it falls on a spectrum. Which could range, from highest to lowest commitment, something like: Getting their name branded on you - marrying them - moving in together - planning an expensive vacation three months out - getting tickets to a concert together - co-owning a copy of Castaway on Blu Ray - sharing a 15 minute Uber ride. If you think about people in your life, you know where they are in that range. That can be a guide for calibrating the intensity of your modification play.
But what makes modification play "intense"? Here are my rough thoughts about what makes modification play higher or lower risk.
They will also choose the mapping between the level of risk they want to take on vs the commitment they feel. For myself, I mostly stay away from any deliberate brainwashing/conditioning play except with khatsha, who not only has clear consensual-nonconsent agreements with me, but also long term public commitments that are understood by vanilla society (marriage) and kink culture (collaring). She's definitely the only one with whom I would play near the riskiest end of the pool, and we have precautions for when we go there, and plenty of places we won't go. As an example, she can't get off without my permission - but this only applies when I'm in the same room (so when I hear her sneak off in the middle of the night with the Doxy I know exactly what's happening!)
But that's us. The point is that you have to decide your risk profile for yourself, whether topping or bottoming for long term modification, and no one should push you on that - not even yourself, not even if it's really hot, not even if you're longing for it.
Of course even if you calibrate it perfectly, risk is risk. Hearts get broken. People aren't who you thought they were, promises aren't kept. There are excellent resources for how to clean oneself up from unwanted conditioning or post-hypnotic suggestions. But it's still going to suck.
That's no reason not to pursue and enjoy brainwashing, if that's your bliss. Hopefully there are some ideas in these lists about how you can start with the fantasy, and tune it up or down in terms of risk when it comes to doing it for real.
Brainwashing - or conditioning, training, programming, personality modification - is hot. It's really hot. How much porn have I watched, read, and occasionally written, about people being gradually broken and reshaped over time, obedience and trained responses permanently rewriting their mind?
There's fantasy, and then there's reality, and when it comes to making fantasies real, it's one of the edgier Things We Do. In the last couple months alone, I've read several accounts in my feed of people getting hurt from this kind of play. Orgasm conditioning having negative aftereffects when a relationship ended; an account of an online predator, who reels people in via videos and escalating submissive suggestions; and posts nearly every week in hypnosis FL groups asking strangers for help shaking off sticky suggestions. I also know two different firsthand stories of people getting hypnotized to sleep by their partner every night, and then getting insomnia when they broke up.
Of course lovers leave tire tracks across our brains, for better and worse. There's songs, movies, locations, turns of phrase, that force me to think of someone, and I even find myself copying past and current partners' habits and opinions. In that way, intimate partners are always modifying each other, and this is as it should be. But here I'm talking about deliberate tactics, often in the realm of hypnokink or D/s training, to get into a consenting partner's head and rearrange the furniture according to the top's plans.
I would never tell someone not to pursue their brainwashing kink - I have this kink, and I pursue it! But even when consent practices are excellent, I think long term modification play, for both the top and bottom, should be calibrated in terms of the emotional commitment with the partner.
By emotional commitment I mean something like, trust that the top will care about the bottom's wellbeing some ways into the future, and will listen to them and work with their needs. So this involves thinking about the level of commitment you have with a person, and where it falls on a spectrum. Which could range, from highest to lowest commitment, something like: Getting their name branded on you - marrying them - moving in together - planning an expensive vacation three months out - getting tickets to a concert together - co-owning a copy of Castaway on Blu Ray - sharing a 15 minute Uber ride. If you think about people in your life, you know where they are in that range. That can be a guide for calibrating the intensity of your modification play.
But what makes modification play "intense"? Here are my rough thoughts about what makes modification play higher or lower risk.
HIGHER RISK
- Involves addiction-like dependency (needing it to feel ok), especially addiction to the top
- Makes the bottom think about the top way more often than the reverse
- Happens on a daily schedule
- Triggered by something very common (e.g. stoplights, doorknobs)
- Takes away some important ability
- Modifies or is triggered by a basic human activity: e.g. sleeping, eating, having sex
- Could interfere with ability to consent or safeword (e.g. bimbofication, overpowering submissivness)
- Tries to fix a problem the bottom has with themselves (e.g. therapy)
- Escalates automatically over time
- Involves conditioning with negative emotions
- Changes core parts of the bottom's personality
LOWER RISK
- Bottom explicitly empowered to modify or cancel
- Limited to a particular time frame
- Tied to a particular location or object (e.g. the top's apartment, or a play collar)
- Has a very trivial effect
- If the top is brainwashing multiple people, the top is following good poly practices
- There's a plan to clean it up even if the relationship ends badly
- The modification can be explicitly reviewed and approved in advance (e.g. reading the script or listening to a file outside of trance)
- Roleplaying some elements of the brainwashing, or simulating them with temporary post-hypnotic suggestions, rather than really inscribing changes over hours, days and weeks.
They will also choose the mapping between the level of risk they want to take on vs the commitment they feel. For myself, I mostly stay away from any deliberate brainwashing/conditioning play except with khatsha, who not only has clear consensual-nonconsent agreements with me, but also long term public commitments that are understood by vanilla society (marriage) and kink culture (collaring). She's definitely the only one with whom I would play near the riskiest end of the pool, and we have precautions for when we go there, and plenty of places we won't go. As an example, she can't get off without my permission - but this only applies when I'm in the same room (so when I hear her sneak off in the middle of the night with the Doxy I know exactly what's happening!)
But that's us. The point is that you have to decide your risk profile for yourself, whether topping or bottoming for long term modification, and no one should push you on that - not even yourself, not even if it's really hot, not even if you're longing for it.
Of course even if you calibrate it perfectly, risk is risk. Hearts get broken. People aren't who you thought they were, promises aren't kept. There are excellent resources for how to clean oneself up from unwanted conditioning or post-hypnotic suggestions. But it's still going to suck.
That's no reason not to pursue and enjoy brainwashing, if that's your bliss. Hopefully there are some ideas in these lists about how you can start with the fantasy, and tune it up or down in terms of risk when it comes to doing it for real.
