A lot of people have independently come up with the idea that it is wise to lower your expectations, so as to avoid disappointment. For example, here's a chart by a videogame reviewer I like, about how you shouldn't get excited about upcoming videogame releases. Or as John Cusack says to Lily Taylor in Say Anything: "You probably got it all figured out, Corey. If you start out depressed, everything's kind of a pleasant surprise."
I think this approach is wrong, because of when I watched Serenity, on opening night, August 22, 2005. I was a huge Firefly fan, and both enjoyed myself and tortured myself watching those short 14 episodes over and over, so I looked forward to that date for months. My expectations were that the movie would be fucking awesome, and the movie far exceeded my expectations. And that's the greatest feeling. (and I got it again for Avengers!)
So, you don't get to have that feeling if you lower your expectations. That's it. That's my whole argument.
But I'll also say: what's so bad about disappointment? Disappointment is a human emotion. Let yourself be disappointed. I've heard depression described not as feeling sad, but as not being able to feel anything. I'm glad I went to Star Wars Episode I on opening night. I'm glad my expectations were high. The crappiness of that movie knocked me on my ass like a rogue wave, and I treasure that memory. It made a scar that I share with every fellow generation X nerd. And this of course applies to non-trivial, grownup disappointments, even more so. Letting yourself get hurt connects you with other people.
Also, by the way, how do you feel when you're holding down your expectations? When you're cautiously measuring out your optimism? Do you feel lively and vibrant? Are you excited to get up in the morning? I'm guessing not so much. Why deny yourself the pleasure of looking forward to things?
The one caveat is don't create too detailed a picture of how it will be awesome. Because it will be different from that. Like my kink time in Boston. It was so much more awesome than I ever expected, but in very surprising ways. If you don't get fixated on individual imagined details, you're free to appreciate the awesomeness in whatever form it comes in.
All things being equal, I say set your expectations high. You have no idea where the top is. Think about the possibility of a party, scene, person, period of your life, being better than anything you've ever known.
Or as Lily Taylor says to John Cusack in Say Anything: "Get ready for greatness, Lloyd."
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Saturday, July 12, 2014
A Canadian Kinkster in Milan
Last weekend I travelled to Milan and met a bunch of kinksters - my first kink activity in a long time! I got invited by the two guys who started the Italian erotic hypnosis Fetlife group - only two weeks old when I found it! - who are @SMdiClasse and @Sleipnir8, and responded to my laboriously translated introduction message.
So I got off at the mind-meltingly huge, Mussolini-era train station with a few butterflies in my stomach: new city in Italy, new people, and, after all, my entree is weird sex stuff. But the moment I got to the venue, @tom_del_fiume and SMdiClasse's slave @plastika greeted me warmly, and went out of their way to make me feel like the group wanted me there. And it's hard to think of a group I've liked more on first encounter.
This was my first munch of any kind outside of Boston, let alone outside of the United States, so I was very interested to see what it was like. The Milan munch definitely is a step up from the Boston munches in ambience - but that's not hard, considering in Boston they are mostly held in brightly lit mall food courts. The munch-goers had taken over the entire downstairs room of a loungy bar, making for a moodier, sexier setting. (although one attendee confided to me, "I am a punk! I can't stand this!") I would say people were more sharply dressed on average, which added to the sexiness. There was casual drinking, which was interesting. I have noticed that alcohol is a staple of social life here, but rarely with the intention of getting drunk. I thought to myself, let's see how the munch thing feels different with a cocktail. I ordered something called a "Sbagliato" - which translates to "mistake". Not a mistake. But a powerful beverage!
The people were instantly friendly and awesome, sharing a lot about kink life in Italy and asking me lots of questions about myself. There were a couple of dozen people, averaging around 30. The mixture of free spiritedness and nerdiness (yes, Doctor Who is also massive here) sure reminded me of why so much of my social life in Boston switched over to hanging out with kinksters.
And people were very nice about language - I could indulge my primitive Italian a little, but was mostly steered towards the people who had the best english (though most of them were pretty good). But they taught me some valuable vocabulary over the weekend: "mi faccio una sega", which is to jerk off, from the verb for sawing wood; "alla cazzo di cane", which means "to do something as with a dog's dick," i.e. not well; and "troietta", which translates to something like "my little whore". Interestingly, very much of the Italian kink vocabulary is in english, for example "impact play", indicating its origin in American kink culture.
Sleipnir8 and SMiDiClasse got there later, and it was a treat to finally meet them. They are the two people beginning to experiment with erotic hypnosis in the scene there, which is tremendously exciting for me, and there was so much to discuss.
Sleipnir8 and I got invited to a play party after the munch, and that was another fascinating experience. About 10 of us in an apartment living room, and as in Boston, the evening began with friendly chat and joking around, then showing off of implements and playful hitting. Then more earnest hitting and ropey play, with different degrees of nudity (but without anything too sexual, at least in the traditional sense). So I felt right at home! Specifically, it was like my favourite regular party in Somerville, MA. The most noticeable differences of the evening: indoor smoking, Proseco, and espressos.
The people told me that the Italian kink scene has grown rapidly in the last few years, though mostly confined to the big cities such as Milan and Rome. I could see the enormous influence of the American kink framework, I'm sure mostly through Fetlife and other American websites, and yet they are working on a high level. They're experienced with the impact toys we know and love, as well as fire play and electrical play. As for rope bondage, I saw what seemed to my eye to be an expert TK, and a suspension.
I was a little curious about whether the Italian scene would be more old-fashioned when it came to gender roles. I'm sure that is a complex question, but on a surface level anyway, I'm happy to say there were at least two non-male riggers, as well as non-male topping.
I spent Saturday walking around Milan, peering in the windows of the big brands like Prada and Gucci (did not dare go inside, dressed in tourist garb as I was - though with spiral t-shirt) and looking at art and architecture. I especially loved the wrought ironwork and the intricate masonry details everywhere, monster faces and gods peering out of the corners of every building.
It made me reflect that kink and high culture make for a nice combination. Of course Boston has beauty and culture, but when I think of it I think more often of food court food, the Red Sox, and American nerd pop culture references. Part of that, and part of the gap between BDSM in real life and in the romantic depictions of it, is simply to do with money. That porn is to some extent also lifestyle porn. In my circumstances I can barely think about buying a couch, let alone sumptuous old-world furnishings of a red den of sinfulness! I only get to live in Italy because of peculiar circumstances of my career. But even in a regular young-person apartment like in the play party, with Game of Thrones and X-Box games on the shelves, I felt like art, history and various sensual refinements from the city outside seeped in and formed the backdrop.
In the evening on Saturday I went to SMdiClasse's gorgeous apartment with a view of the city, for a somewhat hypnosis-themed dinner party and hangout. It was wonderful to get to know all these folks, sitting on the balcony with its luscious collection of herbs and vegetables, and there was a good amount of hypnosis talk, as well as talk about all manner of things. I definitely caught myself tuning out when there was a lot of fast Italian, but it was very good for my learning, and when I come back next I will be better equipped.
As with the night before, I had a chance to give a short hypnosis demonstration. Neither went very impressively, but people were polite and interested, and asked a lot of great questions. I brought Wiseguy's Mind Play and talked it up to everyone. Nevertheless I haven't yet suceeded at showing off what I find so amazing about erotic hypnosis. I am learning that even outside of language issues (which I will write about some time), there are a lot of challenges with preparing a hypnosis demo with a new group.
However, Sleipnir8 told me that at the big Sunday afternoon party - which I unfortunately had to miss due to work - he and his submissive had a lot of sexy fun with a "simon says" trigger. So he picked up the slack!
What a fantastic time. I'm so grateful to my hosts, and to everyone for being so crazy welcoming. Can't wait to go back.
So I got off at the mind-meltingly huge, Mussolini-era train station with a few butterflies in my stomach: new city in Italy, new people, and, after all, my entree is weird sex stuff. But the moment I got to the venue, @tom_del_fiume and SMdiClasse's slave @plastika greeted me warmly, and went out of their way to make me feel like the group wanted me there. And it's hard to think of a group I've liked more on first encounter.
This was my first munch of any kind outside of Boston, let alone outside of the United States, so I was very interested to see what it was like. The Milan munch definitely is a step up from the Boston munches in ambience - but that's not hard, considering in Boston they are mostly held in brightly lit mall food courts. The munch-goers had taken over the entire downstairs room of a loungy bar, making for a moodier, sexier setting. (although one attendee confided to me, "I am a punk! I can't stand this!") I would say people were more sharply dressed on average, which added to the sexiness. There was casual drinking, which was interesting. I have noticed that alcohol is a staple of social life here, but rarely with the intention of getting drunk. I thought to myself, let's see how the munch thing feels different with a cocktail. I ordered something called a "Sbagliato" - which translates to "mistake". Not a mistake. But a powerful beverage!
The people were instantly friendly and awesome, sharing a lot about kink life in Italy and asking me lots of questions about myself. There were a couple of dozen people, averaging around 30. The mixture of free spiritedness and nerdiness (yes, Doctor Who is also massive here) sure reminded me of why so much of my social life in Boston switched over to hanging out with kinksters.
And people were very nice about language - I could indulge my primitive Italian a little, but was mostly steered towards the people who had the best english (though most of them were pretty good). But they taught me some valuable vocabulary over the weekend: "mi faccio una sega", which is to jerk off, from the verb for sawing wood; "alla cazzo di cane", which means "to do something as with a dog's dick," i.e. not well; and "troietta", which translates to something like "my little whore". Interestingly, very much of the Italian kink vocabulary is in english, for example "impact play", indicating its origin in American kink culture.
Sleipnir8 and SMiDiClasse got there later, and it was a treat to finally meet them. They are the two people beginning to experiment with erotic hypnosis in the scene there, which is tremendously exciting for me, and there was so much to discuss.
Sleipnir8 and I got invited to a play party after the munch, and that was another fascinating experience. About 10 of us in an apartment living room, and as in Boston, the evening began with friendly chat and joking around, then showing off of implements and playful hitting. Then more earnest hitting and ropey play, with different degrees of nudity (but without anything too sexual, at least in the traditional sense). So I felt right at home! Specifically, it was like my favourite regular party in Somerville, MA. The most noticeable differences of the evening: indoor smoking, Proseco, and espressos.
The people told me that the Italian kink scene has grown rapidly in the last few years, though mostly confined to the big cities such as Milan and Rome. I could see the enormous influence of the American kink framework, I'm sure mostly through Fetlife and other American websites, and yet they are working on a high level. They're experienced with the impact toys we know and love, as well as fire play and electrical play. As for rope bondage, I saw what seemed to my eye to be an expert TK, and a suspension.
I was a little curious about whether the Italian scene would be more old-fashioned when it came to gender roles. I'm sure that is a complex question, but on a surface level anyway, I'm happy to say there were at least two non-male riggers, as well as non-male topping.
I spent Saturday walking around Milan, peering in the windows of the big brands like Prada and Gucci (did not dare go inside, dressed in tourist garb as I was - though with spiral t-shirt) and looking at art and architecture. I especially loved the wrought ironwork and the intricate masonry details everywhere, monster faces and gods peering out of the corners of every building.
It made me reflect that kink and high culture make for a nice combination. Of course Boston has beauty and culture, but when I think of it I think more often of food court food, the Red Sox, and American nerd pop culture references. Part of that, and part of the gap between BDSM in real life and in the romantic depictions of it, is simply to do with money. That porn is to some extent also lifestyle porn. In my circumstances I can barely think about buying a couch, let alone sumptuous old-world furnishings of a red den of sinfulness! I only get to live in Italy because of peculiar circumstances of my career. But even in a regular young-person apartment like in the play party, with Game of Thrones and X-Box games on the shelves, I felt like art, history and various sensual refinements from the city outside seeped in and formed the backdrop.
In the evening on Saturday I went to SMdiClasse's gorgeous apartment with a view of the city, for a somewhat hypnosis-themed dinner party and hangout. It was wonderful to get to know all these folks, sitting on the balcony with its luscious collection of herbs and vegetables, and there was a good amount of hypnosis talk, as well as talk about all manner of things. I definitely caught myself tuning out when there was a lot of fast Italian, but it was very good for my learning, and when I come back next I will be better equipped.
As with the night before, I had a chance to give a short hypnosis demonstration. Neither went very impressively, but people were polite and interested, and asked a lot of great questions. I brought Wiseguy's Mind Play and talked it up to everyone. Nevertheless I haven't yet suceeded at showing off what I find so amazing about erotic hypnosis. I am learning that even outside of language issues (which I will write about some time), there are a lot of challenges with preparing a hypnosis demo with a new group.
However, Sleipnir8 told me that at the big Sunday afternoon party - which I unfortunately had to miss due to work - he and his submissive had a lot of sexy fun with a "simon says" trigger. So he picked up the slack!
What a fantastic time. I'm so grateful to my hosts, and to everyone for being so crazy welcoming. Can't wait to go back.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Hypnosis in an Italian Horror Comic
It's been over two months since I last hypnotized someone. But it hasn't bothered me so much, since I have a new country to learn about and enjoy, with all its new ways, including a new language. I'm getting into Italian comics, partly as a way to learn the language, and partly because they're very cool. Where 90% of mainstream American comics are superhero comics, or Archie, Italian comics or "fumetti" have current, popular titles in mystery, old west, adventure, science fiction, and horror. And comics are more popular: Italian, Japanese, French, and the occasional American comic are found in every newstand and convenience store.
My favourite right now is a stylish Italian horror comic called Dylan Dog, about an investigator of supernatural terrors living in London. It's making me realize I've barely even seen horror comics, growing up in North America, and I can't help but be impressed by disturbing/awesome pre-Comics Code Authority imagery such as:
And not just monsters either, but incredibly brutal human violence:
These are all from an issue that fell into my hands, called La Meta Oscura, and just by chance it has hypnosis content!
At the beginning of the story, which is about 96 pages long, several people have been caught at the scenes of grisly murders, still holding the murder weapons, with no memory of what happened. This boy, for example, murdered his whole family with a straight razor. The book took several pages to depict this. (paging Dr. Wertham)
But when these people are hypnotized and regressed back to the time of the murders, they remember standing to the side, helpless, while a horrifying beast committed those same violent acts! Each one has their own particular monster, e.g. the gorilla, the skinless ghoul and so on.
The hypnosis is absolutely classical, performed by a paternalistic, pipe-smoking psychologist
using a pocketwatch and language that was easy for me to recognize.
For me, the most eerie and upsetting story turn was when the suspects start killing themselves in custody - which is, from their perspective, their beast avatars mournfully euthanizing them. Like this super creepy space alien:
(by the way, back in reality he is injecting himself with a syringe full of air. Ugh!)
It turns out the hypnotist was behind it all along! Did you guess?
Dylan Dog realized that the boy used the doctor's name under hypnosis, when the two had supposedly never met before. All the murderers were experimental subjects of the psychiatrist, who didn't remember his hypnotic experiments. His goal was to cure the "monster that is in all of us, the dark half, the disproportionate aggressiveness that the human carries inside despite millions of years of evolution". But to do that, he first had to "liberate it". And when he started getting great results with his patients:
he took a slight turn for the insane. He even hypnotized Dylan Dog without his knowledge or consent!
I found it to be a creepy, satisfying tale, even the way it was resolved, blaming it all on hypnosis. What's interesting to me is that this comic came out in the mid 90s, and is pitched towards teenagers and adults (at least I hope so). In North America these days, you would only see hypnosis - of the watch-swinging variety, not mind control by magic or technology - used as a device in stories for young children, and even then they would have a slightly retro feel. There have been periods where there was a lot of interest in hypnosis in America, like the 1950s. But I'll bet the average person, if they ever think of hypnosis, thinks it's boring bullshit. So they're not afraid of it.
My Italian friend on Fetlife told me it's different here. There is a fear of hypnosis in the culture, such that people have been kicked out of kink events just for being into it, since it's assumed they want to use it for sexual assault. If an educated person had even a 10% belief that what happens in this comic is possible, then it makes sense.
In fact, my friend pointed out that hypnosis is even mentioned in the Italian criminal code, or codice penale, as written in 1930, which you can verify for yourself on the Italian wikipedia page for hypnosis. From Google Translate:
Hypnosis as health intervention (both as a psychological intervention-clinical and / or psychotherapy , or as therapy for diseases with organic component or as a pain therapy) should be practiced only by those who are entitled to pursue a health care profession .Without reading the original code, this actually seems reasonable. I feel strongly that hypnotherapy should be left to people with extensive training in therapy, and that no one should be hypnotized without their informed consent.
...
Article. 613 of the Penal Code punishes anyone who by suggestion in the waking or hypnotic, narcotic or alcoholic substances poses a person, without the consent of you, in a state of ' inability to understand or want .
...
Anyone who puts anybody, with his consent, in a state of narcosis or hypnotism or run on the same treatment that suppresses the consciousness or will be punished, if the act results in danger to the safety of the person...
But I still feel like it may be reflective of some misplaced fears about hypnosis. Although I do think there are ways that it can be abused, and this is something the hypnokink community is always debating, people who I've hypnotized all report the feeling that it's really a collaboration between us, and that they felt completely able to reject suggestions, and bring themselves out of trance, any time they like. Most remembered everything that happened during the session, unless amnesia was something we specifically worked on (and negotiated a much higher level of consent for). And other hypnotists I've talked to report much the same thing. Hypnosis isn't mind control, and it just doesn't work at all like it does in Dylan Dog. Any more than it contains accurate information for dealing with vampires (that's a good way to get killed by a vampire).
I might have a chance to do some study groups here in Italy soon. Basically the message I want to tell people, is that although hypnosis isn't risk free, it can be managed between trusting adults within the framework of Risk Aware Consensual Kink. I doubt I could turn you, mentally, into a 12 foot tall dragon, but if I did, it would be only with your clear-eyed and enthusiastic consent and cooperation - and it would probably be a friendly dragon!
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
The Only Pickup Artist You Should Ever Listen To
The other day, I was at a munch where there was a pickup artist. I know this, because he was acting weird: he sat down beside me at the beginning of the munch and then, without saying hello, immediately changed his seat to one between two women at the other end of the table; in an argument later, he tried to get me into a "yes set"; and a female friend told me about his weird pressurized approach to her. He also describes himself as a pickup artist on his Fetlife profile (which my friend described as reading like those "the man your man could smell like" commercials).
How can you improve your social skills, and your chances of getting to enjoy your kink with people you're attracted to, without getting into this kind of junk? Is all pick up artist stuff poison?
I don't think so, and I say that as someone who had some *very* embarassing behaviour in my early 20s after reading The Game. Besides how entertaining that book is, I give it credit for eventually leading me to a guy I have learned a lot from, Wayne Elise.
Fair warning: he communicates within the pick up artist framework, with some of its goal-directedness, using some of the jargon, and assuming heteronormativity in talking about approaching "girls". If that stuff, or any association with pickup artists, bums you out, you should skip this. (and I will say up front that after marinating in gender studies and consent culture for a little while there are plenty of little things he says I'm not crazy about)
But I find that beneath that surface, it's a whole different approach, and one that is chill rather than toxic, and applies to social interaction in general.
This interview is a nice introduction:
(but what the heck is the other guy doing with his body language? Being "alpha"?)
And here's a relevant quote from a much longer, more technical video:
"I don't advocate going into a bar and pissing off half the bar. I don't advocate going in and acting strange and weird to people....the last thing a girl wants is someone who's goofy. Who can't socialize. Because they're approached by those kind of guys all the time."
Basically the philosophy, which is also discussed on his website charismaarts.com, is that to have good interactions, you figure out how to help people open up, be real with you, and show off what's cool about themselves. Then you reward them for that. And you share back, relating real stuff about yourself like emotions and perceptions, and you go for this equal back and forth exchange of energy. And that's the kind of thing that makes a spark.
He also talks a lot about how to reveal sexual interest, in a clear but non-creepy way. I think this speaks wonderfully to consent-conscious dating. And it easily extends to making play connections in the kink world.
What this stuff is not about is locking onto "hotties" like a torpedo and ignoring everyone else, nor is it about "negging" or steamrolling people with unnatural routines memorized from a book.
I owe a lot to this philosophy, and the many little social interaction tips around it. When you interact with me you're seeing social skills that I've been working on for at least 7 years with these tips in mind. Ok, I'm still plenty awkward sometimes. But just be glad you're not talking to my 20 ish self. Unless you're really into Buffy plot summaries.
Should I be nervous about revealing that I have a guru who used to go by the handle "Juggler"? (that's more innocent than it sounds: he used to juggle for a living) Here's a good filter for whether a pickup artist technique is scuzzy: would you like to have it used on you? And I think that works for me and charisma arts stuff. I want to be asked "fat questions", and only ones that my partner is interested in the answer to. I want people to use "the vacuum" on me (that's where you ask a fat question and then just wait, however long it takes for them to give you some kind of answer). I want people to notice when I say something unique and compelling, and for that to be the reason things get a little sexier between us. And so on.
And rather than there being a predatory, sneaky feeling to it, where you can be "busted", it works *better* if both people have this stuff in mind! The ideal of interaction is very much like improv: totally in the moment, playful, personal, authentic, and built by collaboration.
I have to say that kink people I've met are a lot closer to this ideal in conversation, because it's normal to talk about this deep authentic part of ourselves, our turn-ons. And from there it's easy to talk about more real stuff. And we just seem comfortable going to more experimental and playful places in conversation.
If you're interested in Wayne Elise, there aren't that many other resources I can point you to - unlike most people who teach social skills online, Wayne Elise seems to spend the majority of his time out there enjoying his life and varied interests, not crafting marketing emails or making up new things to buy. The youtube videos are of variable interest, and most of his serious written materials are now hard to find. Some good ones are reproduced, probably without permission, here. I especially like this one about the importance of getting happiness out of your interactions. And yes, I just have more *fun* talking to people than I used to. After a while it was like, how did everyone around me get so interesting and sexy all of a sudden?
Just please, if you click those links, do not read the ads. And do not read stuff by other pickup artists. You're much better off with who you are right now.
How can you improve your social skills, and your chances of getting to enjoy your kink with people you're attracted to, without getting into this kind of junk? Is all pick up artist stuff poison?
I don't think so, and I say that as someone who had some *very* embarassing behaviour in my early 20s after reading The Game. Besides how entertaining that book is, I give it credit for eventually leading me to a guy I have learned a lot from, Wayne Elise.
Fair warning: he communicates within the pick up artist framework, with some of its goal-directedness, using some of the jargon, and assuming heteronormativity in talking about approaching "girls". If that stuff, or any association with pickup artists, bums you out, you should skip this. (and I will say up front that after marinating in gender studies and consent culture for a little while there are plenty of little things he says I'm not crazy about)
But I find that beneath that surface, it's a whole different approach, and one that is chill rather than toxic, and applies to social interaction in general.
This interview is a nice introduction:
(but what the heck is the other guy doing with his body language? Being "alpha"?)
And here's a relevant quote from a much longer, more technical video:
"I don't advocate going into a bar and pissing off half the bar. I don't advocate going in and acting strange and weird to people....the last thing a girl wants is someone who's goofy. Who can't socialize. Because they're approached by those kind of guys all the time."
Basically the philosophy, which is also discussed on his website charismaarts.com, is that to have good interactions, you figure out how to help people open up, be real with you, and show off what's cool about themselves. Then you reward them for that. And you share back, relating real stuff about yourself like emotions and perceptions, and you go for this equal back and forth exchange of energy. And that's the kind of thing that makes a spark.
He also talks a lot about how to reveal sexual interest, in a clear but non-creepy way. I think this speaks wonderfully to consent-conscious dating. And it easily extends to making play connections in the kink world.
What this stuff is not about is locking onto "hotties" like a torpedo and ignoring everyone else, nor is it about "negging" or steamrolling people with unnatural routines memorized from a book.
I owe a lot to this philosophy, and the many little social interaction tips around it. When you interact with me you're seeing social skills that I've been working on for at least 7 years with these tips in mind. Ok, I'm still plenty awkward sometimes. But just be glad you're not talking to my 20 ish self. Unless you're really into Buffy plot summaries.
Should I be nervous about revealing that I have a guru who used to go by the handle "Juggler"? (that's more innocent than it sounds: he used to juggle for a living) Here's a good filter for whether a pickup artist technique is scuzzy: would you like to have it used on you? And I think that works for me and charisma arts stuff. I want to be asked "fat questions", and only ones that my partner is interested in the answer to. I want people to use "the vacuum" on me (that's where you ask a fat question and then just wait, however long it takes for them to give you some kind of answer). I want people to notice when I say something unique and compelling, and for that to be the reason things get a little sexier between us. And so on.
And rather than there being a predatory, sneaky feeling to it, where you can be "busted", it works *better* if both people have this stuff in mind! The ideal of interaction is very much like improv: totally in the moment, playful, personal, authentic, and built by collaboration.
I have to say that kink people I've met are a lot closer to this ideal in conversation, because it's normal to talk about this deep authentic part of ourselves, our turn-ons. And from there it's easy to talk about more real stuff. And we just seem comfortable going to more experimental and playful places in conversation.
If you're interested in Wayne Elise, there aren't that many other resources I can point you to - unlike most people who teach social skills online, Wayne Elise seems to spend the majority of his time out there enjoying his life and varied interests, not crafting marketing emails or making up new things to buy. The youtube videos are of variable interest, and most of his serious written materials are now hard to find. Some good ones are reproduced, probably without permission, here. I especially like this one about the importance of getting happiness out of your interactions. And yes, I just have more *fun* talking to people than I used to. After a while it was like, how did everyone around me get so interesting and sexy all of a sudden?
Just please, if you click those links, do not read the ads. And do not read stuff by other pickup artists. You're much better off with who you are right now.
Friday, May 30, 2014
JUMP IN: Community is What Will Make Your Life Good
I've been listening to this song a lot this year, because a) it's awesome, and b) I love the theme: jump in. Here are these three sexy, vibrant women, the Pointer sisters, saying I'm here, you can have all this goodness - but you have to close the gap. If you want my kisses in the night, then JUMP.
So I'm saying: JUMP IN to a face-to-face kink community. Take a risk to make your fantasies come true.
Walk into that munch. Drive to that kink con. Buy that plane ticket. Jump.
Why face to face?
- Kink takes trust. It's easier to start trusting people face to face.
- You get automatic points for being brave. And you get to hang out with other brave people.
- You're more likely to be talking with the person, rather than your fantasy of who they are. And vice versa.
- You'll be living in the *place* where you are, and that's great.
Jump doesn't mean you can't prepare. If it's the Boston scene, read this (all of it). Read essays on Fetlife and other kink related sites like pervocracy and kinkopedia. Work on your social skills. But then, pretty soon, jump.
You might have to move closer to a big city.
Is there something weird you crave, that you've never been able to say out loud? By the end of your first month you'll have said it to more people you would have ever imagined. Not only will you realize it's not that weird, by two months you'll wish you were into *more* weird things. By six months, you will be.
Don't worry about pairing up for your first long while. Just soak it all in, enjoy, and get to know people. Their connections are just mindbogglingly complicated. But there's a place for you.
The scene is not safe. Many of my friends have been harmed, and there's no real way to protect yourself. All I can say is that the ones that I know loved it so much that they found their way back, even after getting hurt.
And I am so grateful that I jumped. So grateful for the preposterous things that happened to me over the course of a year and a half in Boston, the sexual and the nonsexual memories, mostly thanks to a couple dozen people I met who often hung out on the top floor of a house in Somerville. (not to mention the people I met hanging out at a terrible Italian restaurant)
Fuck Netflix and HBO. Fuck having a great apartment, or even looking for a great boyfriend/girlfriend/master/sub. Community is what will make your life good. That's what you should put your strength into.
Community is what builds amazing things: knowledge, events, innovation. And stories, jokes, memories, people you care about desperately. Being the best, and usually only, way to meet people for whatever you have in mind is practically a side bonus. And there will be conflict, and awkwardness, and sadness: you know, all the things that happen when you care. The stuff that makes for a life with stories worth telling.
Join community or make it. (Yes, *you* can create community). Do your best to add to it and help it be better. The first one you try might not be where you end up.
But it all starts with that leap, where you walk into a room and say hello.
Jump, jump, jump. Take me out Pointer Sisters!
Friday, May 9, 2014
Fixation Objects I Have Used to Hypnotize People
I know a lot of inductions now, but I still love to use the eye fixation induction, because it's a classic, because it pushes my hypnofetish buttons with the blank staring and slower and slower blinks, and because it works great with most people I've tried it with. But once I realized practically anything can be used as a fixation object, I started to have fun with the possibilities. Hypnosis partners of mine have gone into trance looking at:
- A glass crystal
- A plastic crystal
- A candle flame
- My eyes
- An optical illusion designed by a psychologist to create a sense of movement
- A t-shirt
- Light reflected on the surface of the Charles River
- An animated gif playing on my smartphone
- The eyes of a stuffed toy monkey
In honour of the fact that I have fixed commenting on the blogspot version of this blog, you should comment or retumbl with any unusual fixation objects you have used, or if you have any thoughts about the eye fixation induction!
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Hypnosis at the Museum of Fine Arts
Ever since the adventure with the kinetic sculpture gallery, I've wanted to combine art appreciation with hypnosis again, so I was very pleased when Cassi told me she had thought of me on a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, and would like to go back with me and look at paintings while hypnotized.
So we finally made it happen, only days before my big move out of the country. It was fun to be in the lobby with Cassi knowing we had a secret mission - again, I feel lucky that this interest is something I can pursue in unusual locales, including out in plain sight, without being discovered or imposing on other people.
We found a closed-off nook with its own painting, and went through some warmup trances. As on the other occasion, I had her practice going into trance standing up, and then with her eyes open. I gave her a discreet post-hypnotic trigger that when I pointed to a painting and tapped her on the shoulder, her eyes would close, she would go into trance, and then open her eyes and become extremely engrossed in that painting. It would become more and more real and vivid to her, and more and more fascinating. The painting would seem to surround her and become her world. Then another trigger would gently bring her out of it.
Cassi's reaction when we practiced with the painting in the nook was interesting and surprising to me. After going into trance, she took a couple of steps forward, and I could see her eyes moving around the painting - things that I didn't think people in trance could do, of their own volition. Her face went through a whole cycle of expressions, mostly in the vein of happiness and awe.
So to an observer, she would have only looked like someone who was really, really into a painting. Great. On the other hand, I felt confident that she was really going into trance, because of a few external signs:
- Her blinking rate went way down.
- When awoken, she blinked and reoriented herself.
- She swayed a little. (I would whisper suggestions in her ear that her unconscious would take care of her balance for her)
- No checking back with me.
She liked this idea, so I took a little time to install the trigger and reinforce it, and we set off into the museum!
 |
| Carpenter's Wheel, Gerald Roy |
I had some misconceptions about what she wanted at first, which shows the importance of listening and readjusting as a top. I said we should go and check out the exhibit of brightly coloured and geometric quilts first, since many already seemed to have striking hypnotic patterns in them! We tried the first trigger successfully with a few of these, but then she explained that what she really wanted was to lose herself in natural scenes - representational art rather than op art. She also said that she wanted to bring herself out of the art trances rather than have me decide how long to leave her there. That had been my first instinct, because I thought it would place an extra burden on her to monitor the time she was taking, and that she wouldn't want control over that. But in fact her unconscious was easily able to tell when she was ready to be done with a painting.
 |
| Lake Nemi, 1872, George Inness |
Over time, Cassi told me many interesting things about what it felt like to be in trance with these paintings. She said she knew she was in a different state because she had no desire to read the explanatory text, which she usually reads first. She also said she had no awareness of the frame, which she also usually noticed quite a bit. Instead she would really feel herself in the scene, hearing sounds, smelling things, and even feeling emotions.
 |
| Rocky Coast and Gulls, 1836, Winslow Homer |
In one striking case, she told me upon awakening, "I was so worried about that boat!" And I said, "What boat?" And she pointed it out to me (in the painting below), nearly invisible on the horizon. Her hyperfocus had discovered it and made it an integral part of the emotional content.
 |
| Running Before the Storm, 1870, unknown |
I found that it was a wonderful experience standing next to her and looking at the paintings (while checking on her from time to time). I almost never look at paintings that long, and I found myself losing myself in the brushstrokes and feeling of space just like Cassi. I think I'll always remember at least some of the paintings we looked at.
At one point I happened to look across the room at a tour group, where the guide was pointing out her standard list of observations for a painting. Some technical notes, and a few historical and biographical facts. This seemed very wrongheaded to me all of a sudden, and I felt like the hypnotic response must be much closer to what the artist would have wanted: a totally nonintellectual, nonverbal, sensual immersion in the painting.
 |
| Mother and Child in a Boat, 1892, Edmund Charles Tarbell |
Then with only a little time left, we agreed to use "attract mode". We walked quickly through a bunch of rooms, chatting, while I surreptitiously eyed the paintings coming up and wondering when one would "activate" her.
Then in the 3rd room we went into, all of a sudden she broke off what she was saying and walked wordlessly away from me to a painting on the far side of the gallery. Apart from the enjoyment I get out of observing any trance, this was the one thing that afternoon that I found a little sexy in the hypnokink way. I liked that she was captured and compelled by the art.
This happened about three more times, on one occasion extremely briefly. On one memorable occasion, we were chatting normally close to a big painting, when she fell silent - the painting hadn't done it for her at first, but then at some point tipped over to activating a trance. The unconscious is mysterious!
 |
| Gulf of Spezia, 1884, Henry Newman |
We both wished we could have had a few hours more, but it was still terrific. I had an idea as we were about to part ways, for who knows how long. Sitting in the car with her, I said, would to be able to turn "attract mode" on for yourself, as a permanent post-hypnotic trigger? And Cassi loved the idea.
I had never set out to give someone a permanent post-hypnotic suggestion before, and it was both solemn and exciting. I dropped her back into trance, and gave that same suggestion, except with more repetition, and triggered by her saying the phrase silently to herself. Then I added more safety suggestions, such as that it would turn off by itself automatically in case she forgot, that it would not be active while driving, and so forth.
I told her, in trance, that it's a myth that post-hypnotic suggestions have to fade. In fact, if you enjoy them, they can stay just as strong, days, weeks, and even years later, and might even get stronger with time. I asked her to imagine the suggestion working just as powerfully for her years down the line. She told me afterward she had even pictured herself on her deathbed, asking for a painting and going into trance viewing it. Wow.
A couple of weeks later, she told me that she had taken another trip to the MFA, and it worked! Even though Cassi and I were not romantic partners, I feel very good about having this strong, permanent connection with her. It's such a strange thing, but a beautiful thing too. And learning hypnosis made it possible.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Guest post: Tick Tock (A Post-Hypnotic Clothing Fetish)
This blog has been more intellectual and less sexual lately. Let's change that. I got the idea from Lee Allure of giving partners new (temporary) clothing fetishes via post-hypnotic suggestion, but the results were hotter than I could have ever anticipated. This is not erotic fiction; this really happened. (email posted with permission)
--
It began like any normal day.
Not wanting to get out of bed, rushing my way out the door.
Jumping on the bus. Headed to work, another drone day.
And then I saw a cute guy on the bus, he was texting on his phone. Hands up and shirt cuffs pulled back due to the reach of his arm.
There it was, his watch. For me to blatantly see. It was instant, and until that moment the thought of a watch did not even cross my mind, but at that very moment my pussy twitched and my mind went elsewhere.
I smiled, a pleasant reminder that you were inside my mind. That you gave me the desire to run my hands down this strangers dress pants.
As I continued on to through the subway I saw two more watches. Both on men that normally wouldn't excite me. But it was uncontrollable, much like smelling the cologne of an ex, it conjured up memories of me being on my knees servicing a man. It made me squirmy and giddy.
It wasn't until my lunch that I saw two more watches, this time two coworkers that I am not attracted to at all. They both smiled and said hello, and I smiled and noticed their watches. Right away an image of them sharing me popped into my head. Getting tagged teamed on both ends, holes filled by these two coworkers. As I drifted into my dirty thoughts the elevator dinged and opened, back up to my desk I went.
That is where I ran into my crush. Dressed dapper as always and giant smile he came over to greet me. My eyes automatically darted to his wrist, hoping he was wearing a watch, and to my pleasant surprise he was. It was very visible, eloquent and being paraded in my face. His hands moved when he talked and my eyes followed his watch's every move. I'm sure I had a very naughty grin on my face. and don't remember a word of our conversation. All I could think about was his hand deep in my cunt and his watch rubbing against my wet swollen pussy. Hoping hed go deeper and deeper to get the watch inside me. I wanted to watch my juices drip off his watch.
Anyways the conversation ended and I drifted back to reality, amazed at my ability to carry on a conversation while being so aroused and distracted. I stopped by his desk again later that day to say hello again ;)
I biked home (left my bike at work the day before cause it rained). On my way home I stopped by a roti shop for dinner.
I sat and enjoy the local alternative paper while I ate dinner. Went I got up I noticed how wet my pussy was, dripping actually. I wondered what had gotten me so excited. So I turned to take a look at the old man who served me, sure enough he was wearing a watch. Again instantly my mind melted and that amazing feeling of being controlled and aroused crept over me.
Later when I was at home, I was surfing through the web and came across a really awesome tattoo which lead me to think about a tattoo ive been dying to get, a pocket watch. With out even thinking about it I started googling pocket watches and some how ended up here ... https://www.google.ca/search?q=droste+watch&rlz=1C1CHFX_enCA553CA553&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Jf5JU6rHDoKE2wWIvoHYAQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=651
It was an amazing way to end my night, as my eyes and pussy were beyond satisfied and dreamy.
The next day I biked to and from work, so the possibilities of watches popping up on my way to work were very limited.
And at work I was very busy so I didnt leave my desk as often, again limiting my watch spottings.
But I did see two random watches as I walked around the office. Older gentlemen that caused images of their cum all over my face seem real. I went back to my desk to secretly playand tease my pantiless pussy for a bit before getting back to work.
As for today, I didn't notice any watches on my outing today.
And went to a very busy market and took public transit twice. So I am assuming the 2 day reference was strong enough to wear off automatically.
--
It began like any normal day.
Not wanting to get out of bed, rushing my way out the door.
Jumping on the bus. Headed to work, another drone day.
And then I saw a cute guy on the bus, he was texting on his phone. Hands up and shirt cuffs pulled back due to the reach of his arm.
There it was, his watch. For me to blatantly see. It was instant, and until that moment the thought of a watch did not even cross my mind, but at that very moment my pussy twitched and my mind went elsewhere.
I smiled, a pleasant reminder that you were inside my mind. That you gave me the desire to run my hands down this strangers dress pants.
As I continued on to through the subway I saw two more watches. Both on men that normally wouldn't excite me. But it was uncontrollable, much like smelling the cologne of an ex, it conjured up memories of me being on my knees servicing a man. It made me squirmy and giddy.
It wasn't until my lunch that I saw two more watches, this time two coworkers that I am not attracted to at all. They both smiled and said hello, and I smiled and noticed their watches. Right away an image of them sharing me popped into my head. Getting tagged teamed on both ends, holes filled by these two coworkers. As I drifted into my dirty thoughts the elevator dinged and opened, back up to my desk I went.
That is where I ran into my crush. Dressed dapper as always and giant smile he came over to greet me. My eyes automatically darted to his wrist, hoping he was wearing a watch, and to my pleasant surprise he was. It was very visible, eloquent and being paraded in my face. His hands moved when he talked and my eyes followed his watch's every move. I'm sure I had a very naughty grin on my face. and don't remember a word of our conversation. All I could think about was his hand deep in my cunt and his watch rubbing against my wet swollen pussy. Hoping hed go deeper and deeper to get the watch inside me. I wanted to watch my juices drip off his watch.
Anyways the conversation ended and I drifted back to reality, amazed at my ability to carry on a conversation while being so aroused and distracted. I stopped by his desk again later that day to say hello again ;)
I biked home (left my bike at work the day before cause it rained). On my way home I stopped by a roti shop for dinner.
I sat and enjoy the local alternative paper while I ate dinner. Went I got up I noticed how wet my pussy was, dripping actually. I wondered what had gotten me so excited. So I turned to take a look at the old man who served me, sure enough he was wearing a watch. Again instantly my mind melted and that amazing feeling of being controlled and aroused crept over me.
Later when I was at home, I was surfing through the web and came across a really awesome tattoo which lead me to think about a tattoo ive been dying to get, a pocket watch. With out even thinking about it I started googling pocket watches and some how ended up here ... https://www.google.ca/search?q=droste+watch&rlz=1C1CHFX_enCA553CA553&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Jf5JU6rHDoKE2wWIvoHYAQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=651
It was an amazing way to end my night, as my eyes and pussy were beyond satisfied and dreamy.
The next day I biked to and from work, so the possibilities of watches popping up on my way to work were very limited.
And at work I was very busy so I didnt leave my desk as often, again limiting my watch spottings.
But I did see two random watches as I walked around the office. Older gentlemen that caused images of their cum all over my face seem real. I went back to my desk to secretly playand tease my pantiless pussy for a bit before getting back to work.
As for today, I didn't notice any watches on my outing today.
And went to a very busy market and took public transit twice. So I am assuming the 2 day reference was strong enough to wear off automatically.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
The King Game: How to Be Submissive, How to be Dominant
In my post last night about improv and hypnosis, I mentioned that one of the best resources for improving your D/s is reading about status in books about improv, and especially Impro for Storytellers by Keith Johnstone. I want to prove it with this amazing passage about teaching a class of improv students how to play large status differences. You will definitely think about your own D/s experiences reading this, but I will share a couple of thoughts at the end.
One of the things this makes me think about is how hard it is to listen to what I want as a dom, and insist on it in a scene: someone may be acting out submissiveness to me, but they might not be doing it in the way I prefer. And it can be subtle issues of body language and personal space - I might sense "impertinence" without being able to put my finger on it. And we all know that there are some kinds of grovelling and offering of services that can be pushy and offputting, if only subliminally.
There's a bigger philosophical issue here about D/s: should my goal be to train someone how to be the most pleasing possible submissive to me? For some submissives, that's their dream. They might have hard or soft limits - for example, not liking the word "obedience". But that's not really challenging, since within that, they want their behaviour to be shaped for my maximal pleasure.
On the other hand, many submissives may have a certain image of submitting that is their kink (like "looking servile"!), but it may not be precisely what I find most pleasing. For example, the idea of receiving corporal punishment for misbehaving. Or say being made to sleep at the foot of the bed. Neither are a big part of my fantasy life. But given that the reality is that we are equal, consenting grownups, negotiating what we want out of the relationship on the basis of some shared kink, there should be room for talking about that too. Although it gets more complicated when it comes to the idea of being picky about their micro behaviour, as in the Johnstone passage. But I'm interested to hear from people how they deal with this paradox in their D/s relationships (maybe the central paradox for D/s): how to be the king or queen, while still ensuring the other person is getting what they want.
THE KING GAME
If the master is not happy, he snaps his fingers and his servant dies (to be instantly replaced by another servant, ad infinitum). The game is a competition to see which servant can survive the longest, and it makes the players exquisitely attentive to each other.
...
I place a master on a throne, or arrange him/her comfortably on a sofa with lots of cushions and grapes and other comforts. Then I say, 'If anything irritates you, no matter how minor, snap your fingers and your servant will die and we'll send in a replacement.'
I appoint a timekeeper to time how long the servants survive.
'We'll call fifteen seconds good! And twenty seconds excellent! Anyone like to try for twenty-five?'
This gives the masters permission to be severe, but even so, some will frown and allow their servants to make blunder after blunder. I interrupt such scenes and point out the moments when the master became irritated:
'You wanted to kill him after three seconds because his demeanour challenged you, but you thought that wouldn't be fair. Then you wanted to kill him because he cringed. Then you wanted to kill him because he asked you what you wanted. Then you wanted to kill him because he passed right in front of you on the way to the drinks cabinet. Then you wanted to kill him because he took a position behind you that made you feel uncomfortable. How will our servants learn if you're so forgiving?'
Often the masters have no idea that the servant is annoying them.
'Are you biting your lip and frowning?' I say.
'Er . . . yes.'
'Well, that's a sign that you're not happy, so kill your servant!'
Or I'll say, 'You're shirting about on your throne. Snap your fingers if you feel restless and we'll try a new servant!'
'But he hasn't done anything wrong!'
'The servants have to make being onstage a pleasure, and yet you're visibly unhappy. The sooner you kill a bad servant, the sooner we'll find one that it's a pleasure to work with!'
Or 'You didn't like it when she shoved her elbow into your face.'
'I wanted to give her a chance.'
'Don't give her a chance. She's been pestering you from the moment she stepped onstage, isn't that right?'
'Yes.'
'Well, if you don't kill her, she won't improve.'
'What did I do?' she says, astonished, because she'd thought she was succeeding.
'Well, for a start, you took big steps and waved your arms about. No servant is allowed to do that. It looked as if the regular servant was ill and they'd brought in a scullery-maid.'
I turn to the master: 'Then she stood over you and made you feel so uncomfortable that you crossed your leg away from her (an unsuccessful James Bond did that when the baddie approached him), and then she held eye contact, forcing you to look away. And then she asked if there was anything you wanted and you didn't like having to make a decision.'
'True!'
I'll often ask the servants if they know why they were killed.
'No idea!'
'Perhaps the master can tell you.'
The master may not know either - masters are told to kill on impulse, but sometimes they'll say things like 'You weren't respectful!' or 'You were too servile!'
If masters kill on impulse, I can usually tell them why they were irritated, and this gives them insight:
'The servant asked you if you wanted anything - that's why you killed her.'
The servant protests: 'But I'm a servant! Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?'
'Servants are paid to take the weight of trivial decisions away from the masters.'
'That's right!' interrupts the master. 'You were supposed to know what I wanted!'
The servant still looks baffled.
...
After the students have floundered for a while I advise them to:
* Enter with a purpose
* Never say, 'Is there anything you need, ma'am?'
* Be physically and vocally discreet
* Convey that the space belongs to the master and that you intrude into
it only when necessary
* Don't look servile - or as if waiting to be punished
* Don't out-stare (out-status) the master
* Don't leave awkward pauses
One of the things this makes me think about is how hard it is to listen to what I want as a dom, and insist on it in a scene: someone may be acting out submissiveness to me, but they might not be doing it in the way I prefer. And it can be subtle issues of body language and personal space - I might sense "impertinence" without being able to put my finger on it. And we all know that there are some kinds of grovelling and offering of services that can be pushy and offputting, if only subliminally.
There's a bigger philosophical issue here about D/s: should my goal be to train someone how to be the most pleasing possible submissive to me? For some submissives, that's their dream. They might have hard or soft limits - for example, not liking the word "obedience". But that's not really challenging, since within that, they want their behaviour to be shaped for my maximal pleasure.
On the other hand, many submissives may have a certain image of submitting that is their kink (like "looking servile"!), but it may not be precisely what I find most pleasing. For example, the idea of receiving corporal punishment for misbehaving. Or say being made to sleep at the foot of the bed. Neither are a big part of my fantasy life. But given that the reality is that we are equal, consenting grownups, negotiating what we want out of the relationship on the basis of some shared kink, there should be room for talking about that too. Although it gets more complicated when it comes to the idea of being picky about their micro behaviour, as in the Johnstone passage. But I'm interested to hear from people how they deal with this paradox in their D/s relationships (maybe the central paradox for D/s): how to be the king or queen, while still ensuring the other person is getting what they want.
Monday, April 21, 2014
Improv, Hypnosis, and Creativity
Every improv class involves at least a half an hour of playing a variety of warmup games - a bunch of mid-20s to early-30s adults paying a lot of money to do activities you might see at a children's birthday party - because that's what it takes to leave the buttoned-up everyday world behind, and to be spontaneously creating without judgment, as well as tuned into one another. But maybe hypnosis could substitute for the warmup.
For example, simplest game in the world: word toss. Classmates stand in a circle, and "toss" a word at each other. The objective of the person who receives it: look at another classmate and say a word. Any word at all. It just has to be fast. This game is incredibly difficult for adults. It instantly makes you realize all the layers of filtering we normally employ, to protect our self image. The choice of word could be fraught with peril: will it reveal something terrible about ourselves? Like that we're deranged, or not creative? And so the pause gets longer. Even though *any word is ok*. I'll bet this game would be a total disaster at most dinner parties - it takes a group of people very explicitly committed to not judging each other's output, and even then it takes practice.
So word toss was the first thing I was eager to try when I got a chance to do hypnosis with my former improv classmate. She's the first person I've hypnotized who does not know about my hypnosis fetish. I wrestled with myself about that, but ultimately decided it was ok, because a) she initiated, coming over and excitedly asked me if she could try hypnosis when she overheard me talking about it, b) I don't have the hots for her, c) her boyfriend would be there for the whole thing, and d) I was motivated to trance with her for reasons other than my fetish. But this is a broader issue that will come up in the future and I'll have to think about: whether it's ok to do vanilla hypnosis with people who don't want to know about my sex life, considering that I am bound to get a (usually mild) kinky thrill out of it.
Besides the warmup games, I was fascinated by the idea of improvisational storytelling. The book that got me to take improv classes, and which hit me like a lightning bolt out of the blue, was Keith Johnstone's Impro for Storytellers. This book is not just about improv comedy - the modern version of which Johnstone had a huge hand in founding - but about much bigger issues of performance, creativity, and the nature of stories.
Johnstone's most important message, that blew my mind, is that most people's problem with creativity is in trying, consciously, to come up with something good. Decades of getting graded on our work - and judging other people's work - has actually harmed us in that respect, and made most adults afraid to create anything at all. But no matter what age, we can find our way back to it with help. He describes an exercise in guided storytelling he does that certainly sounds a lot like hypnosis, in his other book Impro (you can read the entire chapter at the moment here).
If I get you to lie down, close your eyes and relax, and report what your imagination gives you, then you'll probably go into a deep state of absorption, and instead of 'thinking things up' the experiences will seem to be really happening to you. Afterwards, if I ask 'Did you feel the floor?' then you'll probably say, 'There wasn't any floor.' If I say, 'Did you experience your body?' you'll probably answer, 'I wasn't in my body' or 'I was in the body I had in the story.'He writes that the participant "should have the experience of imagining something 'effortlessly', and 'choicelessly'. He should understand through this game that he doesn't have to do anything in order to imagine, any more than he needs to do anything in order to relax or perceive." His method is to ask a series of prompts that guide the person's attention to different aspects of the imagined situation. And it is as though the person only has to look and see what's there to answer the question, rather than deciding on it or making it up. This is long, but I wanted to include his transcript of this in action because I find it so fascinating:
This callback, or "reincorporation", of earlier material provides a satisfying ending, and was apparently really funny when it happened. I studied this carefully. Clearly the questioner has a very active role in helping the story come into existence!
'What sort of stories do you like?'
'Science fiction. Well . . . Tolkien. Stories like The Hobbit.'
'OK. Imagine a lake surrounded by mountains.'
'Yes.'
'You are swimming in the lake.'
'Yes.'
'Can you see any fish?'
'Yes.'
'Large ones?'
'No.'
'Shoals of little ones turning and darting?'
'Yes.'
'There is one particular fish. What do you do with it?'
'I catch it.'
'You swim back to the shore and three hooded figures are waiting for you. What do you give them?'
'The fish.'
'And what do they give you in exchange?'
'A stick.'
'What do you do with it?'
'I point it at an oak tree and it vanishes.'
'And then?'
'I point it at the three hooded figures and they vanish too.'
'You set out through the woods. Does the path lead up or down?'
'Up.'
'What do you hear? Is it from your right or your left?'
'Left. Someone crying.'
'You look down into a clearing and see a woman surrounded by . . .?'
'Little men.'
'What's she wearing? Anything?'
'She's naked.'
'The little men see you?'
'They're coming at me waving sticks.'
'The woman calls to them?'
'She says it's not me who did it.'
'Was it someone from the castle?'
'Yes, he threw her out naked into the forest'
'Do you help her?'
'Yes.'
'Do you go up the path?'
'I put my cloak round her and we set off to the castle.'
'It gets dark?'
'Yes.'
'And you are going to sleep?'
'We cover ourselves with leaves and we lie about eight feet apart.'
'You're fast asleep when you wake up to feel her touching you.'
'Yes.'
'What's she after?'
'The stick.'
'Does she get it?'
'Yes.'
'She points it at you and what happens?'
'It goes all grey and wintry.'
'What do you see in the mist?'
'A huge oak tree, and three hooded figures leaping about and shouting.'
I feel the allure of this mode of creation. Although I'm not now an improvisational comedian, the book and the classes were a tremendous inspiration to me, and gave me something I desperately needed. It had an immediate, concrete impact on my behaviour, in that I sat down and wrote a dozen comedy sketches and 20 short stories over a period of a few months, after being absolutely terrified and paralyzed to do the slightest thing "creative" since as far back as middle school. This sentence alone was enough to free me:
It's hard to write a great poem about a sunset. What a ridiculous idea. Just write a poem and see what comes out.Most of what I created will never see the light of day (the stories are all mind control pornography - surprised?), but thanks to Johnstone I couldn't care less. It was great.
In looking for the dialogue in Impro, I discovered another fascinating connection with hypnosis, in discussing the possibility of an unexpected emotional reaction, or "abreaction" - and he uses that term!
Once the basic technique is mastered, I let students try it again. This time they'll be bolder. They'll encounter other people, they'll have adventures, but I'll still guide them away from 'bad trips'. I'm using the game to demonstrate to the student that he can be effortlessly creative, not to teach him that his imagination is terrifying and should be suppressed! People cån get upset playing the game, but if they weep you can cuddle them, which makes them feel better. When people abreact I always establish that (1) it's good for them; (2) they'll feel marvellous in half an hour; (3) it 'happens to everybody'Pretty plausible sounding advice, and not redundant with the tips in the major hypno books!
After plenty of pretalk and negotiation (though I didn't call it that), we did a couple of simple beginner trances, and then started the word toss. I got her boyfriend, also an improviser, involved as the one giving her the words to respond to.
The results were inconclusive. She didn't seem to hesitate over her choice of words, but they also came slowly - as words tend to do in hypnosis. I think the choices may have been a little less inhibited, less screened. For example, when he said "work" she just went "eeeugh", which certainly reflected her un-hypnotized feelings.
Then I had her do a word toss with herself. This is surprisingly hard to do normally, since you can get tripped up thinking about the pattern your words are making. So I suggested that she would hear herself say the last word and respond to it, but then let that last word go, fade away. From what she said afterwards, this "amnesia-lite" suggestion didn't work, but she still powered along, steadily giving out the words.
After more chatting out of trance, we decided to go ahead with the story. I did my best to imitate Johnstone, and even quickly reread the passage above seconds before the trance. Since she had pointed out that many of her word-toss words had related to a vacation in nature, that's where I started.
"You're in a wood. Is it a dark wood or a light wood?"
"Light."
And we were off. She saw markings on a tree trunk, heard a sound, and followed it into the bushes, to find an old man with a fishing rod, that had a boot on the end of the line.
I quickly discovered that guiding such a story is a skill that will take practice. I felt myself get worried that it was getting boring, and heard myself saying things like, "he says something unusual, what is it?" I don't know if that's against the spirit of the exercise. There were also times when I was concerned it might get scary, and wondered how much control I really had to steer the story away from distressing material. No matter what I tried to give her positive feedback and make it clear that whatever her imagination created was valid.
It was quite wonderful to see her calm, confident answers to my prompts as the story continued, and many times she offered details beyond the prompt. That surprised me because I think of hypnotized people as having a hard time initiating action. Eventually it unfolded into an eerie little tale, involving a small boy marking up the forest with strange symbols, and the old man as his servant. It wasn't a "proper" story, partly because it was so short, but it had a dream logic that I found compelling too, and there was a moment, just like in Johnstone's example, where we both knew the story had come to a natural ending. An oddly emotional ending.
I finished up with just a few more prompts to focus on the forest, with the late afternoon sun filtering through the treetops, to give her a bit more of her vacation.
She was enthusiastic about the experience, and told me how every detail of the scene had been vivid to her - that she could tell me exactly what the old man had been wearing for example. She had self-identified as visual before we began, and that certainly seemed to be true. I think visual people naturally get the most out of guided imagery, and for them it can be an extremely powerful and enjoyable experience.
I'm pleased with the session, and I want to do more someday. There are many other improv games that could be easier or more compelling in trance. (It's no coincidence that the Upright Citizens' Brigade Theatre's slogan is "DON'T THINK"!) I think of word-at-a-time stories, or some synchrony/rhythm games. Games involving high energy or initiating actions might be hard for hypnotized people.
But I think there's lots of potential for getting into characters, improv style, which of course massively overlaps with hypnotic roleplay, e.g. as discussed in Wiseguy's Mind Play. Stage hypnotists do this all the time, and also do activities where audience members interact with imposed personality traits. But I think this would be fun and funny to play with in less pressurized, more intimate settings, particularly for shy people who would normally feel too self-conscious to do any kind of performing. (which kind of makes my improv training like a months-long, thousand-dollar hypnotic trance, to convince someone as shy as me they could be onstage performing for an audience - with no script)
And where appropriate, improv character play can have a kinky dimension to it. For example, check out this hilarious audio file of a bright and literate college grad who has been hypnotized by her dom to talk like a ditzy valley girl (temporarily, and consensually). So I'm excited about both the sexual and the non-sexual possibilities. Being in the moment, not preparing or overthinking, letting go of mistakes, letting your unconscious create and accepting what it comes up with - these are all ideals of improv that trance can help anyone access.
As an addendum, a couple of people have asked, did improv training help me as a hypnotist? A little bit. Most of all by teaching me that you have to make choices, and commit to them. It may not always be the best possible choice, but the speed is important. You just have to respect the flow, and value it over everything being perfect. And often what your unconscious offers is better for that moment than if you had all the time in the world to think it over. Another way it might have helped is by the importance of truly tuning into your partner, and not letting your own plans take you out of noticing what is happening right now between you, and where the scene wants to go next. But thankfully for the sake of my slow brain, the pace of hypnosis is slower, with a little time to think - and unlike improv comedy, there is some room for thinking up wonderful ideas during the day, that you write down and then delight someone with!
One final note, because I love this stuff. Even if you're not interested in improv, Impro for Storytellers is one of the best books you could read about D/s: Johnstone was a researcher on status, and how it is deeply woven into every interaction we have, and D/s is about playing with status differences. In fact, with ridiculously large status differences - much larger than are usually "allowed" to be seen in everyday life, which is probably what makes D/s feel taboo. You just don't see people grovelling at someone's feet in mainstream American society! (at least not literally.) As a simple example of Johnstone's concrete discoveries, if you want to appear more dominant, at least for a few minutes, hold your head still, keep your hands far away from your head and face, make strong eye contact except when it could be interpreted as checking for approval, and make few unnecessary movements, with the movements you do make smooth and decisive. Anyone you have ever seen successfully portraying "dominant" has incorporated this body language.
Monday, April 14, 2014
NEEHU 5 Scene: The "Suddenly Susan" Suggestion
"Whenever I and only I say <word>, until I say that word again, you will find that any little movement you make brings you pleasure and arousal - every little twitch, of any muscle, anywhere in your body, will send a thrill of sexual pleasure through your body. And this will also be true if someone else moves your body - little movements of your body will give you little thrills of pleasure, while big movements give you big pleasure. There is no way to avoid the torment of pleasure that any little movement will bring you."
I got the idea for this suggestion from a sitcom episode I saw 14 years ago. Here's the relevant scene at 14:45:
The key line, that stuck with me, was "Because if I move, I'll have an orgasm." (And when I tracked it down, it turned out to be from Just Shoot Me not Suddenly Susan - who knew those were two distinct shows. Also, holy crap was Wendie Malick sexy!)
I'm so happy it came back to me while I was spending time with a delightful new trance partner on Sunday afternoon at NEEHU 5. She had expressed an interest in erotic control, which I was of course thrilled about, but had to think around a bit for something that would be fun and appropriate in the fairly public area of the con we were in, literally called the Fishbowl.
When I brought her out of trance, sitting beside me on the couch, and gave her the keyword, I could see the effect right away. Her eyes went wide, and I could see her tense up in an effort to stay still. Then about a second later there was a twitch, followed by a gasp, and then a wriggle, and more gasping. It's impossible to remain completely still, over long periods of time, and then the physical reaction to the pleasure would cause its own ripple of pleasure, that would just accelerate until she managed to settle down again. But that wouldn't last long. I couldn't believe what a hot show she was putting on for me. I had turned her body into a sexy perpetual motion feedback machine.
I lifted up her hand, which elicited a loud moan and shivers. Then when I let go, it stayed there in the air. Somehow I didn't realize that it would have the same effect as a mannequin/freeze suggestion - she couldn't lower her hand without more erotic torment. So I played with that for a while.
I released her then, and she sagged into the couch, clearly buzzing. I checked in and then asked her to stand up with both arms outstretched, and gave her the trigger again.
"Arms get tired after a while, you know," I said as she visibly struggled, quivers breaking out all over. "Especially when I do this." And I rested my hands on top of her hands. After a while I started gently increasing the pressure. When she let her arms go she made wonderful noises.
Then I started taunting her. "You're free to move you know. What are you afraid of? This is all in your head. Here, walk over to me." After more prodding she took a deep breath, and began the lurchingest, hip-rolling-est, sexy Frankenstein of a walk. She only made it two laborious steps before I took pity and told her to stop.
Count this as a success. Mostly thanks to the wonderful brain of this play partner, which took the suggestion and revelled in it. There's nothing really new, and in fact I recently realized the same idea can be found in Lee Allure's awesome "Big Trigger List" but the "Suddenly Susan" feels like me. And will be making future appearances. More than anything else about this suggestion, it was the look in her eyes: that inward focus and struggle, trying to attend to everywhere on her body at once and keep it all managed, only to have cascading pleasure come and wipe out all that control.
I got the idea for this suggestion from a sitcom episode I saw 14 years ago. Here's the relevant scene at 14:45:
The key line, that stuck with me, was "Because if I move, I'll have an orgasm." (And when I tracked it down, it turned out to be from Just Shoot Me not Suddenly Susan - who knew those were two distinct shows. Also, holy crap was Wendie Malick sexy!)
I'm so happy it came back to me while I was spending time with a delightful new trance partner on Sunday afternoon at NEEHU 5. She had expressed an interest in erotic control, which I was of course thrilled about, but had to think around a bit for something that would be fun and appropriate in the fairly public area of the con we were in, literally called the Fishbowl.
When I brought her out of trance, sitting beside me on the couch, and gave her the keyword, I could see the effect right away. Her eyes went wide, and I could see her tense up in an effort to stay still. Then about a second later there was a twitch, followed by a gasp, and then a wriggle, and more gasping. It's impossible to remain completely still, over long periods of time, and then the physical reaction to the pleasure would cause its own ripple of pleasure, that would just accelerate until she managed to settle down again. But that wouldn't last long. I couldn't believe what a hot show she was putting on for me. I had turned her body into a sexy perpetual motion feedback machine.
I lifted up her hand, which elicited a loud moan and shivers. Then when I let go, it stayed there in the air. Somehow I didn't realize that it would have the same effect as a mannequin/freeze suggestion - she couldn't lower her hand without more erotic torment. So I played with that for a while.
I released her then, and she sagged into the couch, clearly buzzing. I checked in and then asked her to stand up with both arms outstretched, and gave her the trigger again.
"Arms get tired after a while, you know," I said as she visibly struggled, quivers breaking out all over. "Especially when I do this." And I rested my hands on top of her hands. After a while I started gently increasing the pressure. When she let her arms go she made wonderful noises.
Then I started taunting her. "You're free to move you know. What are you afraid of? This is all in your head. Here, walk over to me." After more prodding she took a deep breath, and began the lurchingest, hip-rolling-est, sexy Frankenstein of a walk. She only made it two laborious steps before I took pity and told her to stop.
Count this as a success. Mostly thanks to the wonderful brain of this play partner, which took the suggestion and revelled in it. There's nothing really new, and in fact I recently realized the same idea can be found in Lee Allure's awesome "Big Trigger List" but the "Suddenly Susan" feels like me. And will be making future appearances. More than anything else about this suggestion, it was the look in her eyes: that inward focus and struggle, trying to attend to everywhere on her body at once and keep it all managed, only to have cascading pleasure come and wipe out all that control.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Guest post: Trance & kinky exploration
Not much I could add to this, except that I love it and aspire to write something as beautiful about hypnosis someday. By thewindow, reposted with permission from her Fetlife post.
--
I think of the center of the flame of my purple pinecone shaped candle, and can feel a tiny pull towards some inner state I’m starting to explore, a launchpad for both stillness and for infinite possibilities.
I recently did a hypnosis scene with Divney and my boyfriend where Divney hypnotized me to feel deeper pleasure, weakness and trance when my boyfriend bit me. (My recent vampire erotica was originally supposed to be a basis for the scene but we scaled it way, way back since it involved a lot of tricky parts and it was my first time in hypnosis.)
There is so much to write about this that was exciting: Playing with other people for the first time as a couple! Feeling super safe and encouraged to prioritize safety, even when playing with altered states of consciousness! But what I’m feeling pulled to write about now is the connection I’m feeling between hypnotic trance and the exploration of kink itself.
I’ve had an on-and-off-again meditation practice and have had some guided imagery done by different holistic practitioners, and I’m told that helps with going into trance. But this was my first time doing hypnosis except for mucking around with some friends as a teenager using the methods from the film Dead Again (so you know it was Totally Legit).
Trance was such a wonderful and wild space to be in. Divney had me stare into the heart of a flame as the initial induction. The impossibility and density of the center of a flame was the perfect space to get visually lost in. Days later, I still conjure up the image sometimes to tap into a more grounded space.
The internal space I found, and the relationship I found myself taking to the suggestions and directions Divney guided me to while I was in trance, reminded me a lot of an experience I had a few years ago. A friend and I were scoping out the chapel at the Harvard Business School as a possible location for a film he was shooting. It has a tiered koi pond with triangular glass walls as its lobby and the chapel itself looks, sounds, and feels like it’s inside a giant boulder of quartz. It was such a beautiful and surreal place that my senses and contemplation were heightened anyway, but these only got stronger as we went downstairs into a pitch black basement. After a short time I felt like I had my bearings, even in the dark, but suddenly realized what we had thought was a wall was actually an opening into yet another (pitch black) space. Eventually we found our way to a tiny room where all we could see were a few red LED lighs and a red clock counting down something like 18 hours.
With the architecture, the room that seemed to suddenly appear, and the countdown, we started telling each other stories. We were in a submarine. The world around us was a nuclear wasteland, and in 18 hours it would be reborn. We were in the security vault of a bank. We were on another planet.
After about an hour of this, I got to a space where I really wasn’t sure what we would find if we left that pitch black space. Seeing the koi pond seemed just as likely as seeing the bottom of the ocean, as seeing a Martian landscape. And I wanted to find those other things if I looked, wanted reality to be malleable, wanted my imagination to be so rich that it would come to life.
Going into trance felt very similar to that. A mental space where I could get lost in the center of a flame, where I could drop into spaces of myself yet unexplored, where maybe I really couldn’t open my eyes when Divney told me it would be too difficult to if I tried.
And part of me knew that I could open my eyes, could turn down the suggestions, just like a part of me knew that when we exited the basement, we’d be back in the chapel, no nuclear winter to be seen. But we hung out so long in that basement because we didn’t want our imagination to be disconfirmed. My beliefs and my wishes twisted and wove together.
And similarly, I so loved savoring the trance and wanted to revel in it because it meant limitlessness, infinite possibilities, spelunking of the soul, giddy wonderings of what new directions I could ride that belief/wish line towards.
After the wonderful evening, I was reflecting to Divney how our scene felt like embarking on a journey, of trying hypnosis, of playing with new people – and realized that, well, every moment in the kink scene I’ve had feels like the beginning of some journey. It’s all continuous, but each point of growth and learning and exploration is the start of its own trajectory that will have its own storyline, its own narrative, even if it’s a part of other narratives too.
And lo and behold, last night I turned to start reading When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist nun who often writes about meditation (hello hypnosis-relatedness!), and the first chapter is all about journeys and the newness they bring. From her book:
When we begin our exploration, we have all kinds of ideals and expectations. We are looking for answers that will satisfy a hunger we’ve felt for a very long time. But the last thing we want is a further introduction to the boogeyman…. The truth is that when we really begin to [explore and face the fears that inescapably arise], we’re going to be continually humbled. There’s not going to be much room for the arrogance that holding on to ideals can bring. The arrogance that inevitably does arise is going to be continually shot down by our own courage to step forward a little further. (p. 2-3)
Wow! Just like the fortune cookie message where you insert “in bed” after everything, try inserting “in/through kink.”
Yes, I’ve hungered for a long time. I’ve hungered for my fantasies. I’ve hungered for liberation from the boogeymen I’ve faced that left me suppressing my sexuality for so long. And of course, there are new boogeymen, from the large one of the specter of rape culture to the smaller ones of how you’re never quite prepared for the next day drop after a con or a scene or a party. And yet these unsettling and sometimes frightening things only arise because I have the courage to take those steps forward, to have new firsts, to have new experiences, to have new beginnings of journeys I didn’t even know were possible.
Each step I take in my exploration of kink and in the kink scene is a step towards the satisfaction of my hunger, towards fear, towards the unknown, towards limitlessness, infinite possibilities, spelunking of the soul, giddy wonderings of what new directions I can ride the blissful blending of reality and desire towards. I’m so excited to have had such a wonderful and empowering experience with hypnosis with Divney and my boyfriend – where even as I was being guided towards something specific, it felt like my going there came from a place of amazingly expanded choices – bringing in yet another means that so directly will help me explore kink in this open, vulnerable, powerful way.
--
I think of the center of the flame of my purple pinecone shaped candle, and can feel a tiny pull towards some inner state I’m starting to explore, a launchpad for both stillness and for infinite possibilities.
I recently did a hypnosis scene with Divney and my boyfriend where Divney hypnotized me to feel deeper pleasure, weakness and trance when my boyfriend bit me. (My recent vampire erotica was originally supposed to be a basis for the scene but we scaled it way, way back since it involved a lot of tricky parts and it was my first time in hypnosis.)
There is so much to write about this that was exciting: Playing with other people for the first time as a couple! Feeling super safe and encouraged to prioritize safety, even when playing with altered states of consciousness! But what I’m feeling pulled to write about now is the connection I’m feeling between hypnotic trance and the exploration of kink itself.
I’ve had an on-and-off-again meditation practice and have had some guided imagery done by different holistic practitioners, and I’m told that helps with going into trance. But this was my first time doing hypnosis except for mucking around with some friends as a teenager using the methods from the film Dead Again (so you know it was Totally Legit).
Trance was such a wonderful and wild space to be in. Divney had me stare into the heart of a flame as the initial induction. The impossibility and density of the center of a flame was the perfect space to get visually lost in. Days later, I still conjure up the image sometimes to tap into a more grounded space.
The internal space I found, and the relationship I found myself taking to the suggestions and directions Divney guided me to while I was in trance, reminded me a lot of an experience I had a few years ago. A friend and I were scoping out the chapel at the Harvard Business School as a possible location for a film he was shooting. It has a tiered koi pond with triangular glass walls as its lobby and the chapel itself looks, sounds, and feels like it’s inside a giant boulder of quartz. It was such a beautiful and surreal place that my senses and contemplation were heightened anyway, but these only got stronger as we went downstairs into a pitch black basement. After a short time I felt like I had my bearings, even in the dark, but suddenly realized what we had thought was a wall was actually an opening into yet another (pitch black) space. Eventually we found our way to a tiny room where all we could see were a few red LED lighs and a red clock counting down something like 18 hours.
With the architecture, the room that seemed to suddenly appear, and the countdown, we started telling each other stories. We were in a submarine. The world around us was a nuclear wasteland, and in 18 hours it would be reborn. We were in the security vault of a bank. We were on another planet.
After about an hour of this, I got to a space where I really wasn’t sure what we would find if we left that pitch black space. Seeing the koi pond seemed just as likely as seeing the bottom of the ocean, as seeing a Martian landscape. And I wanted to find those other things if I looked, wanted reality to be malleable, wanted my imagination to be so rich that it would come to life.
Going into trance felt very similar to that. A mental space where I could get lost in the center of a flame, where I could drop into spaces of myself yet unexplored, where maybe I really couldn’t open my eyes when Divney told me it would be too difficult to if I tried.
And part of me knew that I could open my eyes, could turn down the suggestions, just like a part of me knew that when we exited the basement, we’d be back in the chapel, no nuclear winter to be seen. But we hung out so long in that basement because we didn’t want our imagination to be disconfirmed. My beliefs and my wishes twisted and wove together.
And similarly, I so loved savoring the trance and wanted to revel in it because it meant limitlessness, infinite possibilities, spelunking of the soul, giddy wonderings of what new directions I could ride that belief/wish line towards.
After the wonderful evening, I was reflecting to Divney how our scene felt like embarking on a journey, of trying hypnosis, of playing with new people – and realized that, well, every moment in the kink scene I’ve had feels like the beginning of some journey. It’s all continuous, but each point of growth and learning and exploration is the start of its own trajectory that will have its own storyline, its own narrative, even if it’s a part of other narratives too.
And lo and behold, last night I turned to start reading When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist nun who often writes about meditation (hello hypnosis-relatedness!), and the first chapter is all about journeys and the newness they bring. From her book:
When we begin our exploration, we have all kinds of ideals and expectations. We are looking for answers that will satisfy a hunger we’ve felt for a very long time. But the last thing we want is a further introduction to the boogeyman…. The truth is that when we really begin to [explore and face the fears that inescapably arise], we’re going to be continually humbled. There’s not going to be much room for the arrogance that holding on to ideals can bring. The arrogance that inevitably does arise is going to be continually shot down by our own courage to step forward a little further. (p. 2-3)
Wow! Just like the fortune cookie message where you insert “in bed” after everything, try inserting “in/through kink.”
Yes, I’ve hungered for a long time. I’ve hungered for my fantasies. I’ve hungered for liberation from the boogeymen I’ve faced that left me suppressing my sexuality for so long. And of course, there are new boogeymen, from the large one of the specter of rape culture to the smaller ones of how you’re never quite prepared for the next day drop after a con or a scene or a party. And yet these unsettling and sometimes frightening things only arise because I have the courage to take those steps forward, to have new firsts, to have new experiences, to have new beginnings of journeys I didn’t even know were possible.
Each step I take in my exploration of kink and in the kink scene is a step towards the satisfaction of my hunger, towards fear, towards the unknown, towards limitlessness, infinite possibilities, spelunking of the soul, giddy wonderings of what new directions I can ride the blissful blending of reality and desire towards. I’m so excited to have had such a wonderful and empowering experience with hypnosis with Divney and my boyfriend – where even as I was being guided towards something specific, it felt like my going there came from a place of amazingly expanded choices – bringing in yet another means that so directly will help me explore kink in this open, vulnerable, powerful way.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Favourite Hypnokink Posts on Tumblr
There's a hypnokink party happening on tumblr! Every day there's likely to be one or two thoughtful posts from people doing hypnosis in real life. And for every one of those, dozens of hypnofetish porn posts - mostly vanilla porn pictures with mc flash-fiction captions about how the person in the photo is hypnotized.
Tumblr, for old people like myself, is kind of a cross between your facebook newsfeed and a blogging platform. In fact you could just use it as a blog, but the interface affords easily scanning through new posts from all the people you "follow", and with one click "repost" items on your own feed. It also helps you easily share images and posts from other websites. You can add commentary to what you repost as well, which gives a welcome (if sometimes tempestuous) element of discussion.
But primarily it seems like a way to soak yourself in new content about your interest at will. Well, your interest along with a ton of jokey gifs, vanilla porn, personal status updates, and fan content (brace for Hannibal and Doctor Who). The volume is awesome for me as a hypnokinkster, but in that firehose blast, it's hard both to find and to hang onto the blog-like posts where someone took some time to describe a hypnotic experience or idea.
Therefore, this post will serve as an index to those tumblr posts I've run across that have what I'm looking for: are surprising, informative, and creative, and are based on personal experience with hypnosis. I've long looked for IRL hypnosis discussion community, finding only some Fetlife groups and a little on mcforum so I'm so excited that there is this rapidly expanding community online. All these tumblrs are worth following (note that I definitely don't endorse everything these writers post), represent every combination of top/bottom and male/female (for starters), and most are less than a year old, so it's exciting to see where this is going. (note that this does not include the wonderful blogspot-style blogs on my sidebar, like sleepingirl's and spiral turquoise's, because it's much easier to find the good stuff in there - hope to devote future posts to my favourites of theirs.)
This is also my wordy way to say I've joined tumblr: deeperforme.tumblr.com. Basically using it to advertise my blogspot posts, but maybe it is more convenient for you!
AmHypnotic: You Did Nothing!
HS: How does one tell if they're in trance?
HS: Wrench Wench
HS: Hypnosis techniques: Amnesia
HS:Little Bird’s Mantra
HS: Hypnosis vs Trance
HS: Why I do it
AmHypnotic: The Kind of Moments I Love in Hypno Kink Play...
AmHypnotic: Tips from a Hypnobottom 4 Commentary
AmHypnotic: Consensual Nonconsent, Mind Control, and Hypnofetish...
AmHypnotic: Look Into My Eyes, a musing about my favorite D/s style induction...
HS: On The Importance Of Trust
TSLIB: Hermione Granger as a hypnotist
TSLIB: Too elaxed for the letter R
TSLIB: January
TSLIB: How to Write Good (for hypnosis)
TSLIB: The Doge trance
TSLIB: Scientists discover most relaxing tune ever
TSLIB: Bat Trance
TSLIB: Robots and Emergent Behavior
TSLIB: It’s really frustrating being a female hypnotist on Omegle.
DOASF: What is some advice you wish you could give your younger self?
DOASF: Tips from a Hypnobottom (whole series)
DOASF: Like a sexy, involuntary improv class
DOASF: Sex chair
HV: Hypnotic bingo
OIP: what goes on in your mind when hypnotized
HSurrender: Resistance is Futile
TSLIB: Commentary on sir-with-the-pendulum
Serena: Trance time with Spiral Turquoise :)
subject-e: Playing on the edge of the Void
POM: Text induction
Dommestic: How does proximity to last orgasm affect depth of trance?
Daja: Lessons Learned at NEEHU
Hypnotic-tale: Proper Hypnosis Session
HV: I can do this by myself...I often do
Charlequin: Consent and Negotiation
HS: Why I am Proud of my Subjects
DOASF: One of the most emotionally intense scenes we’ve ever done.
DOASF: Bimbofication by talking like a valleygirl + audio!
Charlequin: The Story of You
TSLIB: What would you recommend for our first experience?
Hypnotic-tale: Trigger and suggestion post!
HS: Hypno-Guns and Other Things
Tumblr, for old people like myself, is kind of a cross between your facebook newsfeed and a blogging platform. In fact you could just use it as a blog, but the interface affords easily scanning through new posts from all the people you "follow", and with one click "repost" items on your own feed. It also helps you easily share images and posts from other websites. You can add commentary to what you repost as well, which gives a welcome (if sometimes tempestuous) element of discussion.
But primarily it seems like a way to soak yourself in new content about your interest at will. Well, your interest along with a ton of jokey gifs, vanilla porn, personal status updates, and fan content (brace for Hannibal and Doctor Who). The volume is awesome for me as a hypnokinkster, but in that firehose blast, it's hard both to find and to hang onto the blog-like posts where someone took some time to describe a hypnotic experience or idea.
Therefore, this post will serve as an index to those tumblr posts I've run across that have what I'm looking for: are surprising, informative, and creative, and are based on personal experience with hypnosis. I've long looked for IRL hypnosis discussion community, finding only some Fetlife groups and a little on mcforum so I'm so excited that there is this rapidly expanding community online. All these tumblrs are worth following (note that I definitely don't endorse everything these writers post), represent every combination of top/bottom and male/female (for starters), and most are less than a year old, so it's exciting to see where this is going. (note that this does not include the wonderful blogspot-style blogs on my sidebar, like sleepingirl's and spiral turquoise's, because it's much easier to find the good stuff in there - hope to devote future posts to my favourites of theirs.)
This is also my wordy way to say I've joined tumblr: deeperforme.tumblr.com. Basically using it to advertise my blogspot posts, but maybe it is more convenient for you!
AmHypnotic: You Did Nothing!
HS: How does one tell if they're in trance?
HS: Wrench Wench
HS: Hypnosis techniques: Amnesia
HS:Little Bird’s Mantra
HS: Hypnosis vs Trance
HS: Why I do it
AmHypnotic: The Kind of Moments I Love in Hypno Kink Play...
AmHypnotic: Tips from a Hypnobottom 4 Commentary
AmHypnotic: Consensual Nonconsent, Mind Control, and Hypnofetish...
AmHypnotic: Look Into My Eyes, a musing about my favorite D/s style induction...
HS: On The Importance Of Trust
TSLIB: Hermione Granger as a hypnotist
TSLIB: Too elaxed for the letter R
TSLIB: January
TSLIB: How to Write Good (for hypnosis)
TSLIB: The Doge trance
TSLIB: Scientists discover most relaxing tune ever
TSLIB: Bat Trance
TSLIB: Robots and Emergent Behavior
TSLIB: It’s really frustrating being a female hypnotist on Omegle.
DOASF: What is some advice you wish you could give your younger self?
DOASF: Tips from a Hypnobottom (whole series)
DOASF: Like a sexy, involuntary improv class
DOASF: Sex chair
HV: Hypnotic bingo
OIP: what goes on in your mind when hypnotized
HSurrender: Resistance is Futile
TSLIB: Commentary on sir-with-the-pendulum
Serena: Trance time with Spiral Turquoise :)
subject-e: Playing on the edge of the Void
POM: Text induction
Dommestic: How does proximity to last orgasm affect depth of trance?
Daja: Lessons Learned at NEEHU
Hypnotic-tale: Proper Hypnosis Session
HV: I can do this by myself...I often do
Charlequin: Consent and Negotiation
HS: Why I am Proud of my Subjects
DOASF: One of the most emotionally intense scenes we’ve ever done.
DOASF: Bimbofication by talking like a valleygirl + audio!
Charlequin: The Story of You
TSLIB: What would you recommend for our first experience?
Hypnotic-tale: Trigger and suggestion post!
HS: Hypno-Guns and Other Things
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