You've changed
You're thriving
There's something about the woods
Not just
Surviving
You're blossoming in the woods...
- It Takes Two, Into the Woods
This weekend was DeepMind Darkwood, the erotic hypnosis retreat in
western Massachusetts. It was the second time I've gone. My last time
was 5 years ago. A lot of stuff has happened in that time!
My first time was within my first year of knowing that hypnokink
exists, and it was my first hypno con of any kind - I wouldn't go to my
first NEEHU until the following March. I was in way, way over my head. I
came in without any play partners or good friends, I had barely ever
hypnotized anyone, and I was just freaking out most of the time. (I
looked up my old blog entry to remember the date, but I don't dare read
it!) I still found it mindblowing and valuable, but this time I was so
much better positioned to dive into its cultish charms.
This time I knew so many more people, including close friends from
the Boston scene (thank you again DigitalSwitchGamine and AndSleep for
the ride!) and most of all I got to share it with my wife khatsha.
40 people in a wooden lodge in a big clearing in the woods, 36 hours,
no classes, mostly collective activities. There is nothing remotely
like Deepmind. Every year LeeAllure and MrDream set out to engineer a
very specific atmosphere, that might not work for everyone, but which I
found both cozy and invigorating - a wonderful invitation to relax, open
up, and try new and scary things.
Scary things: yes there were still occasional moments of anxiety and
missed connections, and we certainly put to use our couple skills of
calming each other down (that get heavily exercised at every con - cons
are the greatest, but also stressful!). But we came out having learned
new things about ourselves and each other.
Some of the best moments, and achievements of Lee and Dream that I want to call out:
Opening and closing ceremonies. Simple yet lovely, they grounded me in the present and made me feel connected to everyone.
Something called the word cloud (?), which is hard to describe but
involved people running around in the dark on the lawn yelling things
that are part of hypnokink like "DOLL PLAY!" or "ORGASMS!" and it gave
me warm feelings.
Speed trancing! I'd avoided that in the past at NEEHU, but now that
I've done it, I see it is genius the way they set it up, and we are
going to steal it for BEHIVE. I had so many great hypnotic encounters
and so many good conversations in a short span of time - each one only 6
minutes.
Plentiful and delicious food along with cozy communal dining,
signalled by a dinner bell that brought me right back to summer camp.
Breaking into groups and creating group trance activities, for three
of the modalities, which took up the bulk of the day on saturday. It's
really striking how little there was that felt like a class, and it made
me realize how I can sometimes get into passive, cautious,
overintellectual mode sitting in classes at Charmed, NEEHU etc, rather
than putting energy into creating new things, both 1 on 1 and in groups.
Deepmind insists that you come to do.
For one such activity, digitalswitchgamine's droning collective "sound
bath", which definitely felt just as cultish as I wanted the weekend to
be. Any lost tourist happening up the road just then would definitely
have been justified guessing they were were about to see or be part of
ritualistic murder.
Outfits! So many people brought their A game and showed just how
alluring they can be. The 15 minutes it took for two of us, using half a
tube of lube, to get khatsha into her latex dress? Well. Fucking. Worth
it.
My performance at (alcohol-free) dizzy bat, which I can confidently
call the worst ever, wherein I ran in a tight circle and fell down
possibly having recrossed the starting line
Gorgeous weather. That wasn't their doing (I think??), but we got
lucky with a couple of perfect golden September days outdoors in
Massachusetts. Even the route there and back was beautiful.
Amidst all that khatsha and I got to watch and do some wonderfully
twisted and pleasurable scenes, and enjoy many quiet moments of
togetherness with likeminded pervs.
Thank you to the organizers, the volunteers, and everyone who came and made it so special!
In the BEHIVEconsent and conduct policy,
we wrote "Our default approach is to believe accusations unless there
is powerful evidence to the contrary." This caused some consternation
and objection from one person. He compared it to the satanic panic of
the 80s and falsely imprisoned anti-war activists of the 1960s.
Later, he backed off and apologized, saying "I have been reassured
that the statement means that any and all accusations will be taken as
seriously as possibly and investigated, thoroughly." Another observer
agreed, "With some very subtle changes the meaning could have been more
clearly presented to eliminate any confusion."
We did not mean that. We meant what we wrote.
We don't intend to conduct investigations.
We are not investigators.
We don't have the training. Or resources such as background checks or
ability to subpoena evidence. We have no desire to build a formal
investigative procedure. Not to mention that in the case of consent
violations, legalistic questioning is often retraumatizing, and sharing
information with the accused can put the accuser in danger.
Even if we could conduct thorough investigations, in most cases there
would remain a fog of uncertainty. Very many consent violations don't
have witnesses except the people involved.
With all the information in the world - which we will not have - you
still have to make a call. And we choose, by default, to make the call
to believe the accuser.
This is different from the legal system! It makes sense that the
legal system should require an assumption of innocence, with the burden
of proof on the accuser. We do not. The key difference being, and I
can't stress this enough, that one involves going to jail, and the
other, not getting to go to a dinner.
Positive, lively kinky atmospheres are so fragile. I have seen them
wither and die because of only a couple of individuals, and those events
continue on, dead. Zombie events. I've seen people show up at an event,
smell the decay, and turn right around and walk out, never to come
back. And that's a good scenario, compared to the one where an event
becomes a hunting ground for serial predators.
We built the BEHIVE executive, and started our jobs, ready to fight
for the atmosphere. The need to deal with consent violations and
creepiness doesn't take us by surprise. That would be like a hotel
manager not being ready for shit-clogged toilets - it's a horrible part
of the job, but it's the job. And since all of society is weighted
towards dismissing assault reports, the best way to do our job, and deal
with that shit, is to believe accusations, the first time.
That said, of course we're going to use our intelligence. Even though
we don't consider false reports to be a big problem relative to actual
cases of assault (when it comes to rape, the Journal of Forensic Psychology estimates
about 20 true ones for every false one, and that's based on law
enforcement reports), it's happened. And of course rules can be gamed,
consent rhetoric can be weaponized. (and if you don't believe that,
you've never seen someone accused of an assault turn around and accuse
the accuser) So nothing is automatically triggered by an accusation. We
make a decision by having a discussion, and then taking a vote.
That vote is among the five of us on the executive. Three are femme,
and three are people that primarily bottom. That means that even if I
turn out to relate a bit too much to an accused person who is like me,
an older male dom, I can be outvoted. By people who each have more than
enough experience with being creeped on.
All this is designed to weight things towards believing accusations,
and taking action. If this stance rubs you the wrong way, start your own
club! I'm serious about that! All you have to do is click "Create new
event", and then call a restaurant.
For the people we most want, hopefully this all sounds good, but
words are not that useful - watch our actions. Over a long period of
time. If you make a report, see how we react to it. But here are some
actions the BEHIVE exec has taken in its first six months, besides write
a consent and conduct policy:
We've added three previous munch attendees to our ban list, and sent one official warning.
We created Google docs to accumulate reports and observations about
people, even minor ones, so that people can be banned for patterns of
subthreshold behaviour.
A different person, who has never been to one of our events, wrote to
us: "I think that your group is very concerned with rules and laws and
control, and not so much about considering the humanity of people." I
disagree: I think that we are using explicit rules and laws (which
include, by the way, such laws as "Be nice") to express our intention to
protect the humanity of our spaces. It's an agonizing, painful thing to
ban someone, but not to do it is to fall into geek fallacy #1, and to fail the amazing people we might not even get to meet.
We are doing our absolute best not to make mistakes. But, inevitably,
we will. We're going to ban people who shouldn't be banned, and not ban
people who should be. All this is just to say: we want to risk making
more of the first kind of mistake than the second.
And that's what we meant.
(this is a personal essay, not a BEHIVE statement, but it was read by the other four executive members)
This was written collectively, but I sketched out the first draft, and I'm particularly proud of the part about IVE.
----
NEHG has a very exciting announcement: we’ve officially changed our name to BEHIVE! Please join the new Fetlife group. You don’t have to rejoin the mailing list or Discord server; we’ll rename them both accordingly.
That's
Boston Erotic Hypnosis Initiates, Virtuosos, and Enthusiasts
Why the name change?
"New England Hypnosis Group" hasn't been a good fit for us for a while, for a few reasons:
With very few exceptions, we organize events in the Greater Boston
area. People come to our events from all over, and once in a while we
will do something outside of Boston (like help organize the hypno lounge
at the Winter Flea in Rhode Island), but the Boston area is our home
base and the core population we serve.
We would never want to appear to supersede totally independent (and awesome) New England groups such as New Hampshire Hypnokink or HypnoRI.
It's confusingly similar to NELA, NEEHU or NEDS. (That’s New England
Leather Alliance, New England Erotic Hypnosis Unconference, and New
England Dungeon Society.) We’re distinct from all those groups, although
we remain a NELA Special Interest Group, and will keep collaborating
with NEDS.
The old name didn’t include “erotic.” We also considered "kinky,"
and "recreational," but we want people to know what to expect: you're
probably going to interact with people who find hypnosis at least a
little sexy. You aren't required to feel the same way, but you may see
demos of erotic triggers and trance experiences, and you're probably
going to hear conversations about how to use hypnosis to enhance
eroticism, how hypnosis fits into a framework of consent, and how many
of us had our sexual awakening because of that Scooby-Doo clown episode
(it's a lot). We’d also never want someone to come to the group thinking
it was going to be about hypnotherapy or vanilla stage hypnosis.
Nothing else is changing except for the name. The current executive
committee has been running the organization for six months, since
leadership was transferred by the previous leader, DeCordazon, in
February of 2018. In those six months, we have posted and run 18 events,
including:
The Cambridge munch
The additional weekday "munchkin"
The revival of the study group (thanks, @DeviantSimian!)
A class taught by Wiseguy, presented in collaboration with NEDS
A presence at the NELA summer Fetish Fair Fleamarket
The Hypnosis Lounge at the 2018 winter Fetish Fair Fleamarket, with 150 attendees
At munches alone we've had 231 visits by people all told - a minimum
of 13 every time and the biggest headcount at a Boston hypnosis munch so
far (27 people!).
Also in that time, we've initiated some changes such as leadership by
a five person executive committee that meets at least every month, a
constitution with a voting protocol, a consent and conduct policy that has been used as a model by at least one other group, a Discord server, and a monthly email newsletter.
A bit more about the IVE part:
Initiates are anyone who has the courage to walk
through that door to a munch or study group, to take the first step of
joining the IRL hypnosis community. That's a huge moment! We all went
through it. Our focus is on you and making that experience as welcoming
and awesome as possible.
Virtuosos are whoever is working on developing their
mojo as a hypnotist, hypnotee, or both. (And initiates can be
virtuosos!) Erotic hypnosis as an artform and a community thrives
through mass creativity, and everyone has something to share and teach.
Enthusiasts are all of us who are enthusiastic
enough about erotic hypnosis to go out and meet people (even if just on
Discord or FL!) As long as you can follow our consent and conduct policy, we want every possible voice.
We have so much stuff planned for our first year as BEHIVE, and we're so excited to do it with you.
I’m not a very good hypnotist. That’s just true. My wife is
getting ready to argue with me on this. And even a couple of other
people too. But they are wrong.
How do I know they’re wrong? Because I’m not working to get good.
We’ve been hanging out with some lovely shibari people recently,
people on a very high level, and it always hits home the level of
commitment that goes into a rope practice. Especially the most
spectacular manifestations, like suspensions. I don’t know the number of
professional rope teachers and dojos around the world, but I bet it’s
staggering. People move to Japan for months just to learn.
The other night, I and another hypno top made ourselves quite grumpy
while getting taught an intermediate single column tie. We realized it
had been a long time since we were really bad at something. Since we had
to work. I found myself pulling back, talking myself out of wanting to
learn at all. Our little focus group has a mission of exploring hypnosis
and rope bondage, but it’s in danger of going away if I don’t commit to
being more than a beginner at rope.
And I thought why should I? In the last week I got to show off
hypnosis in front of a couple of groups of people, and it was easy and I
got praise. I got to feel like a badass.
But really, people love the feeling of hypnosis, and my partners and
their powerful imaginations (and fetishes!) are making the magic happen.
If everyone knew how easy it was, if hypnosis was even a fraction of
how popular rope is - let alone something like classical music or Super
Mario speed runs! - my skills would be seen as mediocre at best. The
fact that it feels easy is not really a good sign.
There’s a few things I think I’m right on track with: Working with
first timers. Consent conscious negotiation. Some twisty evil scene
ideas. Intimate, unhurried scenes with highly motivated and imaginative
people. Engineering positive environments for other people to get their
hypnoplay on.
But I can feel myself getting cautious with my abilities, as though
they are flimsy and wouldn’t stand up to bending or stretching. I’m not
watching instructional videos, even ones recommended to me by friends.
I’m not reading a book at the moment, and I’m not going hunting for new
sources of ideas in various corners of the internet (e.g. reddit,
discord). I’m writing less - certainly not keeping up the detailed logs I
did at the beginning. Although I hypnotize people several days a week
(usually khatsha!) I don’t do hours of hypnosis a week. I’m not
following around hypnotists I admire and studying what they do - in fact
I’m a bit avoidant and intimidated.
And in particular I’m not doing deliberate practice on specific
skills, the kind of practice everyone agrees is necessary for real
mastery, like Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours. There are plenty of
skills I could use work on. I don’t have a decent hypnotic handshake -
I’m often out of my body and not good at using it in general. I’m
lacking in almost all the skills that stage hypnotists and street
hypnotists have, such as speed, showmanship, and quickly getting
attention and rapport. I’m not very fluent - I pause a lot, and have a
rough time with intricate wordplay and random confusing nonsense. My
voice could be improved a ton. I’m not great at asking people to play.
I’m still often so freaked out just to be doing hypnosis with someone
that I think I don’t truly connect with them and stay in the moment,
give them my authentic self.
I’ve hit a wall that’s all too familiar, when I start to get kinda
good at something, enough that my ego gets tied up with my competence.
The fear arrives: what if you’re not that good?? What if you’ll never be
good? You’ve put so much of yourself into this - wouldn’t it be better
just to not to find out? To just keep having “potential”?
On another, more legitimate note, do I really want to make hypnosis
about achievement and skill building? This is my sex life. And this is
my play: this is about spontaneity and joy and silliness and ridiculous
science fictional scenarios. This is my submissive hypnotized to blow me
at a single command. This is living the dream. Why should this be work?
Here’s why. I think there’s something there, over that hill: a chance
to be part of building something that has never actually existed
before, in the form of large-scale hypno community and high level
hypnosis skills. A chance to be one of the best in the world at
something, however tiny the pond.
Who gets that kind of chance? Besides
which, spontaneity, play and creativity are not the opposite of practice
and learning - take the examples of fiction writing, or improv comedy.
In those you practice and you learn to be able to play better, have a
higher hit ratio, go farther into it and sustain it. While still
striking out a lot of the time!
The only obstacle is this competency threat, this hangup that is such
typical baggage of being raised male. Especially the stirrings of
competitiveness, which is so useless: what this is really about is
getting to the point where I can jam with the greats, tops and bottoms
and switches, have so much fun, be wide open to learning, make so many
memories and invent new things together, expand the playground together
and fill it with toys.
So that’s why it feels great to say: I’m not very good at hypnosis! I kind of suck! (And I really suck at rope!) But who cares? There’s specific things I want to do differently, now that I’ve
gotten here, but basically I’m going to be a doofus and work and put the
time in, just for its own sake. Just for the pleasure of seeing myself
growing, for the new territories that open up, and to get to watch other
people growing too. This erotic hypnosis thing is going to be big,
people. This is going to be bananas. I’m going to be there.
Last week was the enormous Fetish Fair Fleamarket
near Providence, Rhode Island, one of the biggest gathering of
kinksters on the planet. This year it nearly didn’t happen, with the
entire governing board of the parent organization NELA resigning just
weeks before the event, but it rose from the ashes of that
consent-report-handling scandal thanks to some people working their ass
off, and I’m sure glad it did.
For hypnokinksters in particular, it had a bunch of neat classes by @theleeallure and @hypnoobiwan, and the Hypnosis Lounge on Sunday, organized by me and @khatsha.
Hypno people are a cheap date - all we really needed was a bunch of
chairs in a large room, but we also had a bunch of wonderful swirling
lights, supplied by @tell-a-hypnostory, snacks, and a hypno tent by @digitalswitchgamine (based on @khatsha’s brilliant insight that “hypnosis people are often claustrophiles”).
Over
the six hours, according to the count of our greeters, 150 people
visited!! That’s the size of NEEHU, holy crap! Besides promotion at the
classes, I credit @orchid-girl’s amazing poster and flyer, which we placed everywhere we could. And of course the coming hypnowave in BDSM.
My
favourite part about the lounge is how kinksters walk right in all day,
hoping to learn about hypnosis and maybe have a hypnotic experience. We
had some wonderful hypnotist volunteers, very keen and very slutty, and
that includes me. I tranced 6 or 7 people, which was nothing compared
to @tell-a-hypnostory, @ragezdasta, @hypnoobiwan and @digitalswitchgamine,
who were absolute machines. In the end I think almost everyone went
away satisfied - and more than one with their hypnofetish mutant gene
newly activated! Many lovely and hot experiences with people, including
making someone feel like they were breathing the atmosphere of Venus. I
think my favourite moment though was when I hypnotized someone who was
interested in switching, and then hooked her up with @khatsha for her
first experience on the topping side. She did great, and besides the
voyeuristic thrill, I got warm fuzzies seeing her imitate the very
lengthy, careful negotiation I did with her.
Not everything went perfect - for one thing, the projector we had showing a spiral movie on the wall (specifically HX: 01)
switched to showing my wedding video. I had to interrupt a scene real
quick for that! And next year we clearly need more space, and more hours
- a hypnolounge should not have the noise level of a high school
cafeteria, or be so packed there’s a danger of floating arms smacking
people nearby. We also need more stuff for people hanging around to do.
Maybe we’ll have the hypno viewmaster set up next year for gif ratings.
Finally, we didn’t do that well with connecting volunteer bottoms with aspiring
hypnotists, which surprised me. Something else to figure out.
I love the flea, with the wild outfits in latex and leather (this year I didn’t dress up as Kylo Ren)
and the feeling of absolute freedom and acceptance, but the lounge
experience was unmissable. We are grateful to everyone who came, and
especially to our amazing volunteers, including @undersleeper and @yoshibound
and @sageturtle. After six hours we all lay around as exhausted and
happy as the villagers after the clambake in the song from Carousel I’m
referencing in the title (only @diaryofasnowflake got that). Although the actual song that was playing was Closing Time by Semisonic - no thanks to @digitalswitchgamine there.
And
then we hopped in cars and drove back to Boston for another 3 hours of
hypno fun at the reboot of the NEHG Study Group. That part was insane
but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
and if you’re a hypnofetishist, you should too. It’s
objectively no more ridiculous and inexplicable than getting turned on
by a swinging pocketwatch. With a different roll of the dice, all of us
could have easily been furries too.
One of my best friends is a furry, and only found the courage to tell
me after I told him about my hypnosis thing, after three years of
working in the same tiny office together.
One of my favourite people I met at Charmed is a furry, and told me
there’s a universe of hypnosis interest and innovation in that community
that most of us have no idea about. The two of us will be collaborating
on a project.
If your argument for stigmatizing people is “actions by specific
furries are terrible,” or “furry culture is gross and busted in certain
ways”, think about what you’re saying. Hypnofetishists are responsible
for terrible things, and our culture is gross and busted in certain
ways. (there was also an excellent post I can’t find about how furries
support and respect visual artists in a way that almost no one else in
our culture does - here’s an equivalent New York Magazine article)
I know that some people are bothered by furries wearing their outfits
in public, but like lots of other public expressions of sexuality and
identity this hopefully can be navigated with mutual respect and
tolerance - it’s not clear to me why it would fall into a different
category than say age play, nudity, or the sometimes intense
consensual-nonconsent scenes that can be seen around hypnocons.
I support furries and I want them to feel welcome in the hypnokink community.
That morning you opened the fridge and saw a tomato sitting on the top shelf, at the front.
Something brushed across your mind about that tomato. But you shook it off, and bent down to get the almond milk.
Two more times that morning that tomato was there, right in front of you, and you felt troubled. But only for a moment.
Then, towards noon, you found yourself checking the clock regularly.
When you saw that the time had passed 12, you were sitting cross-legged on the couch in the living room and you realized there was something you had to do. "Just after I finish this important email," you told yourself. But you found your body standing up by itself. "Ok, I guess this is happening."
As you walked to the kitchen, your brain let you remember what I whispered in your ear last night, in bed, when you were deep in trance: That at noon, you would be compelled to go to the fridge and eat an entire raw tomato.
Knowing this, you tried to stop your body. You tried to turn around. But you were in the grip of a compulsion. You could feel how helpless you were compared to its power, like a giant powerful hand was moving your limbs.
You opened the fridge again and took out the tomato. Your heart was pounding. The first bite was the worst. Cold and squishy. But every other bite was also the worst.
"He didn't make me like raw tomatoes," you thought. "He didn't make it taste like something else." Instead, there was your arm, your jaw, your tongue, your swallowing muscles, all of them under my remote hypnotic control, forcing you to keep eating that tomato.
When did you start crying? Was it when you realized you were only halfway through, and there was so many more bites left?
Or was it when you thought you were finished - it was gone - but the compulsion riding in your head, that I put there, made you look at your fingers, see the pulp and seeds left on them, and lick them off.
Then it was over. Your muscles were back under your control.
You were a mess. You still had the taste in your mouth, even after rinsing it with water.
You messaged me on Whatsapp. You told me how much it sucked, and how wet it made you.
“Please, just block him. Or at least unfollow. This is not healthy.”
“No, I can’t.” she says, “It’s like my thing with spiders. I have to know where it is.”
There’s a new creepy weird guy in the Boston scene, and unfortunately my wife got on his radar, for a little while anyway. He went to a munch and afterwards messaged every person who he exchanged even one word with, including her, asking them to come to his new year’s party, which will take place in a motel room. “I just want to have a good new year’s!” he wrote.
When I say weird, I mean socially “off”, awkward, uncomfortable - which also describes half my favourite people. But then there’s the creepy part: acting like they are entitled to women’s attention, appearing to not see them as people, being very persistent and not taking implicit and explicit “no"s - or if they do respond, responding badly.
Of course many creeps don’t seem weird, in fact have great social skills, and they are the truly dangerous ones perhaps. But there’s always a few seriously creepy and weird guys floating around the scene - including a really bad one with the initials JC a couple years ago - and there’s something most of them share that I find particularly unsettling.
That aspect is these statements of, "I’m here to make friends!!” and “I’m all about love and positivity!” and “I just want to be nice to everyone!” Complete with lots of smileys. Many hopeful and positive messages on many groups, and under many women’s pictures.
But then as soon as things don’t go their way, it flips around, like the face of the mayor in Halloweentown, and they dump rage and self pity everywhere. Suddenly everyone is cruel and against them. Everyone is spreading lies.
My wife and her friend notified the munch organizers of the private messages, resulting in a gentle warning to this guy. Who responded with four long, butthurt paragraphs posted separately within minutes of each other on the munch thread.
What makes me unhealthily fascinated with these guys is that they do what I do, just really badly. That is, they cover up their yearnings and lusts and craving for affirmation with a happy social face. And they get disappointed and frustrated, when people don’t behave as they want. The difference is, I recognize that other people are just as real as me, and that the possibility of disappointment is part of that. And my social persona is way more convincing, and my disappointments and frustrations way better hidden. Reading their creepy timelines is close to comedy, and it’s close to horror - two genres that let us externalize our churning, unacceptable inner urges.
Of course it’s not funny, because there’s a threat: at the least, a threat of more creepy private messages, and maybe an escalation of bothering people at public munches, or at creepy events they create that naive people might respond to.
And when the tone of their posts begins to trend towards rage and grievance, the second face taking over, me and my wife both see the possibility of a much greater threat. I keep reminding her that the likelihood of violence is very small (even in America!). But on the rare occasions when something horrible does happen, I bet this is the pattern we see leading up to it.
This guy hasn’t yet done anything bannable according to the rules of the munch! And yet I find this pattern, of raging out immediately when things don’t go his way, to be such an enormous, frightening red flag.
Can you really ban people just for red flags? I don’t know. But if you don’t react well to criticism, especially the specific criticism that you’re creeping people out, you belong at the top of the list of people to watch very carefully.
I just put @khatsha to bed after our first christmas dinner
together and my heart is very full. (just as my stomach is full with bad
delivery Chinese food) Just now she said, “that was pretty crazy right?
Getting married without ever having lived together?” And I said “Yeah!”
We both took an enormous risk, her even more than me in her move across
the Atlantic, to be together.
And yet I never felt serious
doubt. And I don’t think she did either. And today, my day off in
Boston, played out just how I hoped and imagined such days: the hours of
intimate conversation, the cuddling, the partnership in making plans
(”later on, we’ll conspire / as we dream by the fire”), the making fun
of mullets in the Band Aid video, and the hot spontaneous hypnosis and
D/s scenes.
In the meadow we can build a snowman
And pretend that he is Parson Brown
He’ll say are you married, we’ll say no man
But you can do the job when you’re in town
I
hate the censored version of Winter Wonderland - what, are we afraid
the little kids are going to have sex after they play marriage? - and am
shocked and dismayed that Annie Lennox chose to sing it. Like why is
changing it to “a circus clown” less threatening? And what child refers
to other children as “kiddies” - a word exclusively used by grownups
that hate children?
But I also actively like the original verse,
the ambiguous time distortion of it: playing wedding in the meadow, and
then one day looking around and noticing you’re married for real. That’s
a little what this feels like, like a game of “let’s pretend” that just
keeps going, with the best possible playmate.
Because we get to
make it up. Marriage gets very very serious at times, and sometimes I
get vertigo realizing what the stakes are, but it’s overwhelmed by the
freedom of building something together like we want. Because the plans
that we made don’t end at living together: they are also about building
our adult lives, and even more specifically Boston hypnosis community,
and so many good things are already happening in both departments.
This
is already too long of a late night Kwak-fuelled ramble. But I’m just
so pleased and grateful. Merry early christmas to all christmas
celebrators, and I love you @khatsha.
“My cock is coated with a sweet, delicious substance - it tastes a
lot like coffee cream - that replenishes itself as you lick it,
especially around the tip, and makes you want to lap it up more and
more.
The coating also contains a drug. The more you consume, the
more this drug will make you heavy and sleepy, with warm relaxed
muscles. Ready for bedtime and ready to sleep for real.”
For a
while she had her usual enthusiastic head-bobbing up and down on my
cock. Then she slowed down, became very deliberate. But still regular.
After a while she propped herself up on her elbow.
Her head sunk down
until it reached the bed.
I snapped.
“Wide awake, energized and caffeinated. How are you?”
“…Good! Fuzzy.”
“Are you actually ready for bed, and is it ok with you if I put you to sleep tonight that way?”
“Yes!”
“Ok, then the coffee cream is back…” *snap*
And then I used her blowjob compulsion trigger.
This
time when her head drifted onto the pillow, face getting nice and
relaxed, I helped her out. I wrapped my hand in her hair and fucked her
mouth, knowing that each time I went into her mouth her half-asleep mind
would taste the drug and each time she would be pushed closer to sleep.
Even
as her head lay on the pillow, her mouth had some muscle tone at first,
letting me feel the friction. Then her mouth went slack.
I pulled
all the way out. “That’s ok. It’s sleepy time, ready to let go
completely and go to sleep for the night, only waking up in the morning
or if there’s something you need to attend to during the night.”
Her breathing became slow and regular. And I stroked her hair and nestled in beside her, to begin to drift away myself.
khatsha and I were the organizers of the hypnosis lounge at the Fetish Fair Fleamarket 50. Based on very disturbingaccounts
of the NELA board’s handling of a presenter accused of consent
violations and his accusers, we don’t believe that the organization has
the credibility at this point to effectively protect attendees or deal
with consent issues that may arise. Therefore we just sent an email
saying that we will not volunteer at or attend the Flea.
Update: The entire board has now resigned, and a transitional board consisting of veterans including my favourite erotica writer Cecilia Tan is now in charge. This is great news. We'll see what happens, but if they are interested in having a hypnosis lounge at this year's Flea, katsha and I are very willing to run it.
Another update: We have heard from the new organizers and we will be
running a hypnosis lounge at the Flea! Hope you come to visit, even if
you're only a little bit curious.
Minutes after I reblogged @ellaenchanting's great critical roundup about NLP on Tumblr, a stranger started messaging me on there:
So many thoughts are running through my mind! Like that was quite the plot twist at the end! But also his initial messages really reminded me of something…
There’s a certain type of dude who, when there’s a lot of conversation about consent and consent violations, gets really really pretend scared. “I’m so scared!” they say “In the current climate, if I open a door for a woman, she could accuse me of harassment! I’m afraid to say anything! I’m deprived of oxygen, for political correctness has truly boxed me in!”
Here’s my message to them and to all of us men: you should be afraid.
Why did Louis CK, Weinstein, Spacey, Tambor, Rattner, Toback, and all the others soon to be named do all those sexual assaults? Because they were not afraid. They judged that their power, fame, wealth and sheer old-white-manhood, would protect them.
And they were totally right!
For YEARS there were no consequences. They kept making movies and tv shows, and kept assaulting people!
And now the checks are all coming. Brave women and men have told their stories in numbers powerful enough to finally convince all but the biggest assholes. These famous careers are getting blown apart in front of our eyes, hopefully permanently (although white manhood has historically carried with it an astonishing amount of second chances)
And let’s hope the message filters down into everybody’s day to day lives. This shit is not going to stand any more.
Although crippling social anxiety is a bad thing, fear and wariness are your friend when it comes to not assaulting people.
Most importantly it should motivate you to learn. Learn about women’s experience of assault and how it doesn’t necessarily look like how you expect (for example, many people freeze up). Learn explicit consent and get fucking good at it. Learn how explicit consent isn’t enough: learn about structures of power and how they can let you mask even to yourself how little someone is free to say no. Learn to err on the side of not assaulting.
And know, deep down, if you prey on people, eventually your house will fall down.
And because of these serial predators, and how it’s never just one victim, young women and other vulnerable groups are talking amongst themselves and getting less and less tolerant of behaviour that has that flavour - the assault-adjacent, mild creeping and sexism that used to be considered the cost of admission if you are a woman. The bar is moving for what constitutes a fuckup, in a way that is no long controlled by older white men.
And if you fuck up, in a way that is not clearly a one time thing, you will get shitcanned. You will get kicked out of the community and have no access to kink. And this will happen to me if I get sloppy and inattentive about consent or start treating people like things, and it will happen to you. This is how it should work.
"SLEEP. That's right, nice and deep, all the way down, just like that. Relax and open your mind to receive new programming.
Have you ever walked into a room with the intention of doing something, and then you can't remember what it was? That feeling like having a word right on the tip of your tongue, except instead of a word it's something you were just about to do, but you were interrupted right before you could do it?
Just for the next little while, just until you leave this room, whenever I say the words, 'What was it?' you're going to have that same feeling - that searching, frustrated feeling, like there was something you were about to do, something you wanted to do, something you decided to do, but you can't quite remember what it was. And the more time passes, the more frustrating that feeling gets. Until I suggest the thing that you were about to do, and you'll have that wonderful, beautiful feeling of relief flooding your body and your mind as you realize, that's it, that's the thing I was about to do, that I wanted to do, that I decided to do, I just forgot. And you will rush to do that thing you were about to do just before you were interrupted.
And that will happen each and every time I say the words 'What was it?'
Let that sink in fully as you rise up, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Hi."
"Hi."
She looked up at him, both sitting cross-legged on the bed.
"How do you feel?"
"...Good. Fuzzy."
"I guess I brought you up pretty fast. But you feel nice and energized now, ready to do stuff."
"Yeah."
"Which is good because you were just about to do something before I so rudely dropped you. What was it?"
Her eyes widened, and she frowned.
"I was? Yes... there was something..."
Her eyes flitted around the room, and she squirmed on the bed.
"I'm sure there was something you wanted to do right before. You can't remember?"
"No... but... what..."
"I know, you were going to make out with me."
Her brow cleared, and a big smile crossed her face.
"Yes!!"
And she leaned in and started making out with him.
"Mmmm, yes, but there was something else you were going to do. Mmm. What was it?"
"There was?"
She leaned back and looked troubled.
"You were going to sing me I'm A Little Teapot, with all the gestures!"
"That's it! That's what I was going to do!"
She sang the song, complete with all the gestures.
"I remember now," she said, "I wanted to sing it to you because I thought maybe Canadians didn't hear that song growing up."
"Well you did a very lovely version. Thank you for teaching me that. But there was something else. What was it?"
"There was? There was."
"You were going to kneel down and kiss my feet."
"I was?"
"That's what you were about to do."
"I told you that?"
"Well no, but I could tell that's what you wanted to do."
"It doesn't seem like something I would do, but I do feel this urge to kneel down and kiss your feet!"
"Don't you remember? It's what you were about to do, what you wanted to do, what you already decided to do. I say just go with your gut."
And then she did. She knelt down on the bed and kissed his feet. Tentatively at first, and then with relish.
"Now doesn't that feel better? You shouldn't fight your instincts. Come on back up here."
And they lay on the bed and made out.
"Oh, I just saw something cross your mind that you wanted to do, but you got distracted. What was it? You wanted to fondle my crotch!"
And she did.
"What a relief! Doesn't it feel great to remember what it is you were about to do, and not be stuck in that frustrating state, trying to figure it out?"
"Mmmhmmm. But you're doing something. You're making me want to do something and then forget it. Right?"
"Nope, that's not it at all. But I think you're too fractionated to understand, even if I was going to tell you. Speaking of which, there was something hypnosis-wise you were about to do, wasn't there? What was it?"
This time she whined a little.
"You were about to fall into a deep hypnotic trance!"
Her eyes slammed shut, and she lay there peacefully.
"And WAKE UP."
She blinked and looked around.
"So forgetful today! Good thing I'm here to help. Hey, remember that conversation we had earlier? About how you fantasize about handing over the keys to your mind, and letting someone else drive for a while, just giving up all control?"
"Yeah?"
"Just now you told me you were about to do something about that. What was it?"
He let it build until she was rolling back and forth and pulling on her hair. "Mmph! Why can't I! Ugggh..."
"You were about to hand me the keys to your mind! That is, give me complete control over your body and mind. You were going to mime it."
She had relaxed, but there was still a little frown. "Mime it?"
"Yes, pretend to put the keys into my hand. I thought that seemed a bit silly, but that's what you were about to do!"
@Minutiae wrote a piece called More rape sandwich which excellently draws a consent metaphor out of a Subway sandwich artist who sneaks onions into your sandwich, which you’re allergic to, after you specifically asked them not to.
But people in the erotic hypnosis community know that there’s an innocent explanation for what happened: in fact what you didn’t understand is that the sandwich artist was trained in NSC (Neuropsychoactive Sandwich Communication). For them, slipping in a few onions is simply part of how they express themselves. They can’t turn it off.
Plus, were they hiding it? Anyone with the slightest knowledge of NSC could have spotted those onions in there. Really, the important thing is to get those people weak enough to be allergic trained in self defence, in detecting and neutralizing onions, so they can easily raise their “onion shields” whenever they walk into a Subway.
Besides, if the sandwich artist had really been using NSC, you would never have detected those onions.
Wait, the sandwich artist only did that to four people with onion allergies? That Subway must have served 17,000 people last week! I haven’t heard a peep out of them. Are we going to let just four people - or 0.002% - turn this into a witchhunt?
Anyway, what’s with the big outcry? Give me a break. You know how many people and corporations try to give you onions every day? Ever since we first learned to make primitive sandwiches? What, you’re going to ban mustard and mayonnaise and lettuce too? Why should we jump all over someone simply for doing what those large, shitty, corporations, and sleazy, manipulative people do all the time, that is, not listening to your wishes or respecting your agency and forcing something down your throat that makes you feel bad?
I did this at a party recently and I thought it was genius, so I want
to share it around. It’s like regular spin-the-bottle, where you go
around the circle and spin a bottle in the center, except:
When
the bottle points to you, you have to offer three options of things you
are willing to do with/for the spinner, for them to choose one
At least one has to be nonsexual and vanilla (e.g. sing a Disney song, make up a secret handshake together)
A
nice touch was letting people know they can definitely reuse options
other people proposed, so there’s not too much pressure to be creative.
I
bet there’s still things that can go wrong with this consent-wise, but
it is SO much better thought out than regular spin the bottle, or truth
or dare or whatever. What’s particularly smart is that if you don’t want
to do anything sexy or flirtatious with the person the bottle points
to, the other option is usually fun and funny, so it’s a good cover. You
can be like, “I so would like to take you up on your offer of a makeout
sesh, but I’m simply too attracted by the possibility of a Top
Gun-style high five!”
The other important part is that it starts
sexy things happening at the party, and breaks the ice between people,
as well as letting people communicate their interests. It worked great
at this party - the options got a lot racier than kissing pretty quick!
No matter how much you've thought and read about consent
and negotiation, there's still a lot of intuition involved in asking the
right questions to a new partner. The right question at the right time
is critical, but it takes experience, or rather experiences, of many
different people, to do this well.
I always wrap up my negotiation with something like, "Is there
anything else we should talk about?" or "Is there anything else I should
know?" But people often don't know themelves what might be a problem
for them. I also don't think consent checklists are a solution, for various reasons.
Without the scenes and people I've been involved with, observed, and
read about, I probably wouldn't know these things about people that are
needed to ask good questions:
Some people don't like to be hugged, or any touching whatsoever.
Some people have a fear of drowning that makes water imagery a bad idea.
Some people have a fear of heights that makes floating imagery a bad idea.
Also some people don't like elevators because of claustrophia. And at least one person out there has a phobia of escalators.
Some people want hypnosis without D/s - any dominating or controlling language bothers them.
Some people are ok with sneaky hypnosis and playful triggers in
private, but are bothered if it happens in front of other people (which
usually adds at least a little humiliation).
Some people are ok with triggers that third parties can use, while some people are not.
Some people have physical problems, eg in their neck, shoulders, or
knees, that make certain common hypnotic devices, like hand floating,
difficult to sustain or start.
Some people have struggles with their memory, or with people calling
them dumb, that makes amnesia or intelligence play unpleasant.
Some people have nerve issues so that language about tingling bothers them.
Some people get floppy when they go into trance, and could potentially fall or give you their weight in a dangerous way.
People mean different things when they agree to a sexual hypnosis
scene: some people want only induced pleasure and arousal; some people
are into imagery of having sex with you; and some people are into sexual
touch as well. You have to ask.
Some people are significantly altered in their judgment after even one trance, and shouldn't ever negotiate after that.
You can't tell someone's correct pronouns from the way they look, or their name.
Some transgender people are bothered by references to their genitals if they experience them as not matching their gender.
Many people have been sexually assaulted, and this can make for
obstacles that need to be carefully navigated, including ones they don't
know about.
Many people have a complicated relationship with their own orgasms,
including partners pressuring them to have them or have them faster, and
language that presupposes they will have an orgasm at a certain time
can create anxiety. (related blog entry: Don't Pressure People to Have Hypnotic Orgasms)
Some people have non-intuitive limitations in their polyamorous relationships that need to be respected.
I bet a lot of the things on this list seem obvious to you. That's
because of your experience! I guarantee for each of these there's
someone out there who didn't know, and screwed it up. Often, me.
My point is not that you shouldn't ever start doing hypnosis, or that
I've learned everything that I need to know. In fact my point is:
We're all beginners. In a few years this list of
mine will be twice as long, and whenever we play with a new partner, or
even an old partner, we are beginners: there's so much to learn about
how to navigate consent with that person. Respect human variation, and
get ready to be surprised.
and also:
It's ok to not ask the right questions. The most
important consent skill is recovery from mishaps, and learning from
them. I think that for well-intentioned, well-educated kinksters, things
tend to only really go bad because of two inner self images.
First, "Dom Draper": the idea of dominant as suave, smooth,
and omniscient, knowing exactly where your for-real limits are so you
can be pushed right up to them, making every scene flow in a perfectly
controlled way - just like in porn!
Second, the "Safe Player": the one who is so invested in
their image to themselves, and maybe the community, as being safe and
consent aware that they can't admit that they just fucked up.
Unlike mistakes from simple ignorance, these can actually get worse
with years in the scene - and besides making you more dangerous, in fact
prevent you from learning from experience. I want to take those harmful self-images in me out back and bury them.
What's important is to stay engaged with your partner, and be aware
that screwups are always a possibility. And that's ok. You just have to:
Notice something went wrong (or listen when they tell you that)
Ask them about it
Apologize if appropriate
Remember it for next time
Recovery, not perfection, and getting better all the time.
I
would love to have the superpower of seeing anyone’s late night porn
search keywords. Is there any time when we’re more honest about what we
really desire?
For me, 99% of the time “hypno” would be in there, but “glasses” is also a keyword I have searched. Glasses are really hot.
What’s relevant to my fetish?
They’re stylish.
They suit her face and personality.
She needs them.
Oh
yes, 3: there’s plenty of glasses porn out there, but it actually bums
me out if I see that the lens aren’t refractive! (even more so if the
same pair is being used by models in different videos!) I demand myopia!
Or, failing that, presbyopia! Is it that the hint of helplessness is
cute?
This is all just an excuse for me to perv, so let it begin! In vaguely chronological order! Jeanine Melnitz
Goddamn
this 80s lady has pizazz. I just know she goes dancing, and has a great
dating life totally separate from her work, as well as lots of buddies
in the 80s NYC avant garde art scene. Jet Girl
Soulful and badass! She needs another movie. Lisa Loeb
Yeah a lot of us there in the 90s were activated by this video. Scully
*Gulp*
Let’s keep moving. Tina Fey
Super
obvious but essential. Her looks are very nice, but her big, hard
joke-brain is the sexiest thing. I’ve read her book 28 times at least -
literally no one cares more about making the perfect joke than she does. 10 years later, subtly different glasses, still rocking it hard. Hope Davis as Joyce Brabner (American Splendor)
Pretty much my sexual ideal. Achingly smart and passionate. I can watch their first date scenes over and over. Felicia Day
Ok, yes, but I feel manipulated. Stiiiiill does it. Zooey Deschanel
Ugh, I hate me. You can probably tell exactly my age from this crush. Edna Mode
Passionate! Daring in her style choices! These are some sexy pixels. She has some stories to tell from the 70s. Daniel from Stargate
I’m straight but I’m not narrow.
A
lot of these glasses are 90s-style thin wire frames, I’m noticing. Is
this nostalgia, or is the wave of revival coming, such that they are
starting to look good again for real? Daniel from Stargate
As a teenager I literally took this picture to my barber.
It was still the 90s! Mr. Peabody
Oh, hello.
Here’s an irony: 10 years ago I had laser eye surgery. Primarily for cosmetic reasons. And I don’t regret it!
And
yet! You will be sexier to me if you wear glasses. Taking them off for
sex makes you look even more naked, and possibly vulnerable. But leaving
them on is even better.
I think all explanations of fetishes
are a lie. Usually it’s just there. But I’m sure my glasses fetish has
something to do with me projecting combined qualities of braininess and
stylishness. Women with a rich specific inner life - who I could talk
about books with - but who have also put a few XP into aesthetics and
their feminine mystique.
My new wife is all those things, and she
wears huge, super stylish glasses, like a fashion designer or a famous
writer. They’re so vivid that when she takes them off it’s almost like
her eyes go with them, like a cartoon character. So basically she makes
me ridiculously happy, and horny all the time.
And you should be with me! This ring on my finger says so.
For
six hours there’s not that brilliant, hilarious, caring, responsive
presence of yours reaching out through my phone, tempting me all day at
work. That mind that I first fell for: sexting on the top of a mountain
in Italy, chuckling and getting hard. Instead, it’s silent.
No one said it would get so much more nagging, aching after the big date. These six hours.
Shit got real, but I’m not frightened of it. It’s more exciting than anything I’ve known before. I want this so much.
It
hurts every day, but the anticipation is so sweet. Every domestic
thought fills me with longing: coming home to you, bustling in the
kitchen, going to bed, planning and scheming our life together, having
the most intimate trance. Games and rituals and private jokes. Helping
you blossom into your new life and seeing it unfold in the most
delightful and unexpected ways.
It can’t really be that sweet
all the time can it? Won’t I get used to it? Won’t little things start
to intrude, to make it more of a mixture, more like the lumpiness of
real life, with its highs and lows?
But I believe in a
satellite-laser-blast of happiness, that we will be bathed in it, even
if it doesn’t stay as pure and simple for long. I believe it’s coming.
We are due it.
Less than eight weeks. I should savour this
time - the solitude, the flexibility, even the longing. It will be over
soon enough.
And you should be with me! This ring on my finger says so.
For
six hours there’s not that brilliant, hilarious, caring, responsive
presence of yours reaching out through my phone, tempting me all day at
work. That mind that I first fell for through the phone: sexting on the top of a mountain
in Italy, me chuckling and getting hard. Instead, it’s silent.
No one said it would get so much more nagging, aching after the big date. These six hours.
Shit got real, but I’m not frightened of it. It’s more exciting than anything I’ve known before. I want this so much.
It
hurts every day, but the anticipation is so sweet. Every domestic
thought fills me with longing: coming home to you, bustling in the
kitchen, going to bed, planning and scheming our life together, having
the most intimate trance. Games and rituals and private jokes. Helping
you blossom into your new life and seeing it unfold in the most
delightful and unexpected ways.
It can’t really be that sweet
all the time can it? Won’t I get used to it? Won’t little things start
to intrude, to make it more of a mixture, more like the lumpiness of
real life, with its highs and lows?
But I believe in a
satellite-laser-blast of happiness, that we will be bathed in it, even
if it doesn’t stay as pure and simple for long. I believe it’s coming.
We are due it.
Less than eight weeks. I should savour this
time - the solitude, the flexibility, even the longing. It will be over
soon enough.
I have been to 4 NEEHUs, 1 Entranced, 1 Charmed, a Deepmind Darkwood,
3 Fetish Fleamarkets, 2 London Hypnosis workshops, and a number of
one-off hypno things in Europe. (I bet my colleagues at work would be
surprised to hear this!). Most of them I went to unpartnered, all as a
shy introvert.
I’m not good at going to hypnocons. But I’m better than I was. So
here are my tips, customized for me and people like me. So not stuff
that I hope came naturally to me, like “be polite and don’t treat people
like objects”, and also not stuff that is literally impossible for me,
like “don’t compare yourself to other people.” But maybe you need to be
told a whole different set of things. Also, I don’t necessarily have
great insight into what I’m doing right, or what I’m doing wrong. But I
hope these help anyway!
Emotional and physiological chaos is normal.
FOMO,
envy, social anxiety, jealousy, disappointment, having to see exes,
having to see people who creeped on you. If you think everyone else is
having a perfect time and you’re the only one in distress, you are very
wrong. Also, they will lie about it, by omission, in their blog posts
afterwards (I do!) so for god’s sake don’t compare yourself to that.
Physiologically, I’ve caught a cold for so many of these cons, and sleep
deprivation, travel stress, sugar crashes and other things will give
your body a nonsexy pounding. And folks with disabilities or chronic
illnesses have even more to deal with. There’s no way to avoid some
chaos,
so just know that you can make wonderful memories in the midst of chaos!
ALL IS NOT LOST. And take it easy on people, eh?
There’s a role for the new person. The hypno
community is incredibly cliquey. It’s a natural consequence of hypno
being a very rare kink, and one that requires a huge amount of trust. It
takes years to build that trust. So be patient with yourself. If you do
any pickup play with new people at all on your first con - and you’re
not a young woman - you’re doing very well. But if you’re positive,
genuinely interested in people, and obviously eager to learn, people
will be extremely kind.
Learning to ask while not being gross is everything. There are many, many great guides to this online,
as well as cautionary tales about what not to do, so all I’ll say here
is look at it all as practice; be as bold as you are respectful; amazing
things can happen just by asking in the right place at the right time;
and as the great wristbands at Charmed said, “Ask first. Respect the
answer.”
The greatness of your con is decided long before you hit the registration desk.
The upside to my pitiful addiction to hypnotumblr is that I could put
faces to tumblr names at the con. “Ah yes! I have enjoyed your
pornography! And your curation of animated gif pornography!” This time
was very aware that most people - flying in from everywhere from
Vancouver Island to Manchester, England - are beginning and maintaining
their relationships online between cons. At the moment the thing is
Skype, Dischord and Snapchat groups, in addition to tumblr and fetlife.
You don’t actually have to do any of that, but it helps – see,
cliquyness, trust. And preparation in general: I half-assed Charmed and
NEEHU this year, since I only decided to go to each at the last minute,
and as a result they were a little flat (except for the presence of
@khatsha at Charmed!) Actually read the schedule, make plans with people
you know, check out other people’s wishlists and make plans with them,
give yourself missions or sidequests.
Think about how to help other people have a great con.
It’s a great way to take your mind off yourself and how you’re doing,
and to be visible in the best possible way. If people are bored, have
something for them to participate in. If something needs to get done, be
the one to do it. I know two people who brought their cars just to
ferry people around at two different cons, and made tons of friends,
including sexy friends. Teaching or demoing for a class is best of
course, but if not, volunteer, bring treats, join in activities. Get
involved in every way you can.
Figure out who’s sleeping with who. For “sleeping
with” substitute hypnotizing, playing with, or living with in a polycule
in a creaky old mansion. And also, who used to be sleeping with who,
who wants to be sleeping with who, who wishes they were still sleeping
with who (don’t go around creepily asking these things of course).
Otherwise much public behaviour will be baffling.
Figure out who’s assaulted or creeped on who. For the same reason.
Make your interests specific and public. I learned
this from @khatsha, who asked for, and got, two incredibly intricate
gender-bending interrogation scenes at her second ever hypnocon. She
also wants to be hypnotized to be a raccoon, and I have no doubt, some
day that will happen. (Maybe I’ll do it on our anniversary) At Entranced
Dreamelf carried around an adorable decorated printout of her wishlist,
and I believe she checked off every one. And one of those things was
copied off my published wishlist, and I got to do it with her!
It’s paradoxical, but being specific can be much more attractive than
just wanting “any type of hypnosis with anyone”. As long as you’re
unattached to any outcome, and sharing your fantasies rather imposing
them, only good things can result.
Ask people what classes to go to. Some classes are
way better than others, and it connects you with folks at least twice,
once when you ask and once when you tell them how great it was.
Take a break before you absolutely have to. No class is unmissable, and recharging is often the most important thing you could be doing.
You don’t have to bring it style-wise, but it pays off if you do.
A nice thing about hypno cons is that you can totally wear jeans and a
t-shirt and it’s never a big deal. But ever since I got turned away at a
Dublin kink club for not having a dungeon outfit, I’ve been determined
to level up. I’ve been slowly collecting party clothes that are progress
towards my vision of Hypnowave. (the coming overwhelming trendiness of
erotic hypnosis, in music, fashion, art and pop culture, that we will
ride until it spectacularly burns out and becomes a dated joke even
faster than Vaporwave) Not only did I get a lot of compliments at
Entranced, but everyone wanted to grope my shiny fuzzy blazer. If you
are saying, I can’t find or afford party clothes, that blazer was $80 on
Amazon. Last argument: I’ve noticed that on average the women are
making more of an effort. If you have ambitions to trance with women who
are in pretty corsets and great boots, shouldn’t you rise to the
occasion?
Reject control, embrace chance and happenstance.
Think of it as an improvisation, and say yes as often as you safely can.
Many of the best memories will come from totally spontaneous group
occurrences, often nothing to do with hypnosis. I remember being on an
elevator at Charmed that was very full and someone started groaning
sexually about how very full it was, and other people took it up, until
we all orgasmed together as the doors opened on the con floor. A real
“you had to be there“ moment I see as I type this, but I was there! On
the flipside, plans fall through, unforeseen stuff comes up. Nothing is a
sure thing.
Listen to emotions like curiousity, enthusiasm, affection, and lust.
Ignore emotions like lust for status, or desire for approval or acceptance.
Take a buffer day or three if you possibly can. See:
above point about emotional and physiological chaos. I had to go back
to work the day after Entranced, and it was horrible.
Stay in the game. Don’t bail. You might find
yourself deep in your head, and ready to throw a pity party for yourself
lasting till the end of the con. But things can turn around so fast!
And even if they don’t, there will still be many beautiful little
moments, of friendship and humour and sexiness and “this could only
happen at a hypno con”. You can be ready for these moments if you keep
your eyes open and your head up.
PS As I drafted this, two people have beat me to the punch
with excellent advice sparked by Entranced 2017, and I highly recommend
reading those too! Dommestic and dommesticpet
I had such a great time at Entranced. I volunteered, made new
friends, saw amazing classes, and soaked up the weird good vibes. I feel
like I’m getting better and better at this, solo con going - even
though my wife @khatsha
will accompany me henceforth, and I plan to stop trying and merely
coast on her charisma. But so many kudos to the organizers, who created
such a happy, creative, inclusive, consent-aware, and sexy as hell
weekend. And by the way, pretty much every time I talked to them they
seemed good humoured and actually enjoying themselves, which is quite
the feat for something so well run.
I had a few excellent scenes
that I might write about with permission, but for now here are other
major highlights, somewhat randomly arranged.
Getting
stranded in Logan airport for 4 hours on thursday night - a lowlight,
missing out on night 1 of the con and being uncomfortable - except for
one thing, which is that I was stranded with @digitalswitchgamine. And there were rocking chairs.
Empowered hypnobottom presenters with an equal voice in classes
Hypnobottom presenters getting increasingly flustered as classes went on and they got more turned on and fractionated
A very silly human muppetphone in the musical inductions class
@LeeAllure and @hypno-sandwich‘s always mind-blowing edgeplay class, which I also saw last NEEHU and will go to again every single time I can
Chill
breakfasts in the restaurant, including one where I learned about the
secret floating north american gay hypno con (Roo, if you’re reading
this, get in touch! You are cool!)
Being exposed to bits of
hot scenes near my scenes in the play rooms: two on one, four on one,
forced to kneel, cuddling together with a hypnoegg, and so on
People getting their nerd on, wonderfully, at @mrs-prism‘s karaoke. Plenty of Hamilton and Weird Al Yankovic
Intending to practice @spiralturquoise’s
instant inductions, what turned into instead a post 1 am impromptu
class on how to catch floppers with Dreamelf, in which I put myself in
the way of her flopping head and got my lip smashed to shreds against my
teeth. But we kept going and this somehow turned into quite the
spectator event. The next day, I used this skill!
Cracking
jokes at the back of the Consensual Nonconsent class with @LeeAllure
(Lee telling the story of how she makes partners like things they didn’t
like before, such as vegetables, and now one is always making her
stuffed peppers, which she doesn’t like. Me: “The dark side of CNC!”
Someone else: “That’s Culinary Non Consent?”)
Wearing my shiny fuzzy jacket for the first time Saturday night, and lots of women needing to fondle it
So
many great conversations and hangouts in the consuite, which was kept
stocked with abundant and delicious food at all times, including full
lunches and dinners. This was a triumph, making a note here, huge
success
Hypnotic hysterical literature.
Holy fucking shit. This is one of the hottest things I’ve ever
experienced, including most of my own orgasms. When I realized this was
sexy hypno people reading porn precision-crafted by our best writers to
get them off, even without the post-hypnotic suggestions… This is worth
more to me than all of Marvel Phase 3, dinner with Joss Whedon, and
drinks and karaoke with Lin-Manuel. I’m being super sincere
Glorious
introvert half hours in my hotel room tinkering with my app, the Hypno
ViewMaster™, before going out for hours more of intense socialization
with hypno peeps. This is a huge bonus of Entranced and Charmed
SCREAMS
of happiness at the announcement of the new, female Doctor conveyed by
someone on their phone at the end of a class. This might have happened
at any nerdy con, but it particularly highlighted for me the feminine,
and feminist, strength of Entranced
By some insanity
agreeing to set up chairs at 8 am on Saturday *and* Sunday (If you sat,
you probably sat in one of my chairs half the time!), but having lovely
conversations both days with Welselran about 50 Shades Darker and John
Carpenter movies.
Talking to the sweet, normal-looking suburban married couple for whom tuesday and thursday are Nova Pro 100
nights. One of my missions (I had missions! That helped!) was to learn
about live-in hypno D/s relationships and how they work, and got some
beautiful examples
I am enjoying decompressing, reading all the reports, and gloating, but I miss you all! Can’t wait to get to know you better!
