Hi all! I've been not-posting for far longer than I'd have liked, and would really like to get back on track.
The most exciting news right now is - I'm doing another hypnosis demo! This one is going to be for my current kink community, with Lovely Petal as my assistant and demo bottom, and it will be one year to the day of my last hypnosis demo (February 11). I am extremely excited for this!
Alongside that news, I thought I'd throw in some thoughts on hypnotist's trance.
It is said - often - in the erotic hypnosis community that any hypnotist worth his salt will go under themselves while hypnotizing somebody. That said, this phenomenon is frequently mentioned only in passing, without any kind of description of what it's like. Alert EMCSA readers will occasionally see it portrayed by the writers who really know what they're doing - Jukebox has worked the phenomenon into a few of his stories, sometimes implicitly and sometimes explicitly.
Since I like to fill in gaps I see in the info out there on hypno-domming, I thought I'd throw in my own experience of hypnotist's trance - especially since I am often asked what I am getting out of hypno-play as the dom, and really, this is a huge part of the answer to that.
When I am hypnotizing somebody - my world closes around the two of us. My focus shifts entirely to the person I'm working with. My brain, my mouth, my voice, even to some extent my eyes - these all go on autopilot. My voice becomes soft, seductive, and soothing. My thoughts become entirely fixated on the other person, and I feel wrapped in the exhilarating feeling that there is nobody else in the world except the two of us, that nothing else in the outside world matters - all that matters is this one erotic, beautiful moment between us. For the entire induction process, I act rather than think - I smoothly shift my brain and transform into a well-oiled hypnotizing machine, able to rattle off all of my stock inductions, becoming so finely attuned to my hypnotized partner that I automatically adjust any time one of my methods is clearly not working, or whenever I know of a method that I'm sure will work even better. The trial and error inherent in sussing out the best way to work with somebody flows together into one continuous process.
(This is yet another reason why negotiation is so all-important - I need a plan beforehand, and while I remain in control enough to avoid things that I know are pitfalls or bad areas for my partner, I nonetheless need some guidance so that I can set up a framework prior to entering this autopilot state.)
There's a major ego trip involved, obviously - those feelings of omnipotence, isolation, and power all feel great.
I've definitely done hypnosis sessions where I haven't entered this state as strongly - where I've had more awareness of the world around me (usually by necessity - gotta account for these things even as I'm making sure that they don't interfere with the session), where I've been distracted by other things, where I've had to take a step back and re-adjust because none of my approaches have been working.
But when I do a well-negotiated hypnosis session with somebody, where I know what to do and how to do it beforehand - where I'm able to let go, let that person become my entire world, let myself ride the rush that I get from making it all happen and feeling my voice smoothly shift gears to handle the situation -
That is just a sample of what I'm getting out of hypno-domming.
Showing posts with label observations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label observations. Show all posts
Monday, January 9, 2012
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Things I'm Sick of Seeing on Fetlife's "Kinky & Geeky"
I think it's clear that I'm kinky as hell. It should also be clear (in case it isn't) that I'm a class-A geek on several levels. I read Terry Pratchett and Atomic Robo; I watch Doctor Who and Kamen Rider; I own the entire DC Animated Universe and most of the DC Universe DTV movies on DVD; I play D&D; I collect toys (a lot less these days, but I still do). As it happens, I find that kink munches are an awesome way to meet more geeks, and since they also happen to be kinky, a lot of good friendships are forged based on multiple compatible factors.
Thus, it's no surprise that I'm a member of the Fetlife group "Kinky & Geeky." And sometimes I post on there, and often I read the posts there, and I find a lot of things that amuse me.
Two things that I'm really sick of seeing, though:
* "ZOMG! GEEKY WOMEN EXIST!! AND THEY'RE KINKY, TOO?!?"
Uh, yes. Yes, they do. Dunno about you, but I've managed to meet a never-ending stream of geeky women just by being a geek and doing geeky things I enjoy and talking to the women who also enjoy them. Also: treating those women like human beings who might just agree with me that certain things are awesome. In fact, I meet a lot more cis women than cis men who are into Doctor Who and Discworld.
To indulge in stereotyping for the purpose of a joke: if geeky women don't exist, who do you think is writing all that yaoi fanfiction? Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls, after all.
I realize that these threads are often just cheap tactics for creepy cis men to friend-request people, but there's this attitude behind that astonishment (and that tactic, for that matter) that just burns me.
A friend of mine (a cis female geek, as it happens) once said that I was one of the only guys (as in, single digits here) she'd ever met who looked her in the eye while talking to her. She is not even a particularly close friend of mine. You can say she's exaggerating, but if so, she made that particular exaggeration because on some level, that statement was true to her experience of the world. I cannot help but wonder how many of these guys, so astonished that geeky cis women exist at all, never met any geeky ladies because they were too busy treating women in general like members of another species.
Yeah. There are people other than cis males who enjoy D&D, comic books, Magic, or whatever other random thing. I really don't understand what is surprising about this. And please do something about the gratingly blatant gender essentialism and objectification inherent in this thinking. Thank you, demographic who will probably either never read this or deny what I have said.
* The webcomic Collar 6
OK, this one I probably don't have as much reason to rant about, because it's more about my personal ideals and views and passions regarding the kink scene. But: I HATE Collar 6.
I mean, I get it. It takes place in a fantasy world. However, the fact that it combines fantasy and reality in odd ways while indulging in stereotypes of BDSM...I don't know. I feel like it's fine to have a fantasy series about BDSM, but I don't like this one.
...but mostly I just hate the artwork. It uses that "all skin is shiny!" art thing that I see on a lot of comics, usually with the intent of making the characters look sexy. This shininess is a major pet peeve of mine - I don't understand how it's supposed to be sexy. OK, practically everyone in this comic seems to be wearing latex or leather, so at least there's a reason for it, but I have this deep-rooted association between "shiny anime-style people" and "sleaze."
[POSSIBLE BUSTED THINKING NOTE: I use the word "sleaze" to refer to pornography that is busted in mainstream ways - misogyny, male gaze, objectification, all of these are what I think of when I use the word. I apologize if anybody feels that my pejorative usage of this term demeans their sexual identity - I'm using it in a specific way to describe things that I feel should be less common than they are, and I encourage people to embrace the fluidity of language.]
Finally: this (TW: discussion of nonconsensual mind control that uses abuser's logic). Five women. One build. And if you guessed that that build is massive boobs and an impossibly thin waist, then congratulations, you get a No-Prize! I don't think there are any characters who even have different cup sizes in this comic.
Frankly, my favorite thing about the BDSM community is that I can get the hell away from a wider culture that seems to think that sex and sexuality are only OK for women who fit this mold. (If you want to read an awesome exploration of this subject, check out this blog post, which touches on body image/sexuality intersection eloquently.) I like being in a group where people of all ages, shapes, gender presentations, etc. can stand up and say: "I have a sex life!" There's a reason I don't link Collar 6 on the right-hand side of this blog, and why I instead point you, the reader, toward Nic Buxom: an utterly fantastic comic about BDSM that features a lot of different body types among its characters, both cis male and cis female (along with some discussion about prejudice toward gender presentation and fat).
So, uh, I suppose I should have a "live and let live" attitude toward this comic. There is nothing inherently wrong about it, from what I have seen - and the author has made at least one really admirable gesture in portraying aftercare and addressing the problems with some of the fantasy scenarios. I admit that I hate it mostly for its superficial aspects: its art, its use of generic attractiveness. I guess I'm just annoyed that the most popular webcomic about BDSM is one about a fantasy world and one that sticks to a tried-and-true big boobs/wasp waist model of sexuality and attractiveness. But, I can also at least recognize that Collar 6 has a big advantage over the webcomics I prefer - it updates regularly and doesn't take long hiatuses. I still say that Nic Buxom is a better read (and fully support the author's hiatus - she has a life!); however, where webcomics are concerned, regularity breeds popularity.
(After all, I'm still reading Misfile almost entirely because it updates five times a week on the dot, and it has never pissed me off enough to stop reading.)
---------------------------------------------------------------
This has been a rant with feminist intentions, which may have busted aspects and judgmental attitudes.
Thus, it's no surprise that I'm a member of the Fetlife group "Kinky & Geeky." And sometimes I post on there, and often I read the posts there, and I find a lot of things that amuse me.
Two things that I'm really sick of seeing, though:
* "ZOMG! GEEKY WOMEN EXIST!! AND THEY'RE KINKY, TOO?!?"
Uh, yes. Yes, they do. Dunno about you, but I've managed to meet a never-ending stream of geeky women just by being a geek and doing geeky things I enjoy and talking to the women who also enjoy them. Also: treating those women like human beings who might just agree with me that certain things are awesome. In fact, I meet a lot more cis women than cis men who are into Doctor Who and Discworld.
To indulge in stereotyping for the purpose of a joke: if geeky women don't exist, who do you think is writing all that yaoi fanfiction? Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls, after all.
I realize that these threads are often just cheap tactics for creepy cis men to friend-request people, but there's this attitude behind that astonishment (and that tactic, for that matter) that just burns me.
A friend of mine (a cis female geek, as it happens) once said that I was one of the only guys (as in, single digits here) she'd ever met who looked her in the eye while talking to her. She is not even a particularly close friend of mine. You can say she's exaggerating, but if so, she made that particular exaggeration because on some level, that statement was true to her experience of the world. I cannot help but wonder how many of these guys, so astonished that geeky cis women exist at all, never met any geeky ladies because they were too busy treating women in general like members of another species.
Yeah. There are people other than cis males who enjoy D&D, comic books, Magic, or whatever other random thing. I really don't understand what is surprising about this. And please do something about the gratingly blatant gender essentialism and objectification inherent in this thinking. Thank you, demographic who will probably either never read this or deny what I have said.
* The webcomic Collar 6
OK, this one I probably don't have as much reason to rant about, because it's more about my personal ideals and views and passions regarding the kink scene. But: I HATE Collar 6.
I mean, I get it. It takes place in a fantasy world. However, the fact that it combines fantasy and reality in odd ways while indulging in stereotypes of BDSM...I don't know. I feel like it's fine to have a fantasy series about BDSM, but I don't like this one.
...but mostly I just hate the artwork. It uses that "all skin is shiny!" art thing that I see on a lot of comics, usually with the intent of making the characters look sexy. This shininess is a major pet peeve of mine - I don't understand how it's supposed to be sexy. OK, practically everyone in this comic seems to be wearing latex or leather, so at least there's a reason for it, but I have this deep-rooted association between "shiny anime-style people" and "sleaze."
[POSSIBLE BUSTED THINKING NOTE: I use the word "sleaze" to refer to pornography that is busted in mainstream ways - misogyny, male gaze, objectification, all of these are what I think of when I use the word. I apologize if anybody feels that my pejorative usage of this term demeans their sexual identity - I'm using it in a specific way to describe things that I feel should be less common than they are, and I encourage people to embrace the fluidity of language.]
Finally: this (TW: discussion of nonconsensual mind control that uses abuser's logic). Five women. One build. And if you guessed that that build is massive boobs and an impossibly thin waist, then congratulations, you get a No-Prize! I don't think there are any characters who even have different cup sizes in this comic.
Frankly, my favorite thing about the BDSM community is that I can get the hell away from a wider culture that seems to think that sex and sexuality are only OK for women who fit this mold. (If you want to read an awesome exploration of this subject, check out this blog post, which touches on body image/sexuality intersection eloquently.) I like being in a group where people of all ages, shapes, gender presentations, etc. can stand up and say: "I have a sex life!" There's a reason I don't link Collar 6 on the right-hand side of this blog, and why I instead point you, the reader, toward Nic Buxom: an utterly fantastic comic about BDSM that features a lot of different body types among its characters, both cis male and cis female (along with some discussion about prejudice toward gender presentation and fat).
So, uh, I suppose I should have a "live and let live" attitude toward this comic. There is nothing inherently wrong about it, from what I have seen - and the author has made at least one really admirable gesture in portraying aftercare and addressing the problems with some of the fantasy scenarios. I admit that I hate it mostly for its superficial aspects: its art, its use of generic attractiveness. I guess I'm just annoyed that the most popular webcomic about BDSM is one about a fantasy world and one that sticks to a tried-and-true big boobs/wasp waist model of sexuality and attractiveness. But, I can also at least recognize that Collar 6 has a big advantage over the webcomics I prefer - it updates regularly and doesn't take long hiatuses. I still say that Nic Buxom is a better read (and fully support the author's hiatus - she has a life!); however, where webcomics are concerned, regularity breeds popularity.
(After all, I'm still reading Misfile almost entirely because it updates five times a week on the dot, and it has never pissed me off enough to stop reading.)
---------------------------------------------------------------
This has been a rant with feminist intentions, which may have busted aspects and judgmental attitudes.
Monday, September 26, 2011
M/M Hypno Singles Mayhem
So, here's another post I've wanted to write for a while.
Over the summer, I decided to try out some male-for-male hypnosis singles sites. Specifically, I set up an account on hypnotising.org and the IRC chatroom #gayhypnosis to see if I could find a good hypnotist to put me under online. I figured, I wasn't finding any good hypnotists on Fetlife, maybe they would be easier to find on a hypnosis-only site.
...um...
Hypnotists were easy to find, yes. Good hypnotists? Not so easy.
The following vignettes are not in chronological order, but rather in the order that it feels natural in which to tell them. I'd also like to preface this by saying that I realize that I still didn't get anywhere near the level of crap that so many people get just for presenting as female on Fetlife or other sites.
Older Dude in #gayhypnosis
This guy invited me to a private chat. Wanting the same treatment that I would give any of my subjects, I grilled him on what he would like to do with me in a first session. The answer was something along the lines of, "Oh, just put you under and feel things out."
Then I asked what he would like to do after that. Answer: "Fly out to [hometown deleted] and buy a collar for you," followed by a lengthy, way-too-detailed description of how special this collar would be.
...I responded that I was definitely not looking for what he was looking for.
I changed my hometown from [actual hometown] to "Variable" immediately afterward. He private messaged me again the next time I was in the room, wondering (not unkindly) why I was there, when I had already found "what [I] was looking for" and found it not to my liking.
Do I really need to explain where this guy went wrong?
Couldn't Be Sexy If He Tried
Another guy private-messaged me in hypnotising.org's own chatroom, asking to hypnotize me. He asked me what I liked, and I pointed him toward my hypnotising.org profile, which explicitly outlines everything that I like, as well as my hard limits.
His response? "Oh, I've done all of those things."
My inner response: "...suuuuuuuurrrrrrre you have."
My chatroom response: "Ooh, can you tell me about some scenes you've done, then?"
His response to that: "Oh, I don't kiss and tell."
So, OK, this guy's already making my Bullshit Detector go off. But I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt - I mean, I've done everything on my list as a hypnotist, right? And not everyone is comfortable disclosing their scene details.
Well, then he starts bragging about all the cool things he likes to do...one of which was "dumb jock" suggestions, which are right at the top of my hard limits. In fact, by this point my profile explicitly opened with "IF YOU WANT A JOCK, LOOK ELSEWHERE." So I pointed out that he seemed to be confusing my want-list with my limit-list.
As he continued to talk in circles and not give me any specifics whatsoever, I told him, "give me something to fantasize about!" He responded, "I don't work with fantasy, I only work with reality." (Yay for missing the point?)
At this point I've given up on salvaging anything from this guy, so I give up trying to be coy and tell him that he is not making himself remotely appealing, on any level.
Spiral: come on, give me SOMETHING to get me interested!
Not-Sexy-Guy: lol, i'm interested in you.
...yeah, you and a bunch of other horny hypnotists on this site, I'll need a little more than that.
Denouement: The next day, he invited me to watch him put another guy under on cam in a private chatroom. Or, rather, he was inviting me to put another guy under on cam - there was a massive miscommunication (which says something about his communication skills) that led to him thinking I was going to be the hypnotist, when in fact I figured I might as well check out his hypnotism skills and see if he was at least any good.
After the miscommunication was cleared up, he proceeded to put under the other room-goer with a hands-stuck induction. The hypnotee did not have a microphone; he was only able to communicate by typing - and this guy did a hands-stuck induction. Hands-stuck is my default, but I'm perceptive enough to know when it is a terrible idea - and by then, I'd learned to be disturbed by any hypnotist who would deprive his hypnotee of a means to communicate.
Not-Sexy Hypnotist proceeded to be utterly baffled and lost when this induction didn't work. So, not only did he use a poor method, he didn't have any backup plan when it failed.
Sigh.
Mr. Douche 'Tist
Here's the main event. There were some other mishaps, but these three were the most notable, and this one was by far the experience that left the biggest impression.
The first day I was on the site, I threw out messages to a bunch of hypnotists who seemed vaguely interesting. Not that I had a lot to go on; most of the profiles on this site only had a sentence or two. So I messaged people who at least had decent grammar and professed some kind of nerdiness.
I soon got a reply from a guy that I will refer to exclusively as Mr. Douche 'Tist. We chatted a bit on YIM, did some half-decent negotiation, and got on Skype for the trancing.
The first hypnosis session was, frankly, awesome. He had me freezing and posing in all sorts of positions, stripping in fun ways, feeling REALLY subby with a "good boy" trigger, and generally having a blast. His induction technique was also fantastic - I was legitimately impressed.
That said, there was one red flag that came up in this: up front, during negotiation, I stated that I didn't want any amnesia. He agreed to that. However, he proceeded to be surprised that I was fully aware and conscious every time I froze. Silly me, I just figured he defined "amnesia" differently, and I shouldn't be concerned.
(I think I'm right that he just defined it differently, but I still consider that a red flag.)
I proceeded to float in subspace for an hour after the session, which was reeeeeeaalllly nice.
My second session with him...hoo boy.
He messaged me, asking if I wanted to do another trance. I was up for it at the time, and asked what he wanted to do that night. He replied, vaguely, that he just wanted to do some freezing scenes. I was like, cool, sounds perfect to me right now.
Well, he used and reinforced the triggers from the last session. I should mention that I was starting to be impressed with my own ability to freeze in place - every time he used the freeze trigger, I was stock-still and it was awesome.
And then...
...well, first, while I was frozen, he suggested that I would unfreeze as a puppy. Won't lie, this is something I've wanted to do for ages, so I didn't mind - except that I had told him that I had to be quiet (someone else in the house was sleeping), so barking loudly was right out. So, I became a puppy for a minute or two, but I couldn't really get into it and I was very quiet. After he brought me back out, I explained that my headspace was messed up by the noise issue. He proceeded to look bored, freeze me in the middle, and leave me to awkwardly continue after being unfrozen.
Again: I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that. Freezing someone mid-conversation is par for the course. But it sent up another red flag that he would do this while I was explaining a problem, and I was irritated that he didn't seem interested at all in my issue.
So, he froze me again, and this time he suggested that when I unfroze, I'd be a cave man.
...that took me completely off guard. It was a hard limit I didn't even know I had, because I hadn't even given this fetish any thought. So, when I unfroze, the suggestion flat-out didn't work, and I told him that that kind of play just wasn't my thing.
OK. Here's where it takes a turn for the fucked-up.
Mr. Douche 'Tist (this is where he earns the title) then put me back under, and gave me a series of new triggers and suggestions. One of those suggestions was that he would be able to change my opinions on things. I outright rejected that one when he asked if I understood and accepted it. He woke me up, said it was fine that some things weren't working, then put me back under and, after a very lengthy deepening, he suggested that I would wake up with no free will.
Ordinarily, that would be really hot to me. But this guy had already surprised me with an unnegotiated kind of fetish play, then tried to give me a suggestion to change my opinions, and now he wanted me to be mindless - one right after the other, without so much as a pause to talk to me. This was not a good sequence of events for ensuring my trust.
Keep in mind - I was still in a really floaty, subby headspace this whole time. I was having trouble stringing together any kind of coherent protest - and he didn't give me the time or prompting to allow me to.
So I woke up, supposed to be lacking in free will (by the way, he didn't give me a chance to "accept" this suggestion), and I told him (still floaty, still rambly) that there were still some things I wouldn't do, even though I felt really submissive and obedient.
His response: "Sorry, [pseudonym I was using], you're not working out as a volunteer." *signs off*
WHAT.
THE.
FUCK.
No aftercare. Didn't even wake me up out of the subby headspace he had just built. Didn't ask me to elaborate on anything that had gone wrong, or why it had gone wrong.
Since I like to believe the best in people, I tried to see it from his perspective: he probably thought I was a faker, and that there was no point in doing anything if I were lying about being hypnotized.
Still: throwing in suggestions without negotiating them is pretty awful to me. I know there are hypno-subs out there who love it (including, from my chatting, most of the subs on hypnotising.org), but I stated up front that I wanted to negotiate things thoroughly before doing them. Furthermore, I find it outrageous that he didn't give me time or prompting to communicate any problems with him after I had resisted three suggestions in a short period of time. I know that in that situation, I would have asked my subject if there was a persistent problem, and if they would even want to continue. But no, this guy steamrolled ahead past my resistance, and decided that I wasn't worth aftercare if I wasn't going to fulfill his whims.
Yeah, this wasn't exactly a worst-case scenario. Maybe I'm disproportionately pissed off. But the more I think about it, the more this guy is a model for how not to scene with people, and the more justified I feel in saying that he was a selfish douchebag.
What I Learned from Mr. Douche 'Tist: I learned a lot about communication. I like to think I already knew how important it was to check in regularly and ask how everything was going, but this really hammered it into me by putting me on the receiving end of half-assed care. This guy showed only token concern for my desires or needs, only caring about his own desires when push came to shove.
Conclusion:
Not all of my experiences on hypnotising.org and in #gayhypnosis have been bad ones. I've chatted to some really cool hypnofetishists - mostly hypnotees - and had good conversations. I even met some ethical hypnotists and assorted good people. I even chatted to some hypnotists who seemed really awesome, and who took the time to get to know me; even if it turned out that we weren't compatible, I was much more warmed by those experiences than the hot session with Mr. Douche 'Tist. But the sheer, overwhelming selfishness and douchebaggery that I witnessed pissed me off because it was more common.
Maybe these two sites are so filled with this behavior because moderation is non-existent. Or maybe I'm finding out the hard way what it's like to be hit on by people made confident and self-assured by male privilege. Maybe all the predators on the site made these awkward and way-too-forward flirting methods look viable, because at least they bothered to come after token attempts to get to know a person. It baffled me, because I just couldn't imagine some of these approaches (like the first two vignettes) being appealing to anybody. The real kicker, Mr. Douche 'Tist actually has a really good reputation around thereabouts - it seems not being a predator makes him look good in comparison, and he probably doesn't often run into subjects as high-maintenance as myself. (That's not an excuse for him, by the way - if your sub needs care, they should get it. Period.)
Argh.
This has been Frustrated, Snarky, Pissed-Off Spiral. In the next post, I hope to bring back Sexy, Fun-Loving, Happy Spiral.
Over the summer, I decided to try out some male-for-male hypnosis singles sites. Specifically, I set up an account on hypnotising.org and the IRC chatroom #gayhypnosis to see if I could find a good hypnotist to put me under online. I figured, I wasn't finding any good hypnotists on Fetlife, maybe they would be easier to find on a hypnosis-only site.
...um...
Hypnotists were easy to find, yes. Good hypnotists? Not so easy.
The following vignettes are not in chronological order, but rather in the order that it feels natural in which to tell them. I'd also like to preface this by saying that I realize that I still didn't get anywhere near the level of crap that so many people get just for presenting as female on Fetlife or other sites.
Older Dude in #gayhypnosis
This guy invited me to a private chat. Wanting the same treatment that I would give any of my subjects, I grilled him on what he would like to do with me in a first session. The answer was something along the lines of, "Oh, just put you under and feel things out."
Then I asked what he would like to do after that. Answer: "Fly out to [hometown deleted] and buy a collar for you," followed by a lengthy, way-too-detailed description of how special this collar would be.
...I responded that I was definitely not looking for what he was looking for.
I changed my hometown from [actual hometown] to "Variable" immediately afterward. He private messaged me again the next time I was in the room, wondering (not unkindly) why I was there, when I had already found "what [I] was looking for" and found it not to my liking.
Do I really need to explain where this guy went wrong?
Couldn't Be Sexy If He Tried
Another guy private-messaged me in hypnotising.org's own chatroom, asking to hypnotize me. He asked me what I liked, and I pointed him toward my hypnotising.org profile, which explicitly outlines everything that I like, as well as my hard limits.
His response? "Oh, I've done all of those things."
My inner response: "...suuuuuuuurrrrrrre you have."
My chatroom response: "Ooh, can you tell me about some scenes you've done, then?"
His response to that: "Oh, I don't kiss and tell."
So, OK, this guy's already making my Bullshit Detector go off. But I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt - I mean, I've done everything on my list as a hypnotist, right? And not everyone is comfortable disclosing their scene details.
Well, then he starts bragging about all the cool things he likes to do...one of which was "dumb jock" suggestions, which are right at the top of my hard limits. In fact, by this point my profile explicitly opened with "IF YOU WANT A JOCK, LOOK ELSEWHERE." So I pointed out that he seemed to be confusing my want-list with my limit-list.
As he continued to talk in circles and not give me any specifics whatsoever, I told him, "give me something to fantasize about!" He responded, "I don't work with fantasy, I only work with reality." (Yay for missing the point?)
At this point I've given up on salvaging anything from this guy, so I give up trying to be coy and tell him that he is not making himself remotely appealing, on any level.
Spiral: come on, give me SOMETHING to get me interested!
Not-Sexy-Guy: lol, i'm interested in you.
...yeah, you and a bunch of other horny hypnotists on this site, I'll need a little more than that.
Denouement: The next day, he invited me to watch him put another guy under on cam in a private chatroom. Or, rather, he was inviting me to put another guy under on cam - there was a massive miscommunication (which says something about his communication skills) that led to him thinking I was going to be the hypnotist, when in fact I figured I might as well check out his hypnotism skills and see if he was at least any good.
After the miscommunication was cleared up, he proceeded to put under the other room-goer with a hands-stuck induction. The hypnotee did not have a microphone; he was only able to communicate by typing - and this guy did a hands-stuck induction. Hands-stuck is my default, but I'm perceptive enough to know when it is a terrible idea - and by then, I'd learned to be disturbed by any hypnotist who would deprive his hypnotee of a means to communicate.
Not-Sexy Hypnotist proceeded to be utterly baffled and lost when this induction didn't work. So, not only did he use a poor method, he didn't have any backup plan when it failed.
Sigh.
Mr. Douche 'Tist
Here's the main event. There were some other mishaps, but these three were the most notable, and this one was by far the experience that left the biggest impression.
The first day I was on the site, I threw out messages to a bunch of hypnotists who seemed vaguely interesting. Not that I had a lot to go on; most of the profiles on this site only had a sentence or two. So I messaged people who at least had decent grammar and professed some kind of nerdiness.
I soon got a reply from a guy that I will refer to exclusively as Mr. Douche 'Tist. We chatted a bit on YIM, did some half-decent negotiation, and got on Skype for the trancing.
The first hypnosis session was, frankly, awesome. He had me freezing and posing in all sorts of positions, stripping in fun ways, feeling REALLY subby with a "good boy" trigger, and generally having a blast. His induction technique was also fantastic - I was legitimately impressed.
That said, there was one red flag that came up in this: up front, during negotiation, I stated that I didn't want any amnesia. He agreed to that. However, he proceeded to be surprised that I was fully aware and conscious every time I froze. Silly me, I just figured he defined "amnesia" differently, and I shouldn't be concerned.
(I think I'm right that he just defined it differently, but I still consider that a red flag.)
I proceeded to float in subspace for an hour after the session, which was reeeeeeaalllly nice.
My second session with him...hoo boy.
He messaged me, asking if I wanted to do another trance. I was up for it at the time, and asked what he wanted to do that night. He replied, vaguely, that he just wanted to do some freezing scenes. I was like, cool, sounds perfect to me right now.
Well, he used and reinforced the triggers from the last session. I should mention that I was starting to be impressed with my own ability to freeze in place - every time he used the freeze trigger, I was stock-still and it was awesome.
And then...
...well, first, while I was frozen, he suggested that I would unfreeze as a puppy. Won't lie, this is something I've wanted to do for ages, so I didn't mind - except that I had told him that I had to be quiet (someone else in the house was sleeping), so barking loudly was right out. So, I became a puppy for a minute or two, but I couldn't really get into it and I was very quiet. After he brought me back out, I explained that my headspace was messed up by the noise issue. He proceeded to look bored, freeze me in the middle, and leave me to awkwardly continue after being unfrozen.
Again: I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that. Freezing someone mid-conversation is par for the course. But it sent up another red flag that he would do this while I was explaining a problem, and I was irritated that he didn't seem interested at all in my issue.
So, he froze me again, and this time he suggested that when I unfroze, I'd be a cave man.
...that took me completely off guard. It was a hard limit I didn't even know I had, because I hadn't even given this fetish any thought. So, when I unfroze, the suggestion flat-out didn't work, and I told him that that kind of play just wasn't my thing.
OK. Here's where it takes a turn for the fucked-up.
Mr. Douche 'Tist (this is where he earns the title) then put me back under, and gave me a series of new triggers and suggestions. One of those suggestions was that he would be able to change my opinions on things. I outright rejected that one when he asked if I understood and accepted it. He woke me up, said it was fine that some things weren't working, then put me back under and, after a very lengthy deepening, he suggested that I would wake up with no free will.
Ordinarily, that would be really hot to me. But this guy had already surprised me with an unnegotiated kind of fetish play, then tried to give me a suggestion to change my opinions, and now he wanted me to be mindless - one right after the other, without so much as a pause to talk to me. This was not a good sequence of events for ensuring my trust.
Keep in mind - I was still in a really floaty, subby headspace this whole time. I was having trouble stringing together any kind of coherent protest - and he didn't give me the time or prompting to allow me to.
So I woke up, supposed to be lacking in free will (by the way, he didn't give me a chance to "accept" this suggestion), and I told him (still floaty, still rambly) that there were still some things I wouldn't do, even though I felt really submissive and obedient.
His response: "Sorry, [pseudonym I was using], you're not working out as a volunteer." *signs off*
WHAT.
THE.
FUCK.
No aftercare. Didn't even wake me up out of the subby headspace he had just built. Didn't ask me to elaborate on anything that had gone wrong, or why it had gone wrong.
Since I like to believe the best in people, I tried to see it from his perspective: he probably thought I was a faker, and that there was no point in doing anything if I were lying about being hypnotized.
Still: throwing in suggestions without negotiating them is pretty awful to me. I know there are hypno-subs out there who love it (including, from my chatting, most of the subs on hypnotising.org), but I stated up front that I wanted to negotiate things thoroughly before doing them. Furthermore, I find it outrageous that he didn't give me time or prompting to communicate any problems with him after I had resisted three suggestions in a short period of time. I know that in that situation, I would have asked my subject if there was a persistent problem, and if they would even want to continue. But no, this guy steamrolled ahead past my resistance, and decided that I wasn't worth aftercare if I wasn't going to fulfill his whims.
Yeah, this wasn't exactly a worst-case scenario. Maybe I'm disproportionately pissed off. But the more I think about it, the more this guy is a model for how not to scene with people, and the more justified I feel in saying that he was a selfish douchebag.
What I Learned from Mr. Douche 'Tist: I learned a lot about communication. I like to think I already knew how important it was to check in regularly and ask how everything was going, but this really hammered it into me by putting me on the receiving end of half-assed care. This guy showed only token concern for my desires or needs, only caring about his own desires when push came to shove.
Conclusion:
Not all of my experiences on hypnotising.org and in #gayhypnosis have been bad ones. I've chatted to some really cool hypnofetishists - mostly hypnotees - and had good conversations. I even met some ethical hypnotists and assorted good people. I even chatted to some hypnotists who seemed really awesome, and who took the time to get to know me; even if it turned out that we weren't compatible, I was much more warmed by those experiences than the hot session with Mr. Douche 'Tist. But the sheer, overwhelming selfishness and douchebaggery that I witnessed pissed me off because it was more common.
Maybe these two sites are so filled with this behavior because moderation is non-existent. Or maybe I'm finding out the hard way what it's like to be hit on by people made confident and self-assured by male privilege. Maybe all the predators on the site made these awkward and way-too-forward flirting methods look viable, because at least they bothered to come after token attempts to get to know a person. It baffled me, because I just couldn't imagine some of these approaches (like the first two vignettes) being appealing to anybody. The real kicker, Mr. Douche 'Tist actually has a really good reputation around thereabouts - it seems not being a predator makes him look good in comparison, and he probably doesn't often run into subjects as high-maintenance as myself. (That's not an excuse for him, by the way - if your sub needs care, they should get it. Period.)
Argh.
This has been Frustrated, Snarky, Pissed-Off Spiral. In the next post, I hope to bring back Sexy, Fun-Loving, Happy Spiral.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Back from Inactivty with Insights
Hey all! I've been a terrible, lazy person and haven't been updating this blog as much as I should be. :)
Without giving away too much personal detail - my life is in an odd place right now. Not bad-odd, just odd. I'm currently away from the majority of my closest friends; distance has forced me to come to a friendly parting of the ways with all of the play partners I've blogged about; and I'm slightly lacking in direction right now.
In order to ensure that future blog posts happen soon, I'm going to make an enticing preview of things that I promise to write about soon: an account of my last one-on-one scene with Georgie; more threesome shenanigans with Georgie and Eve; my experience looking for a hypnotist on http://www.hypnotising.org; and an excellent online hypnosis session.
I'm going to take a moment to write about hypnosis porn, to sort out and publish some thoughts I've had lately. Please excuse the MASSIVE generalizations I make, as well as the fact that these thoughts subscribe to sexual binaries. If anything, I think it is fascinating (and saddening) that my observations show that the gender binary pervades hypnosis porn and all discussion of it - I think that these observations can contribute to an understanding of how a specific group understands and reacts to gender.
I also want to emphasize that I do not think any of the various groups I generalize are wrong. Rather, I'm simply struck by how people with certain sets of tastes outnumber those with other sets of tastes by such wide margins.
I've noticed - from browsing around the Mind Control Forum, Fetlife, and hypnotising.org - that the hypnosis porn market consists of the following vocal groups:
* Dominant or switchy males who want to see women hypnotized, and want to see as little of the male hypnotists as possible while never, ever wanting to see hypnotized men. (There's a reason that the proprietor of Girls Gone Hypnotized advertises the lack of male nudity in the sex scenes! That's not a dig at him, it's simply the way the market has evolved.)
* Submissive or switchy women who want to see women hypnotized.
* Submissive men who are not interested at all in seeing men hypnotized (this group appears to primarily consume MP3 inductions and video inductions).
* Dominant females who produce their own content: [listed in order of proliferation] MP3 inductions; video inductions starring conventionally attractive women; videos of women being hypnotized (real and fantasy); videos of men being hypnotized (I have found exactly one example of that last category in all my time looking at hypno-porn - will discuss this in a moment).
* Dominant males who produce their own content: [listed in order of proliferation] videos of women being hypnotized (real and fantasy); MP3 inductions; and video inductions.
* Dominant males who do not seem to care for hypnosis porn and would rather hypnotize men themselves.
These groups dominate any discussion of hypnosis pornography on the Mind Control Forum. Fetlife and hypnotising.org have not produced too many discussions of the topic, and the different demographics present there (BDSMers with a casual interest in hypnosis on Fet; gay men on hypnotising.org) could skew this demographic overview. It's not like I'm taking numbers, but I think it is worth noting that these are the groups that drive the creation of hypnosis pornography.
The trends that these groups create are as follows (according to my subjective but long-term observation):
* Correct me if I am wrong, but the number of men producing MP3s for sale is minuscule compared to the number of women producing MP3s.
* There is exactly one website that I have found featuring men being hypnotized by a woman: Queen Cleopatra's site.
* There is exactly one website that I have found featuring men being hypnotized by a man: HypnoSubmission.
* HypnoSubmission, the sole producer of male/male hypnosis video that I have found, does not pay its models. The models are volunteers - the website's model application is actually an application for a pro-dom session, in which submissives willing to be video-taped are allowed to get their session for free. This indicates that the producer is primarily interested in scheduling hypnosis sessions - the videos are a bonus source of income that he cannot and does not depend upon.
* Producers such as Lex (real hypnosis) and Daphne (fantasy mind control) have been outright told in polls and discussions that there is no market for videos featuring men being hypnotized. Lex has, on at least two occasions, posted a poll on the MC Forum surveying the interest level in a shoot where he puts under a man and a woman together; the response, each time, has been overwhelmingly negative. Daphne's production has sadly stalled due to various issues; while she was producing, she never made a male-sub video despite (if I'm recalling correctly) showing interest in doing one on the forum.
* The Erotic Mind Control Story Archive has around twice as many male-dom stories as fem-dom stories. It has around triple as many f/f stories as m/m stories.
I've commented before about the utter dearth of male-sub hypnosis porn available - and how I wish I had the confidence/security/what have you to help address that dearth.
What I'm trying to get at, in this sprawling series of observations, is that the hypnosis community may be shutting out people who would otherwise be interested. There may be a touch of insular thinking going on - all the hypnosis porn is of women being hypnotized by men; therefore, all of the people who frequent the most popular forum about hypnosis porn and erotica are fans of that who wish to see more. I will support this statement by noting that there are very few openly trans posters on the MC Forum, despite transwomen making up a significant proportion of the hypnofetishists I see on Fetlife - no doubt in response to the Erotic Mind Control Stories Archive's rule against featuring transgender content in its stories.
OR, alternately, there is flat-out less demand to see men hypnotized. If so, why is that?
This website suggests that there are simply a lot of forces at work that prevent the professional creation of erotic male imagery that does not conform to a very specific mold. This sounds about right to me.
Perhaps all of the men who would like to watch men get hypnotized are turned off because the men they'd see would inevitably fall into one of two categories - so unattractive to the man watching as to render the model unappealing, or so much more conventionally attractive than the man watching as to render the model threatening.
One thing specific to the hypnosis community - there appear to be very, very, very few dominant women active in the online community who are not simply producing their own content, and these women go with what the market demands. Those women who do not fit the molds I listed above probably do not even bother with the hypnosis porn available - or are bi/pan/homosexual and satisfied with what is out there. I have no doubt that there are plenty more dominant female hypnofetishists than those who are producing content - they just don't seem to have much online presence for one reason or another.
Furthermore, in my opinion, is that the cultural conception of being hypnotized - with all of the subtext of domination and control that it entails - has made being hypnotized an intensely feminized position. Hypnotize the Princess is a trope that is very rarely gender-flipped in Western stories - just count up all the prominent examples of women being mind controlled on that page. In contrast, there are a tiny handful of examples of men being mind controlled. (Hence the title of the trope.) Perhaps there is simply very little room in Euro-American culture to see a man put into a a hypnotized state while acknowledging the eroticism of the scene. Most times when a male character is hypnotized in a cartoon - Barney on The Flintstones, Beast Boy on Teen Titans - he is made out to be weak-willed and foolish. The only example of a male hypnotized by a female villain, with all of the erotic subtext intact, that I remember from my own childhood is Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon - IE, originating from a Japanese text.
So, I suppose the point I'm trying to make is this: American culture (and the English-speaking countries that also consume same culture) marks being hypnotized as a feminized position. This has shaped the formation of the online hypnosis porn community, to the exclusion of those who would like to see men hypnotized. To me, this says a lot about a growing expectation that women be more sexually flexible in contrast to a rigid male heterosexuality, as well as how the regulation of gender norms produces disgust and disinterest in any content that breaks those norms. Perhaps those two points do not come across very clearly in the scattered observations above, but I am simply ruminating here rather than crafting a strong argument.
This post is meant as a polemic - a starter for discussion. I want to read other people's thoughts about this! Are there sources for porn of men being hypnotized that I simply haven't found yet? Are there people with similar frustrations about the content available? Is the market simply that hostile to seeing men being hypnotized? (My observations say: yes.)
All I can do, I suppose, is show my support for video of men being hypnotized whenever I see the topic raised - and encourage others to do the same if they want to see it!
Without giving away too much personal detail - my life is in an odd place right now. Not bad-odd, just odd. I'm currently away from the majority of my closest friends; distance has forced me to come to a friendly parting of the ways with all of the play partners I've blogged about; and I'm slightly lacking in direction right now.
In order to ensure that future blog posts happen soon, I'm going to make an enticing preview of things that I promise to write about soon: an account of my last one-on-one scene with Georgie; more threesome shenanigans with Georgie and Eve; my experience looking for a hypnotist on http://www.hypnotising.org; and an excellent online hypnosis session.
I'm going to take a moment to write about hypnosis porn, to sort out and publish some thoughts I've had lately. Please excuse the MASSIVE generalizations I make, as well as the fact that these thoughts subscribe to sexual binaries. If anything, I think it is fascinating (and saddening) that my observations show that the gender binary pervades hypnosis porn and all discussion of it - I think that these observations can contribute to an understanding of how a specific group understands and reacts to gender.
I also want to emphasize that I do not think any of the various groups I generalize are wrong. Rather, I'm simply struck by how people with certain sets of tastes outnumber those with other sets of tastes by such wide margins.
I've noticed - from browsing around the Mind Control Forum, Fetlife, and hypnotising.org - that the hypnosis porn market consists of the following vocal groups:
* Dominant or switchy males who want to see women hypnotized, and want to see as little of the male hypnotists as possible while never, ever wanting to see hypnotized men. (There's a reason that the proprietor of Girls Gone Hypnotized advertises the lack of male nudity in the sex scenes! That's not a dig at him, it's simply the way the market has evolved.)
* Submissive or switchy women who want to see women hypnotized.
* Submissive men who are not interested at all in seeing men hypnotized (this group appears to primarily consume MP3 inductions and video inductions).
* Dominant females who produce their own content: [listed in order of proliferation] MP3 inductions; video inductions starring conventionally attractive women; videos of women being hypnotized (real and fantasy); videos of men being hypnotized (I have found exactly one example of that last category in all my time looking at hypno-porn - will discuss this in a moment).
* Dominant males who produce their own content: [listed in order of proliferation] videos of women being hypnotized (real and fantasy); MP3 inductions; and video inductions.
* Dominant males who do not seem to care for hypnosis porn and would rather hypnotize men themselves.
These groups dominate any discussion of hypnosis pornography on the Mind Control Forum. Fetlife and hypnotising.org have not produced too many discussions of the topic, and the different demographics present there (BDSMers with a casual interest in hypnosis on Fet; gay men on hypnotising.org) could skew this demographic overview. It's not like I'm taking numbers, but I think it is worth noting that these are the groups that drive the creation of hypnosis pornography.
The trends that these groups create are as follows (according to my subjective but long-term observation):
* Correct me if I am wrong, but the number of men producing MP3s for sale is minuscule compared to the number of women producing MP3s.
* There is exactly one website that I have found featuring men being hypnotized by a woman: Queen Cleopatra's site.
* There is exactly one website that I have found featuring men being hypnotized by a man: HypnoSubmission.
* HypnoSubmission, the sole producer of male/male hypnosis video that I have found, does not pay its models. The models are volunteers - the website's model application is actually an application for a pro-dom session, in which submissives willing to be video-taped are allowed to get their session for free. This indicates that the producer is primarily interested in scheduling hypnosis sessions - the videos are a bonus source of income that he cannot and does not depend upon.
* Producers such as Lex (real hypnosis) and Daphne (fantasy mind control) have been outright told in polls and discussions that there is no market for videos featuring men being hypnotized. Lex has, on at least two occasions, posted a poll on the MC Forum surveying the interest level in a shoot where he puts under a man and a woman together; the response, each time, has been overwhelmingly negative. Daphne's production has sadly stalled due to various issues; while she was producing, she never made a male-sub video despite (if I'm recalling correctly) showing interest in doing one on the forum.
* The Erotic Mind Control Story Archive has around twice as many male-dom stories as fem-dom stories. It has around triple as many f/f stories as m/m stories.
I've commented before about the utter dearth of male-sub hypnosis porn available - and how I wish I had the confidence/security/what have you to help address that dearth.
What I'm trying to get at, in this sprawling series of observations, is that the hypnosis community may be shutting out people who would otherwise be interested. There may be a touch of insular thinking going on - all the hypnosis porn is of women being hypnotized by men; therefore, all of the people who frequent the most popular forum about hypnosis porn and erotica are fans of that who wish to see more. I will support this statement by noting that there are very few openly trans posters on the MC Forum, despite transwomen making up a significant proportion of the hypnofetishists I see on Fetlife - no doubt in response to the Erotic Mind Control Stories Archive's rule against featuring transgender content in its stories.
OR, alternately, there is flat-out less demand to see men hypnotized. If so, why is that?
This website suggests that there are simply a lot of forces at work that prevent the professional creation of erotic male imagery that does not conform to a very specific mold. This sounds about right to me.
Perhaps all of the men who would like to watch men get hypnotized are turned off because the men they'd see would inevitably fall into one of two categories - so unattractive to the man watching as to render the model unappealing, or so much more conventionally attractive than the man watching as to render the model threatening.
One thing specific to the hypnosis community - there appear to be very, very, very few dominant women active in the online community who are not simply producing their own content, and these women go with what the market demands. Those women who do not fit the molds I listed above probably do not even bother with the hypnosis porn available - or are bi/pan/homosexual and satisfied with what is out there. I have no doubt that there are plenty more dominant female hypnofetishists than those who are producing content - they just don't seem to have much online presence for one reason or another.
Furthermore, in my opinion, is that the cultural conception of being hypnotized - with all of the subtext of domination and control that it entails - has made being hypnotized an intensely feminized position. Hypnotize the Princess is a trope that is very rarely gender-flipped in Western stories - just count up all the prominent examples of women being mind controlled on that page. In contrast, there are a tiny handful of examples of men being mind controlled. (Hence the title of the trope.) Perhaps there is simply very little room in Euro-American culture to see a man put into a a hypnotized state while acknowledging the eroticism of the scene. Most times when a male character is hypnotized in a cartoon - Barney on The Flintstones, Beast Boy on Teen Titans - he is made out to be weak-willed and foolish. The only example of a male hypnotized by a female villain, with all of the erotic subtext intact, that I remember from my own childhood is Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon - IE, originating from a Japanese text.
So, I suppose the point I'm trying to make is this: American culture (and the English-speaking countries that also consume same culture) marks being hypnotized as a feminized position. This has shaped the formation of the online hypnosis porn community, to the exclusion of those who would like to see men hypnotized. To me, this says a lot about a growing expectation that women be more sexually flexible in contrast to a rigid male heterosexuality, as well as how the regulation of gender norms produces disgust and disinterest in any content that breaks those norms. Perhaps those two points do not come across very clearly in the scattered observations above, but I am simply ruminating here rather than crafting a strong argument.
This post is meant as a polemic - a starter for discussion. I want to read other people's thoughts about this! Are there sources for porn of men being hypnotized that I simply haven't found yet? Are there people with similar frustrations about the content available? Is the market simply that hostile to seeing men being hypnotized? (My observations say: yes.)
All I can do, I suppose, is show my support for video of men being hypnotized whenever I see the topic raised - and encourage others to do the same if they want to see it!
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