Normalization of Consent

To perk up the mood of the blog really quickly (I currently have three blog posts partly written, and they're quite entertaining if I say so myself), I thought I'd post a cool counterpoint to the last post. Specifically, I'm taking an excuse to quote something that I've wanted in my blog's text for a while.

I was Skyping with Georgie over the summer, and we were talking about...something to do with consent, or the sordid experiences in the last post, or porn. (Probably porn. Or maybe all three.) And I mentioned how the first porn site I really got into was Entrancement Video - and how glad I was that my kinks were shaped in part by that site's solicitation for models. Or rather, their public rejection of the skeevy requests they had gotten:

We do NOT want to hear from people who know they could "convince" their girlfriend/wife to participate. Nor will we honor requests from people who would like us to come and hypnotize the lady, but not tell her why. We are also not interested in "hot sex with my sub if you can hypnotize her." We have heard all of these and more. As a rule, we discuss the video with the woman prior to any hypnosis or filming and we always receive her written consent in advance.

What we DO want are sincere female models, over 18. No experience necessary. We will travel to you if that is convenient. (Hey, we went to England for some of these tapes, you can't be that much further away!) References are available on request.

[Copied and pasted via the Wayback Machine.]

This was my first exposure to explicit SSC attitudes. It also spelled out that this whole fetish didn't have to be a fucked-up power fantasy, and that it could be about two people working out an informed, consensual agreement for mutual enjoyment. (Prior to this, I went through a lot of emotional turmoil over the ethics of the whole "turned on by controlling people" thing.)

Georgie summed it up best:

"THAT is HOT!"

Puppets, Dolls, and Robots

I thought it would be useful to make a post about this, since (in my time on hypno-fetish singles sites) this has been the single most common point of confusion among other hypno-fetishists.

(I also figure, if I post every time I feel like posting, it'll keep me in gear to make sure I don't have any other half-a-year-between-session-and-post situations.)

Of note, ASFR is the hypnosis stuff that I most enjoy as a subject/submissive. Being frozen, being called a puppet, being a robot: I like. If I'm hypnotizing somebody else, I still love it, but I also enjoy blank mind, limp body, and sensation/pleasure suggestions just as much.

So, here are my thoughts on the Big Three sub-fetishes of ASFR:

On "Puppet":

I LOVE the word "puppet." However, I don't find puppets particularly sexy. When I use the word in my fetish play, I'm not thinking about what a puppet is. I'm thinking about what the word "puppet" implies: a being completely under the control of somebody else. This can relate to hypnotized-to-be-a-marionette scenarios (like this one and around 4:09 in this video); however, while I enjoy those (ESPECIALLY being on the receiving end), they're not a very big Thing for me. And speaking of the receiving end, if I'm going to be a marionette, it has to be a human marionette, I don't really want to be hypnotized to feel like I'm made of wood or whatever.

(One of the reasons they're not a big Thing for me, it should be noted, is that it's difficult as hell to make them work in a satisfactory way. Either the hypnotist has to painstakingly describe every single movement of the "strings," or the subject has to be able to see every movement of the hypnotist's hands, or only two body parts can be moved at once, ARGH, it's more trouble than it's worth.)

So, to sum: it's the word, and its accompanying metaphorical concept, that I find sexy as hell.


On Dolls:

OK, doll fetish is a little different. I do occasionally go nuts for "doll" clothes (one of my Fet friends has a Raggedy Anne outfit; I'm a big fan, even though she uses it for age play instead of doll play) and doll makeup.

However, like "puppet," I primarily enjoy "doll" as a metaphorical concept. In this case, it implies not only a being under control, but a being that exists to be played with. "Puppet" implies this, too, I suppose, but I tend to use "doll" in a more playful sense.

This word also has some personal significance to me, because in my early days of hypno-playing, I found that the word resonated with many of my hypnosis play partners in an unexpected way. I started using it at first because I personally thought that "doll" described freezing-and-posing better than "mannequin" (which is more commonly used on hypno-porn sites) - I mean, most mannequins I see aren't very poseable, so "life-sized doll" always seemed like a better description when explaining the concept to a play partner.

I found, to my surprise, that this description seemed to awaken a new turn-on in several of my partners. Obviously, this is not the case with everybody, but it happened often enough that the word gained a strong positive association for me.

"Doll play," as a fetish, often has a distinct objectification element. I'm REALLY not sure if that's part of my own doll kink. When I use the word (and when it gets a positive reaction), my mind turns to the idea of a doll who actively enjoys being played with and posed. I like to see a subject's reactions to being posed. And I always give my hypnotee the choice of being able to speak or mute when they're frozen - I often enjoy having a conversation while posing somebody. But the idea of reducing a thinking, conscious person to a thoughtless object IS appealing to me, if only on a fantasy level (or on a "happening to me" level - my submissive fantasies tend to be less inhibited than my dominant fantasies). And I also enjoy frozen expressions and blank stares indicating mindlessness, which seems inherently dehumanizing. My doll scenes tend to emphasize being frozen more as a kind of bondage than as a dehumanizing experience...but that word, "doll," and its objectification implications, remains.

Long and short on objectification: I could probably come up with an awesome objectification scene if I were playing with somebody into that kink, but I can discard it in a heartbeat and have never pursued it actively.


On Robots:

I know exactly where I stand on robot kink, which is awesome!

I enjoy robot play purely on a superficial level. Stiff, monotone, holding still unless obeying a command, not reacting to outside stimulus, speaking only when spoken to - these superficial aspects are all incredibly sexy to me. I often get the same thrill out of non-robot scenes - like blank mind scenes.

I'm also interested in trying a "mad scientist turns the captive and bound victim into a robo" role play. It seems like it would be a more fun "mad scientist" scenario than a straight brainwashing or a mind control ray.

But I'm not really turned on by robots. I'm turned on by people (or myself) acting like robots as a result of hypnotic suggestion. I also have strict preferences: I like monotone voices, I HATE stilted voices. Perky robots just aren't my thing.

Metaphorically, "robot" also makes a good metaphor for someone under control, but I prefer to keep it separate since I enjoy the specific role play.

As for other robot trappings: I like clockwork/wind-up toy suggestions, although they're sometimes awkward to make work (much easier than marionette scenes, though). I would love to do a remote control scene, but it either involves doing some very complicated things with a Bluetooth headset or describing what button the hypnotist is pressing and what it does each and every time - so it's a bit too much work considering I like vocal commands just fine. I'm not into full robot costumes, but a silver one-piece bathing suit would be hot for robot scenes. If I'm the subject, being nude would be preferable to any kind of outfit.

Perhaps notably, the robot trapping I most enjoy is some kind of object - a collar, a headband, a helmet, a ring - that stops the subject's thoughts and turns them into a biological robot (see: the infamous "Ring Around Gilligan" MC scenes).


...so, I think that's all I have to say about my ASFR kinks, unless I feel like editing this post sometime. I don't know what kind of feedback I can get on this - maybe from my previous play partners who have their own perspectives on how these kinks play out - but anyone who wants to start a conversation with me about this will likely make me happy, because I'm really interested in teasing out the intellectual aspects that this kink holds for me (since it's all tied up in words and concepts as much as types of play).

Later, all!

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!