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This is why it’s so important to have a debrief and review after a session, where you can bring up the hits and misses. Write them down or record them. Make a guide on how to hypnotize your partner specifically, with everything they like or don’t like. Show the, you are paying attention and want to make every session better than the last.

In general, knowing exactly how your subject experiences the world and thinks about things is like very, very important for effective hypnosis. Like there's the little things like using 'visualize' with a aphantasiac subject or saying "penis" to a subject that thinks the word sounds silly. But also things like telling a subject with sensory issues that they enjoy something that they can't enjoy, or saying something incorrect about chemistry to a girl with a a special interest in it.

But really what I think is interesting is like... in the same way you can have huge misses like these, you can also have small misses. If a subject prefers to think about something in one way and you describe it in another, they'll probably have to translate it over. Whether talking about their body or their mental language or their emotions. Your language should be as close to the subject's own language as possible, thus allowing the ideas to enter their mind as easily as possible.

Then, you might ask the question, how can I get better with a subject? If you read old texts on hypnosis, they talk about asking if you can read your subject's personal writings or journal. But here on tumblr we have a huge advantage, reading your sub's blog does in fact make you better at hypnotizing them.

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i wanna try hypnotising my partner sometime but im worried it wont work. any suggestions on how to best make sure it goes well, and what kinds of triggers i should try giving them to start off with?

Oh! So, my real advice here would normally kinda depend wildly on your experience with a lot of different things, but I don't know that so I'll just be giving generic advice.

There's a lot of different ways to hypnotize someone, a lot of different frameworks and a lot of different inductions. First, I recommend starting with an eye fascination of some kind, pendulums are preferred for a reason. Second, I recommend having some basic patter planned that appeals to your aesthetic sensibilities.

And third, above all, I highly recommend being able to come across as confident. If you're not confident, your partner will know, and either they'll have to force it to work or it just won't work. So, find something that will help you build confidence, and do it.

Then, there are a few different like... ways to approach hypnosis. You could see it as a formalization of dominance, forcing a sub into subspace with overload and force of charisma and playing with them there. You could see it as a formalization of storytelling, capturing someone in a campfire tale so thoroughly that they lose track of all else. You could see it as its own thing, a pattern of speaking that entraps its audience. None of these are true, all of them are true. I recommend choosing a way to think about it and focusing on it. Make it yours, and get weird with it.

If you want more elaborate advice, I highly recommend reading my brief guide, which I kinda wrote for basically this purpose: https://www.tumblr.com/ace-trainer-alice/791821591044571136/then-where-does-that-leave-us?source=share.

Finally, uh, triggers. I highly recommend for first sessions, just focusing on keeping your subject in the space for as long as you have time available. I find that it's usually relaxing and most subjects cannot keep track of time while in trance and find it to be a good... illustrator of state. Alternatively, a basic drop trigger to aid with a future entrancing, a "speak the words that you're thinking" trigger, or a "automatically obey this command" trigger are all quite fun.

Then, above all else, I need to note: have fun! Whether you achieve what you're trying to or not, find a way to have fun while you do it. I think hypnosis is at its best as play, and keeping the stakes not too high should help with confidence. Good luck!

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"Ask me about hypnosis" written on booty shorts

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Surprisingly good although the web pages are far more useful than the actual card deck, which is not cheap. If you're interested in ways that marketing tries to get to you to buy or do stuff, this is very insightful.

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I used to think hypnosis was real mind control, and that real mind control just isn't as powerful or impressive as in the fantasies. When I believed hypnosis was mind control, it felt more like mind control. Suggestions felt difficult to shake off. I had negative experiences because of misphrasings by my hypnotist that I took too literally. I believed my brain was being programmed and I would obey as a computer does, literally, exactly as said, no inferences. And so that was how I experienced it, and how I followed suggestions.

There was a middle bit, where I came to have a bit more self-awareness. I kinked the most on what I had come to understand as "real hypnosis" and which was not very similar to the fantasies, but the fantasies existed inside of the real world now, so they were often easier to achieve, though not as intense. We were playing with real mind control, after all, so we needed to temper our fantasies and be more careful, more safe.

I had discovered that I could modify and remove suggestions on my own, which I saw as self-hypnosis, or I wasn't sure what I saw it is. I realized I could update Good X to Good Y to Good Z without needing a whole new trance. I realized talking about how we wanted a suggestion to work after the fact seemed to change how it worked without a new trance. It became increasingly clear the trance wasn't really what was doing things, but they still all felt like compulsions to me. If I did wake myself up, I thought of that as "lucidity" not "agency."

Then there was a period where hypnosis didn't feel very real. I wasn't in a good spot with my then-hypnotist, or playing with other people. Our relationship was nearing its end. I was not very motivated emotionally to lose myself in the experience. Following hypnotic suggestions felt like faking orgasms to make an experience end.

I started attending local hypnokink classes occasionally around this time, even though they were all 101s, but it was community with people besides my then-partner. Long distance and nearing its end. I saw a class by HypnoStory and PandaPet where they did a demonstration of Subject Agency. Story said to someone "You can assume nothing I say is said with the intention of hurting you so if I accidentally say anything that would you can ignore it." It was so broad, it required subjects to actively interpret things, and it was amazing.

Something clicked in my brain, it was amazing, it completely changed how I saw hypnosis, and as beautiful as it was, hypnosis now felt faker than ever.

I broke up with that hypnotist, and started to see hypnosis as a silly thing from my past, something I had grown out of. Perhaps I could have a normal non-dysphoric relationship to sex. Perhaps I was becoming vanilla.

This was very brief. I attended a local hypnokink event (the classes that were our intermediary space between mindplay and trancesylvania) and enjoyed myself. I felt motivated to be in the community again so I could make new friends. I discovered hypnosis discord. and then I got a head injury.

Discord group calls were easy ways to feel less alone while stuck at home unable to handle a one-on-one conversation. The head injury totally killed my sex drive and the meds suppressed my libido. Hypnosis played with intense emotions and there was satisfaction to be had without necessarily involving sex. This was very good at the time. I found myself even more deeply enmeshed in the hypnokink community than I ever had been before.

I learned more and more about subject agency from people I was meeting and things I was reading. I learned about newer models of hypnosis like Phenomenological Control and I read about predictive processing theory. I became enmeshed in agency-forward subject-centered New School hypnosis which saw everything as active collaboration.

I learned to see hypnosis as decidedly NOT mind control. Hypnosis "worked" better than ever and it felt so much less like mind control. I could bring myself to experience any suggestion vividly regardless of the skill level of the hypnotist. I learned about blueprinting. I started getting exactly the trance I wanted. Scenes went off perfectly. I rarely if ever had abreactions or negative experiences.

And it didn't feel like mind control anymore... and I missed that.

And lately, I've been planning scenes where I view the part where I find hypnosis hot and the part where I find mind control hot as two different parts of planning the scene.

I go into the scenes with the intention "I want it to feel like mind control" and I blueprint how it can feel like mind control. I plan scenes where we intentionally evoke our old fantasies from McStories and cartoons growing up. I blueprint how to make something feel more like a compulsion, or more automatic. What if we incorporated amnesia? What if we were just a bit less careful with our phrasings? I have common sense. I know not to interpret things irresponsibly.

For over a decade, I was so used to the carefulness of "You will feel obedient, a desire to do as I say, within reason, so long as it's safe, and you're comfortable doing it, and nobody else is around, and..."

And lately, instead, we've let all that go unsaid, and I did a scene at Beguiled where it was just "You're going to do anything I ask of you. You're going obey me completely, no matter what."

And, of course, that was not true. I have agency. I can intercept this to have those caveats implicitly.

and it was SO MUCH HOTTER. To just play with those tropes. To play with the fantasies of the extreme version of mind control from the stories. When I thought hypnosis was mind control, we couldn't fully enter those fantasies. When I see hypnosis as a tool to create scenes inspired by mind control, to create the illusion of mind control, then I can actually do mind control scenes, actually experience those deep fantasies of powerful mind control and intense experiences. It's edgier, and yet safer, more honest.

All the safeties and negotiating and detail consent still happens, but we do it all before the scene. We blueprint and plan. I don't need to be told in trance not to leave the hotel room, because before the trance we negotiated that I wouldn't leave the hotel room, and that can carry equal weight. The trance is not the only time I can accept suggestions or how to interpret them, it's the time to get myself lost from reality, to enter the fantasy.

So I've come full circle again, having hot hypnosis scenes that feel like mind control, and in many ways they're hotter, and in many ways they're safer.

"Is it real" is the wrong question. The whole point is to experience the unreal. No, the scene is not real, so it's best not to worry about the tools. The point is to become so lost in the fantasy that it feels real, and so I know I can get into the science of why it all works, and talk about how it overlaps with lots of other things we do that aren't called hypnosis, but I don't need to.

Because what matters is it's really hot and fun, and with the right techniques, anything can feel like a genuine experience.

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Aria's Brief Guide to Hypnosis

So, for context, I wrote this for an anon, who asked for help learning to hypnotize their puppygirl in five weeks, but for formatting and ease of access I've made it its own post chain. I'm gonna only really be able to go over highest order principles in this guide, with which you will hopefully be able to use to direct your own study and practice. To enable this, I'm going to divide this into three posts, this being the meta post, where I'll be talking about this text and about learning philosophy.

So, before all else, how do you learn? As I see it, learning is the process of incorporating external ideas into your own knowledge, building connections and changing your existing knowledge by this. No state of self is permanent, and learning is the process of engaging intentionally with the impermanence of your own knowledge. After you have learned something, ideally it should be incorporated into your existing knowledge such that it barely feels like you've changed at all, but that takes years. But, and I cannot overstate this, an essential part of that step is sleeping.

Do not lose sleep in order to work on this. If you need to, simply read over a part of a text, and think on it as you fall to sleep. In general, your goal each day should be to construct at least one new structure in your mind or observe at least one new concept. Exactly the best way to do this, whether that be watching it be implemented, experimenting with it, reading about it, writing about it, talking about it, is up to you. You know how you understand things best. But, a significant amount of the learning process happens when you are not thinking about the thing and while sleeping, thus you cannot occupy your entire time thinking about it just spinning your wheels, and taking breaks is essential.

Next, how to approach this guide. I have divided the following post, which will be the main post and the study guide, into five component sections, each builds on the last and each with its previous components can be practiced and studied without needing the following components. Thus, I recommend spending one week on each of them. At the end of the week, you should understand the component concept, and have some basic experience employing it or playing with it, but most of all your impression of it should be confident and positive.

Much of this, you may already know or have some not insignificant familiarity with. Do not blindly doubt your knowledge, trust that your knowledge is useful and build links to compare and contrast. I will note that I am not perfect, and there may well be mistakes or major flaws within this text. You must trust yourself. At the same time, in cases where you know and agree, do not rush through it, but take it slowly and appreciate your own experience and competence. Enjoy the fact that you are skilled, and revel in your experience. This will make this all more enjoyable and help the end result.

Finally, the most important part of all of this is to have fun. All teaching is training, including teaching of the self. Learning must have positive associations, and to maintain the behavior you must receive positive reinforcement. Exactly how to have fun while learning is not something I can tell you how to do. You will have to figure this out yourself. But I can provide examples.

I derive pleasure from observing how the things I am learning exist and are employed around me. A friend eats treats when she's learning and treats it as a break from life. Another values learning and considers it an exercise of her own identity, thus the process of learning makes her feel like herself. Thus we see that the enjoyment can be external or internal, out of the moment or in the moment, but the correlation must be strong and rewarding.

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I did it! I finally converted my popular class, Building Subject Agency, into a standalone written article! And it's nearly 10,000 words long holy crap. This might be my new hypnokink magnum opus.

Building Subject Agency: The Blog Post!

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How to be good for your hypnotist

I've had a few experiences lately, as an erotic hypnotist, that left me feeling a bit used and disappointed, and which made me not want to work with that person again.

So, I thought I'd put a little post up describing a few completely non-financial ways that subjects can leave their hypnotists feeling rewarded, and help to ensure that one-off sessions have an optimal chance of being repeated in the future:

1) Honesty

Honesty is hard, I know, and I know that many people come to hypnosis when they're struggling to be honest with themselves about who they are and what they want. But please, be honest with your hypnotist, even and especially if the truth is complicated and nuanced.

If I ask you a question, please answer it honestly, as it'll help me do my work inside your mind. If you're not willing to answer, that's fine, say that, but don't lie to me. Similarly, if I ask you if you're feeling that tingling on your neck, and you don't, be honest. This doesn't mean I'm a bad hypnotist, or you're a bad subject, just that a different approach is needed, and knowing how you actually react makes it easier to do my work.

Also, be honest about who you are. You don't have to be society's 'perfect' image of masculinity or femininity to be desirable. People love and play with people from all backgrounds and walks of life, and if you're a 60 year old man who wants to feel like an 18 year old cheerleader, say that, because somebody might be game, and they'll do a better job if they know that's what they're doing. But it's disheartening when the '25/F' you're talking to eagerly sends you pictures of some plasticky influencer as 'selfies she just took', and I'd rather hear "I don't feel comfortable sending pics" than be lied to. It's also really disconcerting when you realize that the person you just took time to talk with was 45 on their blog a few months ago, and suddenly became 20 within a few weeks of posting, because then, who knows how old you really are.

Please note, it's not a good idea to give identifying information to somebody you don't trust very much, so I will never fault somebody for using a fake name or a fake city or withholding information about work and life, but where it's safe, be honest.

2) Stick around until the end

I cannot express how disappointing it is when subjects cum and run. Going from 'Wow, this is going great' to 'Oh, they've stopped responding' is an unpleasant way to pay back somebody who put in actual work to get you there. Men, particularly, seem to do this a lot, and it's so predictable that it makes my bisexual self a bit less likely to play with men. So, even if you happen to finish, stick around, let us bring you back, give us feedback, say thank you, and then roll over and fall asleep.

3) Give good Feedback

For me, one of my favorite parts is hearing about your experience. Not only does it turn me on, but it helps me understand what I did which went well, went poorly, and what blew your mind. So, the very best way you can thank me for a great experience is by telling me, in vivid detail, how you experienced it. What was arousing, what was distracting, what made you drop, and what made you explode. Even if you're exhausted, or have to be up early, or just need to run, take the time later to tell me what happened. So, if you want to do this again sometime, tell me how it was, in vivid, useful, and ideally lewd, detail. If I trance you, and get erotica about it the next day, you're on the top of my list.

4) Referrals

Even if, like me, you don't care for the 'good toys bring more good toys' approach or 'building a harem', for many, it's quite flattering to have somebody in your DMs saying "Oh, my friend said you're incredible to play with, I'd like to play too if you're open." So, if you like to share, you could always ask your hypnotist if they'd like you to do some recruitment. But again, this is not everybody's taste.

5) Sharing parts of yourself

This can mean many things. If you're in the same room as your hypnotist, well, I suspect you both can negotiate ways to share parts of yourself. But online, there are many ways to share yourself. Maybe this is by being open and exposing your mind and your desires and your thoughts. Maybe this is by being open and showing your body, in photos or video, if you're comfortable. Maybe this is by chatting on voice, and letting me hear your moans. Maybe you're even open to chatting on video, and letting me watch you melt. Once you get on video, maybe you want to be comfy, or maybe you want to be porn. And maybe you want to share yourself for just my eyes, or post your exploits for the world. You don't have to share yourself in any of these ways, but it sure is more fun to have a bit more of you, and both audio and video make doing my hypnotic job much, much easier.

Please be conscious about your face or identifying tattoos, as Facial recognition exists. So, even with somebody you trust, a cute mask, a careful camera angle, a bit of blur, or a tightened hoodie are not out of line. There should be no shame in anything between consenting adults, but that doesn't stop people from shaming or threatening, and your hypnotist should understand if an ounce of prevention makes you more comfortable for a pound of trance.

6) Cooperation

This part sort of goes without saying, but we are in it for control, and we want our toys to follow our directions. So, if we ask you not to touch, sit on your hands if you have to. If we ask you to lay down, do so. If we ask you to do 'homework' between sessions, please do your best to do it. Life happens, but 'no lol i didn't practice the mantra just maek me say it now im horny' is not a great feeling. Similarly, if you're asked to listen to a file between sessions, either do so, or explain why you're not comfortable doing it. But just ignoring an order is disrespectful, and if you don't do the work for me, why should I do the work for you?

Yes, we're hypnotists, and if we want to, we can make you obey anyway. Sometimes, that's the fun. And, of course, there's a place for brats and resistance, but unless we negotiate that you want to brat or resist, being a brat is just being unpleasant. That's a game we must both play.

So, even if you want to be forced to obey more later, obeying the little directives is a good way to show respect, it helps me control you better, and it makes it clear that you're such a good little subject, who merits to have their brains thoroughly scrubbed.

Of course, there are other ways, and the best way to find out is to ask. But if you're doing some or all of these things well, there's a good chance you'll be seen as a wonderful, desirable subject.

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In general, knowing exactly how your subject experiences the world and thinks about things is like very, very important for effective hypnosis. Like there's the little things like using 'visualize' with a aphantasiac subject or saying "penis" to a subject that thinks the word sounds silly. But also things like telling a subject with sensory issues that they enjoy something that they can't enjoy, or saying something incorrect about chemistry to a girl with a a special interest in it.

But really what I think is interesting is like... in the same way you can have huge misses like these, you can also have small misses. If a subject prefers to think about something in one way and you describe it in another, they'll probably have to translate it over. Whether talking about their body or their mental language or their emotions. Your language should be as close to the subject's own language as possible, thus allowing the ideas to enter their mind as easily as possible.

Then, you might ask the question, how can I get better with a subject? If you read old texts on hypnosis, they talk about asking if you can read your subject's personal writings or journal. But here on tumblr we have a huge advantage, reading your sub's blog does in fact make you better at hypnotizing them.

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You seem very experienced! Do you think you have to be in a relationship with your hypnotist or not? I am struggling, I have feelings for him but I dont think he feels the same way, he is very cold after sessions. It breaks my heart.

That’s such a good question! I would say yes, I’m an experienced submissive, but I still consider myself relatively new to hypnosis so I’ll tag a few tists I trust who might have more insight to offer.

You absolutely do not need to be in a relationship to enjoy hypnosis. What you do need is a strong foundation of trust and clear communication. It can be especially tricky - as a submissive - not to blur the lines between connection and deeper feelings, especially when a hypnotist (in most cases I would say) is stepping into a dominant role (such as the nature of such power exchange). That emotional vulnerability is real.

My biggest advice is to be honest from the start. If you’re hoping for something romantic or long-term, say that. Don’t hide it or wait for the dynamic to shift into something it might never become. Hypnosis can still be incredibly fulfilling, intimate, and meaningful without being romantic. You can enjoy one session, two, or many more as long as boundaries and intentions are respected on both sides. I am sorry you are going through that. Have you tried to discuss this with him? if not, I would recommend that as a first step.

Tagging in some trusted mutuals: @a-deeper-shade @jsx2022 @designertrances - please if you could contribute :) also anyone else please feel free to chime in! Thanks!

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The writing has been on the wall for years, but now it’s in the boldest of fonts: if there is porn that you like, games with even remotely adult or queer content that you enjoy, queer art you appreciate that features nudity or discussions of bodies, works of fiction that you love that features controversial subjects or themes, or any queer historical records that you think should continue existing, now is the time to build an archive of them. If you are panicked by the growing libricide of LGBTQ and NSFW records from the internet, this is one very impactful thing that you can do right now to help.

Download the files, store them on an encrypted drive, upload them to a protected server, and communicate with other lovers of sexual art and queer records, so that you can help build a library of it that is accessible to us, and those that come after us in the future. If you have the capability, keep meticulous records of what you have collected — where you found it, who originally made it, what year it comes from, the spaces and communities it was associated with, the names of the people who brought it into existence.

As the burning of the Hirschfeld archives and the catastrophic losses of the AIDs crisis taught us, queer history evaporates quickly when there is no one around to keep circulating it. But you can be a part of what keeps our stories flowing, the blood moving through us that keeps us animated and alive. And you do not have to be a trained historian or especially skillful with technology, though now is also a wonderful time to learn how to be a better archivist. Just begin doing something. Save and document all that you can — in a private space that you control, and that technology companies cannot purge.

It is also important at this time to understand how LGBTQ content bans happen on a tactical level, and resist in kind. Collective Shout pressures platforms into removing NSFW content by contacting payment processors, such as Visa and MasterCard, and convincing those companies to not process any transactions involving sexual works. Collective Shout claims that it only took about a thousand phone calls to get the companies to enforce a NSFW ban. We can also call them in large numbers, and demand that adult & queer content gets put back.

If a game that you paid good money for on Steam or Itch.io has been removed in the NSFW ban, you have grounds to demand a refund.Give your payment processor a call, make a complaint, and get them to issue you a charge back. This may help place pressure on both payment processing companies and game platforms to revise their policies.

It is also important during this time to study the recent history of LGBTQ & NSFW censorship on the internet, and learn from communities that have been able to resist it successfully. One of the very first groups to be targeted by efforts like these was actually the hypnosis kink community, back in the late ’90s and early 2000s. During that time, an avid porn site user reportedly disputed hundreds of dollars in charges, alleging that he had been hypnotized into giving his credit card information away against his will. To avoid future such cases, payment processors like Visa and Mastercard refused to honor any transactions for any content involving hypnosis or mind control, and this has remained their policy ever since.

In spite of harsh repression at the hands of credit card companies and digital platforms, the hypnokink community has continued to thrive, and even grown in popularity and public acceptance in recent years. As many of you know, I am a long-term member of this diverse & queer-affirming community — I spent all of last weekend at an in-person erotic hypnosis convention, which I blogged all about on Instagram — so I know a bit about how we have managed to cope with being attacked and have come out stronger and healthier than we were before.

I think that any of us who are concerned by the stripping of queer and sexual content from the internet can learn from how the hypnokink community has responded to similar censorship over the years, and adopt some of their strategies.

One of the first things that the hypno-kink community learned once it was under attack was not to self-snitch. When we got banned from mainstream porn sites, we found the seedy, poorly regulated platforms that were not as likely to enforce payment processors’ ban on hypnosis content. On sites like Pornhub and Patreon, we learned to use terms like mesmerized and other euphemisms instead of hypnosis or mind control, or to merely reference media properties where hypnosis is featured without saying it outright.

We became data hoarders, snapping up copies of every porn video, erotic audio file, animated gif, and illustration featuring hypnosis that we could find, and then sharing it on forums with our fellow fetishists. We learned to make and share our work in private — in chat rooms, on password-protected servers — and began hosting hypnotic content on shared drives and websites we didn’t widely advertise.

Rather than allowing outside groups to censor us, we took community responsibility for maintaining standards of consent and safety, and gave no quarter to predators. At conventions, we require attendees to complete consent quizzes, and provided dungeons with consent monitors. We offer classes on consent, safety, and developing agency as a hypnotic subject. Many of our events ban the use of substances and require COVID vaccinations and KN95 masks in order to reduce risk. We continually debate how best to navigate riskier kink practices and negotiate encounters with one another.

We have continued gathering in person, and in small virtual conferences, because there are conversations about our shared passion that require an in-depth conversation among people who are at a higher level of understanding. We discuss more complex, nuanced topics in rooms where people are prepared to have them, and we understand that every rule has the power to cause exclusion and damage — and appreciate that even the best guidelines need to be broken sometimes. (For example, plenty of people still benefit from using substances for their mental health, even at a “substance-free” con).

Because the kink we are playing with can be psychologically very risky, we emphasize the importance of being in community with one another and vetting play partners, and speak about our experiences so that we can better understand what we’re going through and what we need. We do what we can to unlearn our shame and stigma, and to bring our feelings and needs out into the open — but not in front of corporations and social media platforms that will only punish and censor us.

We come out to one another, and commune to build better art, more responsible and effective hypnotic files, to write hotter smut, to have better scenes, to be able to play at the edges of consent and consciousness with intention and responsibility. This does not erase all of the risk, but it allows us to be informed of it, and to accept what difficulties and costs we take on. Nearly everyone finishes a scene by asking who needs aftercare. We prepare for the emotional drops of having seen and experienced intense shit — and for the most part, we are grateful that we get to dive with such strong parachutes.

It is this combination of privacy, technological shrewdness, dedicated archival and resource-building work, and loving community responsibility that has made us robust. Though so many outside forces have attempted to silence us and portray us as a group of perverted predators, we’ve continued spreading the truth about who we are and helping people who share our desires to find one another, and revel in our passions as safely as we can.

We have escaped the fear mongering and corporate pressure, and made something completely our own. All queer people and all makers of sexual or erotic art can do the same. We will get through this, but we will have to be more than just passive consumers of content.

We will have to become archivists, librarians, developers, community stewards, consent monitors, peer educators, advocates, organizers, and creators in our own right. And we can do it. Queer people have been producing creative work about our identities and inner erotic lives for as long as we have existed, and we have always been able to find one another in the back rooms of bars, in small bookstores in cities, in veiled language in personal ads, and everywhere else that we have tricked our enemies into not looking.

I wrote all about the suppression of queer & erotic art on the internet, and how the hypnosis kink community provides a case study in how to properly resist it. You can read the full piece for free on Substack.

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Devon Price talking about Beguiled and kink events in general, around the 10 minute mark

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It's now time for "The Worst Hypnosis Jokes You'll Ever Hear" with HypnoMemers!

🔊Sound on

🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀

You want to laugh.

You have to laugh.

You will laugh very, very hard.

I am very funny.

Very, very, VERY funny.

🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀

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Beginners Can't Ask the Right Consent Questions

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.

[binaural-histolog]

Hello! Today in cognitive psychology hypnosis class, we'll be talking about schemata.

The first thing to know about schemata is that it's one of those words that doesn't English good. The plural of "schema" is "schemata", mostly because scientists are - generally speaking and for most of history - pretentious, classist, wankers. Lots of folks just say "schemas" instead, and that's fine. I kinda like how the swanky, pretentious one sounds because I, apparently, am a wanker. But let's talk about hypnosis.

"What's a schema?" The short answer is that it's a way of understanding something. There are lots of different kinds and like a lot of cognitive psychology it gets wibbly and fuzzy fast.

An example of a schema might be how you understand the roles in a social situation. Your schema for greetings might be walking up to somebody and shaking hands - that's how you expect to do it and you might be surprised if that pattern is violated.

Your brain is packed full of schemas, and you switch between them based on the situation you're in.

For example, you might also have a schema for less formal greetings that include things like waving or calling out verbally. Or for formal greetings in different cultures, where you might expect to bow or hug or... - I think you get the idea.

For all of those, though, your brain - usually without your input - is going to pick the "right" one for the situation, and it'll throw a little surprise if the schema you picked doesn't match the situation. "Oh no I went to shake hands but we're hugging and aaaaaaa." You know. Suprise.

Now. Why am I talking about this? Because you, dear reader, have schemata for hypnotising. And for being hypnotised.

Your brain, being clever, knows that when you're being hypnotised, it'll respond in certain ways. If you're prone to reading hypnotic text, it's probably perked up at being told what it does and is dutifully preparing you to nod along.

But this isn't that kind of writing.

Instead, I want to put the idea in your head that whatever schema you and your partner - hypnotist or hypnotee - are using when you're playing is going to have a big effect on what you do. That if you, as a hypnotist, have a schema for your hypnotic play that expects your partner to be relaxed and comfy, that you'll make it that way, and that if you, as a hypnotee, have a schema that expects you to become passive and mazy, you'll become that way.

And you can lean into that, and talk about hypnosis in ways that lead you where you want to go.

Or. Or you can take a good, hard look at the schemata you're prone to falling into, pick them up, and smash them into little bits and pieces. You can do it just to see what happens, or because there's nothing like having the way you understood everything turned upside down to make you feel like you're terribly hypnotised, awfully suggestible, or just at somebody's mercy. You know. If you're into that sort of thing.

[binaural-histolog]

So recently I've improved one of my favorite inductions that I hadn't had the chance to use in a while, this being one I refer to as the "Yes" induction.

Taking someone who wants to be controlled, and explaining the exact manner I'm going to be conditioning them, how repeatedly saying yes can help condition a person to continue saying yes to larger and larger requests while also suggesting a link between continued compliance and pleasure, leading them to naturally respond to any questions they're asked with "yes", and asking them numerous questions where they will want to respond, naturally, with a "yes". It's just a simple series of yes sets mixed in with an explanation of how their brain reacts to this, and while the trance it induces isn't all too strong, the compliance it results in is the main reason to use it. The trance is very much a small part of this induction, simply used to create or reinforce the connection between pleasure and compliance. That's all that's required while they're fully in trance. After that connection is reinforced, they can be taken out of the trance, and from that point is when it becomes infinitely more fun. Because at this point, they're so wonderfully compliant, so well conditioned that it's easy to continue their conditioning, to continue reinforcing the link between compliance and pleasure without even needing to put them into a proper trance. You just continue that conditioning, the yes sets, toying with them over and over while their conditioning is pushed deeper into their mind, and watch them continue to break, watch their free will continually fading away and be replaced with nothing but obedience. And once you feel they're ready, you give them a command. You tell them that you're going to snap your fingers, and tell them to obey, and once this happens, that compliance, that obedience, that pleasure will increase a hundredfold, that their compliance to you will be permanently written into their mind. And then you ask them one last question. "Would you like that?" And when they say yes, you count up, and snap your fingers, and tell them to obey. They are now, and will forever be, a compliant toy who feels so much pleasure from their obedience, their submission, that they could never even think of disobeying.

[binaural-histolog]

What Hypnosis is Really About

I have realized recently that there is a great misunderstanding taking place about hypnosis and how people use it for fun or for pleasure. People looking in from the outside have only ever seen hypnosis in things like movies or tv where good people are made to do bad things. That is not what hypnosis is or how it works. 

Hypnosis is not about taking power forcefully from someone. It is about being given power willingly from a subject and being able to use that power to make someone feel good and fulfill their own fantasies. Hypnosis is not about making someone do something they don’t want to. It allows people to do things they already want to but can’t or wont admit. Or sometimes even things they can and have asked for. It is an exchange of power, but not a one sided one. 

If a subject goes under that is because they fully trust their hypnotist enough to give up their control, leaving it in the hands of someone they believe will use it wisely. It is a gift. Return that gift by making your subject feel amazing, appreciated, blissful, ecstatic that they made the right choice by giving it to you.

I could go on but I feel as if I have ranted enough for one post.