discourse cw?

Hypnokink Education Alert

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

ellaenchanting:

@hypnokinkwithmrdream is posting their old hypnokink class notes under the Fetlife Hypnapocalypse tag. It’s a fascinating read- like having a mini-EEHU in my living room. Since there are a lot of older notes, it’s also an interesting peek into how and when hypnokink culture evolved into what it is now. 

Thanks for posting these @hypnokinkwithmrdream!

 

brin-bellway:

Personally, I find these posts chilling.

Being so much about the power of suggestion, hypnosis is, to a fair extent, what people believe it to be. What hypnosis is changes over time, as society’s view of it changes.

I happened to be born into a part of space-time where the view of hypnosis meshed with what I was naturally inclined to find hot. It hasn’t always been this way, and, I expect, it won’t always be this way.

Someday, you’re going to leave me behind. You’ll move on to new pastures, where I will not want to follow. When I read things like this (or this, or that vanilla article you linked a while back on waking suggestions that I can’t find), I fear that it is already happening.

I’ve read over two pages of the /chrono version of the tag you linked, and he hasn’t said a single thing that makes me think “yeah, that sounds appealing”. It’s all a mix of things that don’t sound like fun at all and things that sound like they maybe could be fun but in a purely platonic way.

His kink is okay, but it is not my kink. If I’d been raised in a culture where this was the consensus view of hypnosis, I don’t think I would be a hypno-fetishist.

Sooner or later, and perhaps sooner, the future of hypnosis will be defined by people who say things like:

“Honestly I think the ‘relax/sleep/deep’ is counterproductive to what I want. People treat it as an idiomatic crutch but the reality is that I don’t really want any part of the person to sleep. I want them to be so focused that they can barely integrate the experience they are having with anything before, after, or around them.”

I look at that, and all I can think is, “I hope I find my real people before these people realise I’m not theirs.”

(And if I don’t find them in time, at least I’ll have had something resembling a community, and which will have taught me some useful techniques that I’ll likely be able to preserve privately even after they fall out of fashion. The next generation of people like me may be completely alone.)

 

ellaenchanting:

@brin-bellway I’m not quite sure how to reply here- I think this post is partially a reply to me personally and partially a reply to the community and I don’t know if I can adequately address either. 

I have had some of the same feels- seeing people I know get really into the D/s side of the kink or a more sadistic side or just a different side than I was interested in and feeling like I was being left behind or like my more tame interests were silly. I’ve had longer discussions with friends about the hypothetical timeline where I found the hypnokink community when I was young and how it would have pushed me away from learning hypnosis and towards just being a subject (and how sad that divergent timeline makes me). 

I have  developed a stronger interest in the more BDSMy side of hypnokink myself  this past year- partially because I love learning new things and partially to keep up with the community at large. However, kinky or vanilla, I think the things that draw me to hypnosis are still present in either context- creativity, trust, intimacy, and even care. So the kinky stuff feels like an extension for me, not an entirely different thing. But just because I’m exploring more of the BDSM side, it doesn’t mean I’m losing my interest in other ways of doing hypnosis. I love being playful and silly. I love being experimental. I love being therapeutic (in a small way). I love being caring. 

And (like you I suspect), one of my favorite ways of doing hypnosis is still to have someone that I care about lead me down into a deep relaxed state and be really gentle and soothing with me. That feels entirely lovely and good and potentially romantic and all of those wonderful things. I know not everyone in the community loves this, but I also know I’m not alone. This is true even amongst the people who talk about playing in ways that are edgier or seem more sadistic. 

It’s OK. You still belong. I guarantee that if you came to an EEHU and just wanted to feel lovely and relaxed, there would be other people there who were just as interested in that as you are. 

No one is leaving you behind.

@tennfan2 @rightthewaydown anyone else who has comments

 

brin-bellway:

>>I think this post is partially a reply to me personally and partially a reply to the community<<

Mostly speaking generally, not so much you. (I know the examples I gave were all things you linked me, but that’s mostly because if someone frequently sets this feeling off I don’t follow them. You’re not frequent.)

>>I’ve had longer discussions with friends about the hypothetical timeline where I found the hypnokink community when I was young and how it would have pushed me away from learning hypnosis and towards just being a subject (and how sad that divergent timeline makes me).<<

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here, in context.

>>And (like you I suspect), one of my favorite ways of doing hypnosis is still to have someone that I care about lead me down into a deep relaxed state and be really gentle and soothing with me. That feels entirely lovely and good and potentially romantic and all of those wonderful things.<<

:)

>>I know not everyone in the community loves this, but I also know I’m not alone.<<

It’s…hard to believe, sometimes. It seems like it tends to be a secondary thing for others, even when it comes up at all.

>>I guarantee that if you came to an EEHU<<

(Oh god, imagine me at an EEHU. Like, even if you ignore the logistical issues*…as I was tag-rambling about recently, I still haven’t really grokked the idea that kink can be consensual. Given how badly I cope with audios, I fully expect my brain would “defend me against the threats” by wrapping me in a protective layer of panic.)

>>No one is leaving you behind.<<

Even when I’m feeling hopeful, I still expect it eventually. Ever since I read that book on animal magnetism and saw how unrecognisable hypnosis used to be, I figured it would end up unrecognisable again in the future. There might, however, be a lot more time to prepare, and a much gentler break.

>>tennfan2 rightthewaydown anyone else who has comments<<

I wonder if I should wait to respond to avoid cross-posting, but I suppose I could always write additional responses to other people later.

(I’m curious what made you think of @rightthewaydown. I don’t really know her, though the fact that she was one of the people that came to your mind makes me wonder if maybe I should. (I did hear her seance audio once, though see above re: coping badly.))

*I can’t afford travel, and I don’t have enough freedom of movement to skip off to America for the weekend (or even Toronto, for that matter) without people asking a lot of uncomfortable questions.

 

tennfan2:

I can’t speak for all of hypnosis-land, but if what I see at EEHUs is any indication, you’re not going to be left behind anytime soon.

Over the past two years (!) I have mostly observed that there are two paths folks take with hypnosis, in particular those who are not otherwise kinky. This is not exhaustive, your mileage may vary, etc etc:

One group of people who enter arrive for the hypnosis, and then realize using hypnosis for recreational or erotic purposes opens the door to a whole big world of kink. They may get drawn into sadism or submission or pet play or whatever. They may get less of a rise out of hypnosis for hypnosis sake, and more toward it being a tool for evocative experiences of other kinks.

The other group (which is to say, me) end up in erotic hypnosis world and while we are exposed to the great big world of kink, tend to feel more comfortable and much more at home playing with hypnosis. Maybe we play with suggestions that are broader than we once might have, but everything orbits around trance. I’ve dabbled in quite a few other kinky pursuits, but nothing gets me like a perfectly executed confusion induction.

This is all to say: there’s never going to stop being room for an interest in hypnosis that isn’t wrapped up in other kink. It’s never going to leave you behind. Hell, one could argue that Entranced (formerly MEEHU) is actually moving pretty intentionally in the direction of making even more space for that, given that they have dropped “erotic” from the event’s name and are marketing it as “recreational”

As to the larger questions about whether kink can ever be consensual, I wish you luck and discernment in figuring out how you feel. I only know from my own experience that it is, but my experience doesn’t count as more than that.

Finally, as to @hypnokinkwithmrdream, he’s someone who has a really particular perspective on how to do this kink – it’s fascinating stuff, and even though his style is very much not my style, I rarely talk with him about this stuff and don’t pick up something I can apply to how I do hypnosis.

Anyway, I hope you hang around and eventually find a way to get down to an event. It would be great to meet you, and I’m sure I’m not alone in the sentiment.

 

soundshypnotic:

So as @tennfan2 alluded to in his tags, he and @enscenic invited me to be part of their Hypnosis in Kinkland class which was set up specifically talking about this sort of thing. Namely the divide between recreational hypnosis, hypnosis as a tool for BDSM, and the overlap (roughly represented by tennfan, enscenic, and I respectively).

When I entered all of this I was not prepared for anything beyond the “You are getting sleepy” variety (but hopefully with a lot less wavery voice tomfoolery), and I stayed there comfortably for a couple years before I strayed into power exchange land. I do play in various kinds of more traditionally BDSM kinks as well but ultimately it’s because power exchange helps me enhance my hypnosis–my partners are okay with feeling powerless to the pull of my hypnotic spell, or so our setup goes, and so I feel more empowered to explore consensually the unconsentual version of the thing because my first exposure that took so strongly for hypnosis and mind control was that forced and forceful nature.

Nearly anything I’ve picked up I’ve only added in order to be a new lens through which I could explore my primary kink of hypnosis (and sometimes to follow the interests of play partners, but ultimately any long term play partners I end up with it’s because our default way of being naturally clicks). It’s through those various strong contrasts that I feel I get a fuller experience of the thing because I love it for all the bits and bobs that make it up technically speaking as much as I just love the face of someone so blankly blissed out I could leave them that way contently for hours until I reasserted their reality to a new all consuming focus. More pure BDSM pursuits without some hypnosis woven into them have never, to this day, hit my buttons but they have been of great interest to me intellectually partially because I’m a reaction junkie, partially because I love walking my partners through new intense experiences and protecting them every step of the way through it, and partially because seeing them divorced now and again from the hypnosis I always otherwise bring in helps me see by contrast what each adds to the other. But watching my partner drift away into a cloud of only my words and lose all touch with everything else will be what I select every time between the two of them, because that is so much more central to who I am and what I’m here for.

I’ve watched the hypno kink community over the past fifteen years as it’s grown up, and only just in approaching three years now (Jesus, has it been that long already? I feel like I just got here) did I finally put my face out there at one of these events to see what the community had become. I went wholly preparing to be alienated and out of place, which is why I went for one day only in the middle of the con, talked almost exclusively to those I’d come with and the one person I went to meet, and expected that to be the end of it unless something astonishing came up to change that.

While I enjoy the kink community, I’ve never felt I clicked or fit really. They were more my people than the regular folks around me, closer to the heart of who I am and the traits I admire in myself, but I was always going to be stuck in that weird niche of the hypno-Domme: either not kink enough because what’s the big deal with whispering someone still like is that it? or the response that what I did was twenty steps too far and more intense than a really heavy beatdown scene because at least they never touched that person’s mind.

I went and I found my place in it so quickly I’ve been reeling ever since, because I am a shy and anti-social little anxiety ball of a person. There are several different break ups of the community, but they all are so overlapped in their Venn that there’s really no beginning nor end between them. If you happen to overlap with none, that’s fine. Your niche will still bump up against others and you’ll still find people who will be encouraging and even curious about your different perspective. It’s been so much more welcoming than I ever dreamed.

For what one more person’s word is worth, I don’t think you’ve anything to fear of the culture evaporating around you into something unrecognizable. We’re a part of it, a central over lap even, even if we’re not the part held up as the most flash by some sources.

 

enscenic:

I’ll throw my own two cents worth of possible wisdom here as well.  As @soundshypnotic and @tennfan2 both say, there are really quite a lot of people around who love the actual process of hypnosis – hypnotizing and being hypnotized – for the sake of itself, and wander around in a sea of kinkier hypno-folk always feeling like they don’t quite fit into the community.

But we find each other! And it is definitely possible to have an entire weekend at an event hanging out with just those people and play around with the less bdsm oriented stuff and have a great time without feeling like you’ve missed anything. I have never had anyone make me feel like I was less welcome for not wanting to be fully immersed in a more loaded type of play than I might be comfortable with.

I hope that you will find a way to incorporate what works for you into the community at large; if you don’t, I wish you the best.

(This is going to be pretty disjointed, sorry. I might end up missing some bits, and I know I’ve repeated some bits in different words.)

@tennfan2: >>As to the larger questions about whether kink can ever be consensual, I wish you luck and discernment in figuring out how you feel. I only know from my own experience that it is, but my experience doesn’t count as more than that.<< 

Intellectually, I believe it. Viscerally, I tend towards paranoia at the best of times, and was raised on a pop culture consisting entirely of non-con.

—

It’s…I know I’ve accumulated a lot of issues around inclusion and belonging and such, particularly in sexual contexts. I was raised liberal: I got my sex ed from sources that were very proud of being “inclusive”, by which they meant they had several boxes to shove people into instead of just one. I’ve gotten used to the idea, over years of this happening repeatedly throughout a variety of fractal minority groups, that nobody’s ever going to include me, and people saying they will is a sign they don’t actually think I exist and have pattern-matched me into something that fits into their worldview.

(I mean, if anyone could actually include me, it’d probably be you guys. I’m not saying I don’t believe you, exactly, just that it’s never been true before.)

—

I’m not sure I *am* a hypnosis-for-hypnosis-sake person, exactly, though it’s certainly closer than BDSM. I might be more of a means-to-an-end person, but with a different end. IME, it seems like “hypnosis for hypnosis’ sake” tends to mean a lot of playing around with suggestion, and the thing that sets off this particular sub-type of loneliness *is* people emphasising suggestion over sensation. (Like the research article I linked to in the original reply, which acts like relaxation is useless because it doesn’t increase suggestibility. I read stuff like that and the theory-of-mind-lacking bit of my brain just goes “You’re–*headdesk*–missing–*headdesk*–the–*headdesk*–point–” (The more theory-of-mind-ish bits of me assume they must be hitting a different point.))

Suggestions that the for-hypnosis-sake people see as exploring trance often fall for me into the “stuff that sounds fun-but-platonic” camp (freezing, probably) or the “why would you even want that” camp (memory play; I deal with more than enough of that shit at bedtime).

(I think I’ve gotten narrower over time. I’m less desperate now, I suppose.)

—

@injygo​ replied: “Same feel on the ‘kink is inherently nonconsensual’ feeling. It’s really hard for me to imagine going to a hypnosis convention and being at all ok with seeing or hearing anything.“

@ellaenchanting​ replied: “Hmmm- injyo, not to be rude, but have you done hypnosis before? It’s not as nonconsensual as it looks from the outside, especially with empowered subjects (which is a big deal in hypnokink)/“

I don’t think I really have anything to say here, but I thought I’d post it to make sure people see it (in particular, to make sure injygo sees Ella’s reply).

—

*leaves to do homework*

*returns, checks if anything else has been added in the meantime*

…goddammit.

—

@hypno-sandwich: >>I wouldn’t judge the scene based on one person’s notes.<<

It’s *not* one person, just the latest example. If it were one person it wouldn’t bother me.

@hypnokinkwithmrdream: >>I am not sure why you think what you are doing is what I am doing.<<

It *isn’t* what I’m doing. Wasn’t that part of the point?

>>If I want to relax I nap.<<

I dislike unconsciousness, and I despise hypnagogic amnesia. Hypnosis offers a better solution.

>>Now people take it for granted that consent is necessary and good negotiation is necessary. But yeah, the times are changing. The days when it seemed acceptable for hypnotists to treat subjects as if they didn’t have the understanding to be equal participants in whatever they did, the conception that the subject has to be fooled into doing what they want to do rather than be treated like adults, is really fading.<<

…given the original context in this thread of the sentiment “the times are changing”, this looks like you conflating dozing fetishists and rapists. Why would you do that?

>>Don’t complain to me if what I built isn’t for you.<<

Please, point me to where in this thread I was complaining to you. This isn’t *about* you. You were one of multiple examples. You *happened* to be the example that inspired this particular post. Somebody thought that meant they ought to ping you and drag you into this, but that’s not my fault.

(I suppose I should have dug harder for that article on waking suggestions, where nobody who had any significant chance of coming across it could mistake a response for being aimed at them personally, and pretended that that was the final straw instead. It actually almost was: I nearly wrote something approximating my first post at the time.)

>>Maybe I don’t teach a lot of vanilla or non-kinky or orgasm related hypnosis but every con I got to that is what I see<<

You realise there’s more than two sides here, right? I’m willing to believe that you’re an embittered minority, but that doesn’t make my perspective the dominant one. We can *both* be embittered minorities. You don’t have to fight me for it.

–

I suppose it’s actually kind of flattering that you’re responding to me as if I’m a threat. (…at least, I hope you aren’t this prickly to people you *don’t* feel threatened by.) I’m no threat to you. I have neither the desire nor the ability to kick you out. I am simply accustomed to being collateral damage, the one that even people who take pride in acknowledging all sexualities don’t acknowledge, don’t even *leave* space for (let alone *make* space), and I get worried when I see things that might fit into that pattern.

(I know that people cannot reasonably be expected to account for my existence. I have had to accept that. That doesn’t mean that I can’t quietly grumble about it.)

–

I don’t merely wait for my community to find me, and it is not something that can be taught. What I do, is I speak. I speak of what makes me tick, and I go out and I listen to see if others are saying the same things. Speaking doesn’t just leave a trail that others might find: it implicitly enlists the help of those who are listening. There are people out there in the world now who would hear somebody saying something like me and say “Hey, I know somebody I think you should meet.”

—

(Goddammit, I’m probably not making any sense, and judging from Mr Dream’s response I’ve somehow managed to come off as entitled. *sigh*)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #discourse cw #long post #nsfw text

Hypnokink Education Alert

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

ellaenchanting:

brin-bellway:

ellaenchanting:

@hypnokinkwithmrdream is posting their old hypnokink class notes under the Fetlife Hypnapocalypse tag. It’s a fascinating read- like having a mini-EEHU in my living room. Since there are a lot of older notes, it’s also an interesting peek into how and when hypnokink culture evolved into what it is now. 

Thanks for posting these @hypnokinkwithmrdream!

Personally, I find these posts chilling.

Being so much about the power of suggestion, hypnosis is, to a fair extent, what people believe it to be. What hypnosis is changes over time, as society’s view of it changes.

I happened to be born into a part of space-time where the view of hypnosis meshed with what I was naturally inclined to find hot. It hasn’t always been this way, and, I expect, it won’t always be this way.

Someday, you’re going to leave me behind. You’ll move on to new pastures, where I will not want to follow. When I read things like this (or this, or that vanilla article you linked a while back on waking suggestions that I can’t find), I fear that it is already happening.

I’ve read over two pages of the /chrono version of the tag you linked, and he hasn’t said a single thing that makes me think “yeah, that sounds appealing”. It’s all a mix of things that don’t sound like fun at all and things that sound like they maybe could be fun but in a purely platonic way.

His kink is okay, but it is not my kink. If I’d been raised in a culture where this was the consensus view of hypnosis, I don’t think I would be a hypno-fetishist.

Sooner or later, and perhaps sooner, the future of hypnosis will be defined by people who say things like:

“Honestly I think the ‘relax/sleep/deep’ is counterproductive to what I want. People treat it as an idiomatic crutch but the reality is that I don’t really want any part of the person to sleep. I want them to be so focused that they can barely integrate the experience they are having with anything before, after, or around them.”

I look at that, and all I can think is, “I hope I find my real people before these people realise I’m not theirs.”

(And if I don’t find them in time, at least I’ll have had something resembling a community, and which will have taught me some useful techniques that I’ll likely be able to preserve privately even after they fall out of fashion. The next generation of people like me may be completely alone.)

@brin-bellway I’m not quite sure how to reply here- I think this post is partially a reply to me personally and partially a reply to the community and I don’t know if I can adequately address either. 

I have had some of the same feels- seeing people I know get really into the D/s side of the kink or a more sadistic side or just a different side than I was interested in and feeling like I was being left behind or like my more tame interests were silly. I’ve had longer discussions with friends about the hypothetical timeline where I found the hypnokink community when I was young and how it would have pushed me away from learning hypnosis and towards just being a subject (and how sad that divergent timeline makes me). 

I have  developed a stronger interest in the more BDSMy side of hypnokink myself  this past year- partially because I love learning new things and partially to keep up with the community at large. However, kinky or vanilla, I think the things that draw me to hypnosis are still present in either context- creativity, trust, intimacy, and even care. So the kinky stuff feels like an extension for me, not an entirely different thing. But just because I’m exploring more of the BDSM side, it doesn’t mean I’m losing my interest in other ways of doing hypnosis. I love being playful and silly. I love being experimental. I love being therapeutic (in a small way). I love being caring. 

And (like you I suspect), one of my favorite ways of doing hypnosis is still to have someone that I care about lead me down into a deep relaxed state and be really gentle and soothing with me. That feels entirely lovely and good and potentially romantic and all of those wonderful things. I know not everyone in the community loves this, but I also know I’m not alone. This is true even amongst the people who talk about playing in ways that are edgier or seem more sadistic. 

It’s OK. You still belong. I guarantee that if you came to an EEHU and just wanted to feel lovely and relaxed, there would be other people there who were just as interested in that as you are. 

No one is leaving you behind.

@tennfan2 @rightthewaydown anyone else who has comments

>>I think this post is partially a reply to me personally and partially a reply to the community<<

Mostly speaking generally, not so much you. (I know the examples I gave were all things you linked me, but that’s mostly because if someone frequently sets this feeling off I don’t follow them. You’re not frequent.)

>>I’ve had longer discussions with friends about the hypothetical timeline where I found the hypnokink community when I was young and how it would have pushed me away from learning hypnosis and towards just being a subject (and how sad that divergent timeline makes me).<<

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here, in context.

>>And (like you I suspect), one of my favorite ways of doing hypnosis is still to have someone that I care about lead me down into a deep relaxed state and be really gentle and soothing with me. That feels entirely lovely and good and potentially romantic and all of those wonderful things.<<

:)

>>I know not everyone in the community loves this, but I also know I’m not alone.<<

It’s…hard to believe, sometimes. It seems like it tends to be a secondary thing for others, even when it comes up at all.

>>I guarantee that if you came to an EEHU<<

(Oh god, imagine me at an EEHU. Like, even if you ignore the logistical issues*…as I was tag-rambling about recently, I still haven’t really grokked the idea that kink can be consensual. Given how badly I cope with audios, I fully expect my brain would “defend me against the threats” by wrapping me in a protective layer of panic.)

>>No one is leaving you behind.<<

Even when I’m feeling hopeful, I still expect it eventually. Ever since I read that book on animal magnetism and saw how unrecognisable hypnosis used to be, I figured it would end up unrecognisable again in the future. There might, however, be a lot more time to prepare, and a much gentler break.

>>tennfan2 rightthewaydown anyone else who has comments<<

I wonder if I should wait to respond to avoid cross-posting, but I suppose I could always write additional responses to other people later.

(I’m curious what made you think of @rightthewaydown. I don’t really know her, though the fact that she was one of the people that came to your mind makes me wonder if maybe I should. (I did hear her seance audio once, though see above re: coping badly.))

*I can’t afford travel, and I don’t have enough freedom of movement to skip off to America for the weekend (or even Toronto, for that matter) without people asking a lot of uncomfortable questions.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #nsfw?

{{next post in sequence}}

Hypnokink Education Alert

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

ellaenchanting:

@hypnokinkwithmrdream is posting their old hypnokink class notes under the Fetlife Hypnapocalypse tag. It’s a fascinating read- like having a mini-EEHU in my living room. Since there are a lot of older notes, it’s also an interesting peek into how and when hypnokink culture evolved into what it is now. 

Thanks for posting these @hypnokinkwithmrdream!

Personally, I find these posts chilling.

Being so much about the power of suggestion, hypnosis is, to a fair extent, what people believe it to be. What hypnosis is changes over time, as society’s view of it changes.

I happened to be born into a part of space-time where the view of hypnosis meshed with what I was naturally inclined to find hot. It hasn’t always been this way, and, I expect, it won’t always be this way.

Someday, you’re going to leave me behind. You’ll move on to new pastures, where I will not want to follow. When I read things like this (or this, or that vanilla article you linked a while back on waking suggestions that I can’t find), I fear that it is already happening.

I’ve read over two pages of the /chrono version of the tag you linked, and he hasn’t said a single thing that makes me think “yeah, that sounds appealing”. It’s all a mix of things that don’t sound like fun at all and things that sound like they maybe could be fun but in a purely platonic way.

His kink is okay, but it is not my kink. If I’d been raised in a culture where this was the consensus view of hypnosis, I don’t think I would be a hypno-fetishist.

Sooner or later, and perhaps sooner, the future of hypnosis will be defined by people who say things like:

“Honestly I think the ‘relax/sleep/deep’ is counterproductive to what I want. People treat it as an idiomatic crutch but the reality is that I don’t really want any part of the person to sleep. I want them to be so focused that they can barely integrate the experience they are having with anything before, after, or around them.”

I look at that, and all I can think is, “I hope I find my real people before these people realise I’m not theirs.”

(And if I don’t find them in time, at least I’ll have had something resembling a community, and which will have taught me some useful techniques that I’ll likely be able to preserve privately even after they fall out of fashion. The next generation of people like me may be completely alone.)

Tags:

#I spent yesterday afternoon dealing with communities that insisted on claiming me as a member against my will #and yesterday night dealing with communities that #I’m at least 60% convinced are getting ready (however slowly) to kick me out and leave me stateless in that regard #yesterday was a bad day for group affiliations I guess #reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me #adventures in ‘close but not quite’ #raw nerves #negativity #nsfw? #in which Brin is predictable #(maybe not quite *as* predictable as the other post I’ve used that tag on) #(but this involves a couple of recurring and related themes of my blog)

{{next post in sequence}}

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

funereal-disease:

Something I’ve been thinking about today: no amount of declaring a joke “not funny” for political reasons will make it actually cease to be funny. 

Humor is a really primal thing. You can have the best, most thoughtful politics in the world and still find your funny bone tickled by horribly offensive shit. That doesn’t make you problematic. It makes you a human being with human neurology, which means what trips your laugh wire is pretty damn arbitrary and often not within your control.

Have you ever tried telling someone who’s losing it at an inappropriate time to shut up and stop laughing? It doesn’t work. That’s the human brain for you. You don’t have to enlighten yourself out of basic physical responses. 

 

fierceawakening:

This is exactly why the whole SJ emphasis on “stop finding *ist jokes funny!” baffled me even when I was a feminist.

I get that SOMETIMES a person’s sense of humor can reveal that they are bigoted, but I’m baffled by the assumption we can tell that about most people by what they find funny.

 

funereal-disease:

Yeah. Personally, I don’t mind any joke as long as I’m sure it’s a joke. Offensive jokes with an undertone of “haha but actually” make me terribly uncomfortable, but jokes I’m positive are jokes are fine. Context really matters. 

 

wirehead-wannabe:

I never got the whole “people are never kidding when they joke about [thing],” either. Like, do people who make 9-11 jokes secretly support terrorism?

 

ilzolende:

People who make 9-11 jokes probably do think taking terrorism-increasing risks is more acceptable and terrorism is less of a major problem than people who don’t make said jokes.

…I find “stop being amused by that!” to be perfectly intuitive. It’s…basic conditioning, isn’t it? If a stimulus (a bigoted joke) is routinely followed by a punishment (exposure to Discourse), one soon ceases to feel positive emotions toward the stimulus. My visceral reaction to someone telling a bigoted joke is something like “you fool, you’ve doomed us all! shit, I’d better get out of here before the enforcers arrive”.

(This means that “don’t be around people who laugh at bigoted jokes if you can avoid it” also makes sense. If they haven’t even been trained out of laughing at forbidden jokes, what else haven’t they been trained out of? (And what training might they have received instead?) If you don’t know what culture someone is from, you’re going to have a much harder time predicting their actions, and it’s often best to avoid people when you don’t know what will set them off.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #our roads may be golden or broken or lost #this is not the first time Skye has made a post #that seems to rely on an underlying assumption #that people’s emotional ranges are much richer and more complex and more resilient than mine actually are #mostly I find reading funereal-disease reassuring but occasionally it makes me wonder if I’m incomplete #*sigh* #*shrug*

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~ Brin ~ 4 Comments

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brin-bellway:

redbeardace:

brin-bellway:

redbeardace:

So, I think I might actually start a secondary blog about some of the things that have been getting discussed this weekend.  I think it’s a topic worth being openly talked about, and I think it would be good to have a space specifically for that, so that people can stop worrying if what they’re talking about is appropriate and just say what they have to say.

(I also think it would be good to get the conversation off my main blog, because while I find it interesting, I’m sure it’s making a number of my followers uncomfortable.)

A couple of thoughts:

  • For aces, by aces, about aces.
  • Topics would definitely include masturbation/sex toys, including reviews/how-tos.
  • Additional topics can potentially include BDSM gear, partnered activities, talking about porn/erotic materials, and general sexual health/sex ed/anatomy, etc.  Basically anything ace people are curious about or want to discuss, but don’t feel comfortable doing it in regular ace circles.  Any other topics that should be explicitly called out?
  • Matter of fact and open, with a sense of “Yes, this is normal, yes, it’s okay to feel like that, it’s okay to do this” in most answers.  Non-judgmental and inclusive (at least inclusive of ace-ID’d people).
  • Clinical where it needs to be, fun where it needs to be.
  • Deliberately not wankfodder.  This isn’t Letters to Penthouse.
  • Open to questions from non-ace people about ace people, within limits.  This will attempt to be a safe space for aces (at least as much as it can be on this site), so anyone disrespectful, etc., will be shown the door.
  • Anon submissions/asks would be on.  18+
  • Toy pictures allowed (including anatomically accurate models), but images of toy usage/porn not allowed (including pornographic images on packaging).  Maybe use another toy as a demonstration stand in?
  • Maybe a discussion prompt once in a while?
  • I would probably need co-moderators.  Any volunteers?

A couple of concerns:

  • As I’ve learned from my “An Asexual’s Guide To …” series, any time someone talks about topics like this, you will get a lot of non-ace people wandering by and offering their, um, “thoughts”.
  • I’d like it to be findable by aces who are interested in it, but I don’t want to be intrusive to those who are not.  Are there good ways to do this?

So there it is.  Thoughts?

I’d probably read it. I might participate, depending on which topics and how far the inclusivity goes. (When it comes to conversations about sex, I always feel like I’m being Too Weird and making people uncomfortable, even in places with relatively high Weird levels. The only place I didn’t feel like I was being intrusive was Ace Fet, which vanished off the face of the Internet a couple years ago without a trace.)

I think some sort of “Safe, Legal, Respectful” principle might be a good guideline as to what’s allowed.  (Although, strictly speaking, “Legal” would probably be a bit flexible, as there are some places that outlaw the sale of “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs”, for instance.  Not to mention the countries that still have enforceable sodomy laws.  Things like that.)  And maybe a “Don’t yuck my yum” principle.  (The big problem is that you can’t control the audience response on Tumblr.  You can encourage and cultivate the first readers to be respectful, but after that, the “Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory” applies.  And I don’t know how to fix that.)

I think, in general, that this place would have to work against the idea that something is “weird” or “icky” or whatever.  I mean, for many people, masturbation itself is too icky to talk about.  Many people think sex toys are weird.  And that’s okay.  What’s not okay is turning that “This is not for me” into “No, you can’t have it either”.  If it’s not your thing, skip to the next post.  If none of the posts are your thing, unfollow or even block.

I think it would be good to have some of those “Too Weird” things talked about in a place that’s a safe environment, presented in a way that says “This is out there.  If you’re interested, great.  If not, maybe the next topic will be more your style.”  Sort of like a sexualized asexual 60 Minutes.  (If that makes any sense.)

@katakacat replied to this thread with:

“good idea, but what part about this is 18+??? if there’s going to be a large piece of sexual health and sex ed happening, i think it would be most effective if it’s safe for minors, the people who would be most in need of sex ed? i think? i’m not sure what you meant by 18+ but that sounds like the worst idea, the rest sounds pretty great”

Okay, so I was angry about this at first, but upon reflection I think it simply demonstrates a rift in people’s understanding of what this project is supposed to do.

See, sex ed is broad. It deals in generalities: it can, say, tell you that pornography is a thing that exists, but it won’t recommend specific pieces of erotica. (And indeed, any sex ed trying to be available to minors wouldn’t dare make such recommendations.)

I know many people who advocate for “inclusive” sex ed, but there is no such thing. Don’t get me wrong, some sex ed is less exclusive than others, but every sex education resource has to draw the line somewhere. They might discuss only the most common form of sexuality, or the top two, or the top several, but people with rare manifestations of sexuality will always be sacrificed on the altar of the greatest good for the greatest number.

I can’t contribute to a sex ed blog. When it comes to sex education, I am not and never will be a participant: I’m collateral damage. And maybe that’s worth it, but that is the price you’d be paying if you go the sex ed route.

I, on the other hand, interpreted this idea as being about a space for asexuals to discuss their sexualities. (I was going to say “the presences, rather than the absences”, but apparently some people conceive of their asexuality as a presence?) Such a space is not inherently exclusive of me. The risk is high, as I mentioned in my previous post on this reblog chain, but it could have a place for me.

@katakacat​, tagging you to make sure you get the whole post. I didn’t want to add this as an edit because then people who have already read the original might miss it.

I swear I’m going back to studying after this, but it occurred to me I didn’t make it all that clear why the non-18+ thing in particular bothered me.

IME, obscenity rules are enforced more strictly the weirder you are. Something can be considered fine when a vanilla person says it, but someone saying the analogous thing about a kink gets smacked down as inappropriate.

At my level of out-there, there is very little I would dare say in an environment trying to be safe for minors. Almost any statement, no matter how innocuous the normal-person analogue would be, risks censure and penalties.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #asexuality #oh look an update #I hope I haven’t crossposted

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~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

redbeardace:

brin-bellway:

redbeardace:

So, I think I might actually start a secondary blog about some of the things that have been getting discussed this weekend.  I think it’s a topic worth being openly talked about, and I think it would be good to have a space specifically for that, so that people can stop worrying if what they’re talking about is appropriate and just say what they have to say.

(I also think it would be good to get the conversation off my main blog, because while I find it interesting, I’m sure it’s making a number of my followers uncomfortable.)

A couple of thoughts:

  • For aces, by aces, about aces.
  • Topics would definitely include masturbation/sex toys, including reviews/how-tos.
  • Additional topics can potentially include BDSM gear, partnered activities, talking about porn/erotic materials, and general sexual health/sex ed/anatomy, etc.  Basically anything ace people are curious about or want to discuss, but don’t feel comfortable doing it in regular ace circles.  Any other topics that should be explicitly called out?
  • Matter of fact and open, with a sense of “Yes, this is normal, yes, it’s okay to feel like that, it’s okay to do this” in most answers.  Non-judgmental and inclusive (at least inclusive of ace-ID’d people).
  • Clinical where it needs to be, fun where it needs to be.
  • Deliberately not wankfodder.  This isn’t Letters to Penthouse.
  • Open to questions from non-ace people about ace people, within limits.  This will attempt to be a safe space for aces (at least as much as it can be on this site), so anyone disrespectful, etc., will be shown the door.
  • Anon submissions/asks would be on.  18+
  • Toy pictures allowed (including anatomically accurate models), but images of toy usage/porn not allowed (including pornographic images on packaging).  Maybe use another toy as a demonstration stand in?
  • Maybe a discussion prompt once in a while?
  • I would probably need co-moderators.  Any volunteers?

A couple of concerns:

  • As I’ve learned from my “An Asexual’s Guide To …” series, any time someone talks about topics like this, you will get a lot of non-ace people wandering by and offering their, um, “thoughts”.
  • I’d like it to be findable by aces who are interested in it, but I don’t want to be intrusive to those who are not.  Are there good ways to do this?

So there it is.  Thoughts?

I’d probably read it. I might participate, depending on which topics and how far the inclusivity goes. (When it comes to conversations about sex, I always feel like I’m being Too Weird and making people uncomfortable, even in places with relatively high Weird levels. The only place I didn’t feel like I was being intrusive was Ace Fet, which vanished off the face of the Internet a couple years ago without a trace.)

I think some sort of “Safe, Legal, Respectful” principle might be a good guideline as to what’s allowed.  (Although, strictly speaking, “Legal” would probably be a bit flexible, as there are some places that outlaw the sale of “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs”, for instance.  Not to mention the countries that still have enforceable sodomy laws.  Things like that.)  And maybe a “Don’t yuck my yum” principle.  (The big problem is that you can’t control the audience response on Tumblr.  You can encourage and cultivate the first readers to be respectful, but after that, the “Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory” applies.  And I don’t know how to fix that.)

I think, in general, that this place would have to work against the idea that something is “weird” or “icky” or whatever.  I mean, for many people, masturbation itself is too icky to talk about.  Many people think sex toys are weird.  And that’s okay.  What’s not okay is turning that “This is not for me” into “No, you can’t have it either”.  If it’s not your thing, skip to the next post.  If none of the posts are your thing, unfollow or even block.

I think it would be good to have some of those “Too Weird” things talked about in a place that’s a safe environment, presented in a way that says “This is out there.  If you’re interested, great.  If not, maybe the next topic will be more your style.”  Sort of like a sexualized asexual 60 Minutes.  (If that makes any sense.)

@katakacat replied to this thread with:

“good idea, but what part about this is 18+??? if there’s going to be a large piece of sexual health and sex ed happening, i think it would be most effective if it’s safe for minors, the people who would be most in need of sex ed? i think? i’m not sure what you meant by 18+ but that sounds like the worst idea, the rest sounds pretty great”

Okay, so I was angry about this at first, but upon reflection I think it simply demonstrates a rift in people’s understanding of what this project is supposed to do.

See, sex ed is broad. It deals in generalities: it can, say, tell you that pornography is a thing that exists, but it won’t recommend specific pieces of erotica. (And indeed, any sex ed trying to be available to minors wouldn’t dare make such recommendations.)

I know many people who advocate for “inclusive” sex ed, but there is no such thing. Don’t get me wrong, some sex ed is less exclusive than others, but every sex education resource has to draw the line somewhere. They might discuss only the most common form of sexuality, or the top two, or the top several, but people with rare manifestations of sexuality will always be sacrificed on the altar of the greatest good for the greatest number.

I can’t contribute to a sex ed blog. When it comes to sex education, I am not and never will be a participant: I’m collateral damage. And maybe that’s worth it, but that is the price you’d be paying if you go the sex ed route.

I, on the other hand, interpreted this idea as being about a space for asexuals to discuss their sexualities. (I was going to say “the presences, rather than the absences”, but apparently some people conceive of their asexuality as a presence?) Such a space is not inherently exclusive of me. The risk is high, as I mentioned in my previous post on this reblog chain, but it could have a place for me.

[addendum here]

Tags:

#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #asexuality

{{next post in sequence}}

Anonymous asked: on the ableism thing: kink can also be appealing to neurodiverse people and trauma survivors. For example ND people could find relationships in which they are taken care of and controlled to be reassuring if they are bad with self control and responsibility, for autistic people it can be a sensation thing, for people bad with intuitive social cues there’s the fact that there are strictly defined safewords and “codes” of ethics, etc. But radfems would say this proves it’s bad…

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

lizardywizard:

fierceawakening:

on the ableism thing: kink can also be appealing to neurodiverse people and trauma survivors. For example ND people could find relationships in which they are taken care of and controlled to be reassuring if they are bad with self control and responsibility, for autistic people it can be a sensation thing, for people bad with intuitive social cues there’s the fact that there are strictly defined safewords and “codes” of ethics, etc. But radfems would say this proves it’s bad…

1000000% agree

Kink is often for people who can’t do relationships and sex in the supposed standard way. Radfems also want something nonstandard, but THIS IS THE PROPER NONSTANDARD THING, I TELL YOU

and I just sit here and facepalm sadly

“Kink is often for people who can’t do relationships and sex in the supposed standard way” yes yes yes yes

#also has anyone noticed that the line between what’s a kink and what’s a sexuality is very very blurry #and that sexualities are usually classed as kinks before they become Accepted Sexualities #but seriously #what is the political difference between ‘i’m only emotionally and sexually fulfilled in a relationship with another woman’ #and ‘i’m only emotionally and sexually fulfilled in a relationship with someone who will perform this role with me’ #it seems like it’s a sexuality if it involves a gender or sex of person and anything else is a kink #but that seems pretty arbitrary? #like i know that same gender love is what’s most visible and thus what gets the most hate but #whether something is a sexuality or a kink shouldn’t be defined by whether people are oppressed over it? #and people really do act like you can’t change your sexuality but you can change or give up your kinks #that your kinks are a secondary part of your sexuality #even though they may be obligate #even though they may change the entire way you relate to someone (lizardywizard)

Yes, this.

I’ve occasionally encountered people who want to reserve the word “kink” for things that are secondary parts of a person’s sexuality, and use “fetish” or sometimes “paraphilia” for the core stuff. (I’ve also met a few people–there might have been some overlap, I’m not sure–who view androsexuality and gynesexuality as being clusters of fetishes* that appear very commonly and often together, rather than putting them on a higher plane of “sexual orientation”.)

Neither group really seems to have taken off, though.

*For example, the gynesexuality cluster includes vulva fetishes, fetishes for various physical traits that estrogen causes, whatever hard-to-define thing the people with identity-based attractions to women are using, and so on.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

lizardywizard:

fierceawakening:

osberend:

fierceawakening:

osberend:

bakrua:

bewbin:

Why do people drink alcohol it tastes disgusting

you don’t drink it for the taste. u drink shit like apple juice for the taste. you drink alcohol to get rid of the bad taste that every awful person in your life has left

Maybe you don’t drink alcohol for the taste, but plenty of us do. I do like getting a good buzz, but frankly, the amount of alcohol I want to drink because (many) alcoholic beverages are fucking delicious vastly exceeds the amount of alcohol that would take me over the line from enjoyably to unpleasantly altered. Hell, depending on my mood, it often exceeds the amount that would take over the line from alive to dead. (Needless to say, I therefore do not drink as much as I want to.)

A lot of people who are just starting to drink drink the cheapest shit that’s available, and often that’s not very good. If they like the effects but dislike they taste, then they often keep drinking the cheapest shit that’s available, because “it all tastes like shit anyway.” It’s a vicious cycle. If your experience of alcohol is limited to Natty Ice and/or whatever vodka happens to be cheapest at the local liquor store, you’re not going to have a very good basis for understanding “what alcohol tastes like.”

if all alcohol tastes bad, does that mean people who like wine are doing absolutely nothing but posturing?

Remarkably, there are multiple people (who are active on the forum of a single comic) who actually believe this (and multiple others who believe different things that are equally nuts)! See this completely asinine xkcd comic, and an alarming fraction of the official forum discussion of it.

There’s enough of this going around that when I type “xkcd beer” (without the quotation marks) into Google, the third suggestion is “xkcd beer stockholm syndrome.”

The hell?

(And I say this as someone who hates 97% of all beer I have ever tasted, even.)

I find beer to be delicious and refreshing. Not all beer – I used to think I hated beer until a few years back when I was getting a tattoo and was having drinks with the artist afterwards (she’s a cool person, owns many reptiles). She gave me a Tecate and maybe it was because I was wired and dehydrated from several hours of being inked, but it was the best thing I could have had in that moment.

So I don’t like a lot of beer. I’ve tried fancy microbrews and supermarket brands alike, and a lot of them are shitty. But I will knock back a Tecate any day.

I don’t assume that people who like alcohol have Stockholm Syndrome; I simply assume their perception of alcohol is different. I’ve shared drinks that the people I was sharing with liked, that the people I was sharing with could distinguish flavours in, but all I could “taste” was the sensation of pins and needles.

I also perceive carbonation as causing pins and needles (before you ask, non-carbonated alcohol is still stabby). Similarly, I assume that people who claim to like soda perceive it as tasting more pleasant, and are not merely choking it down for the caffeine high. My avoidance of soda and alcohol alike is not a reflection on others.

(I note that–very often in speech, but occasionally in text–I have trouble expressing my theory of mind even when I actually do possess it. Acknowledgements that other people are unlike me tend to get lost on the way to my mouth. If someone sounds like they are claiming alcohol tastes bad to everyone, you might want to double-check that they actually meant it that way. I can guarantee you there’s at least one person in the world–*gestures at self*–who is likely to say that and not mean it, and where there’s one there might be more.)

Tags:

#alcohol #reply via reblog #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

Wait, so let me get this straight.

Consenting in advance to someone having sex with you while you’re unconscious is invalid, because it’s not truly consent if you’re not able to revoke it and back out partway through.

Consenting in advance to someone performing surgery on you while you’re unconscious and can’t back out, on the other hand, is totally fine.

Tags:

#today in internally inconsistent anti-kink arguments #(well not technically today) #(I don’t actually have a specific example in mind here) #(just the general type) #(every so often I poke around somnophilia communities) #(in hopes of coming across a kindred spirit who fell in with a different crowd) #(haven’t found any yet but I have found an awful lot of arguments about whether consensual intercourse with sleeping people is possible) #nsfw? #sexuality and lack thereof #vagueblogging #(maybe) #oh look an original post #I feel like this probably deserves some additional warning tag but I’m not sure what

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

sinesalvatorem:

brin-bellway:

sinesalvatorem:

I am amused to see a bunch of posts saying “tag 12 followers…” in my social sphere, because

Like,

The 12 is a lie. The OP that I got the meme from said “20”. It just so happens that, when I wrote my entry, I only thought of 12 people to tag off the top of my head.

Then I thought “Should I look at my follower list? Why? Because a meme told me to? HA! I am an independent black woman and I don’t need no meme tellin me what to do.” And I snapped my fingers three times to level up my inner goddess.

And now there are a bunch of people using something that I pulled out of my arse as if it had been declared by G-d Himself. I’m no long sure whether my name is ‘Alexander Hamilton’ or ‘Moses’.

…are you okay? The level of superiority oozing off this post is really out of character for you.

I’m not sure whether the problem is with the sender or the receiver, but clearly at least one of us is fucked up right now.

Oh nooooo. I’m not sure whether this means I should have just avoided the joke to begin with, or been more ridiculously over-the-top to make sure it would be interpreted as a joke. It’s very distressing to learn that I landed in the uncanny valley of unironic superiority. Should I just delete this?

“I’m not sure whether this means I should have just avoided the joke to begin with, or been more ridiculously over-the-top to make sure it would be interpreted as a joke.”

Hmm. Assessing it from that viewpoint, I think the main problem is that you didn’t use your “not serious” tag. I mean, if we start from the assumption that it’s not going to have that tag, you could maybe have compensated by adding more over-the-top-ness, but as I understand it “making sure it’s 100% clear a jokingly mean post was not genuinely mean, in case it turns out to be insufficiently over-the-top on its own” is that tag’s main purpose (or one of its main purposes, anyway).

“Should I just delete this?”

I’m not sure how much that would accomplish? I think if I were you, I would edit the post’s tags to add the “not serious” tag and a commentary tag explaining that the “not serious” tag was originally missing. That would probably minimise both distress and confusion among people catching up later.

(I just remembered that in the tags of your reply, you referred to confusion as one of the reactions people might have to the OP. When I say “and confusion”, I’m referring to the possibility of latecomers finding taken-seriously reblogs of an OP that either A: doesn’t exist, or B: said explicitly in its tags that it was joking, depending on which of those you did.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog