people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

somnilogical:

brin-bellway:

@somnilogical liked your post:tfw you want to write about why you put your…

Right, that reminds me of what I was going to say when you liked the previous post. (That like was on the OP rather than my reblog, but I saw it anyway because I was looking at the notes.)

Every time you, a person named Somni, like one of my kink posts, I start wondering about nominative determinism. (Although with a chosen name, even if there is causality it might go the other direction.)

*looks up nominative determinism on Wikipedia*

… the entire article is delightful.

The term has its origin in the “Feedback” column of the British popular science magazine New Scientist in 1994. A series of events raised the suspicion of its editor, John Hoyland, who wrote in the November 5 issue:

“We recently came across a new book, Pole Positions—The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet, by Daniel Snowman.[39] Then, a couple of weeks later, we received a copy of London Under London—A Subterranean Guide, one of the authors of which is Richard Trench.[40] So it was interesting to see Jen Hunt of the University of Manchester stating in the October issue of The Psychologist: “Authors gravitate to the area of research which fits their surname.”[41] Hunt’s example is an article on incontinence in the British Journal of Urology by A. J. Splatt and D. Weedon.[42]

We feel it’s time to open up this whole issue to rigorous scrutiny. You are invited to send in examples of the phenomenon in the fields of science and technology (with references that check out, please) together with any hypotheses you may have on how it comes about.“[43]

Feedback editors John Hoyland and Mike Holderness subsequently adopted the term nominative determinism as suggested by reader C. R. Cavonius. The term first appeared in the December 17 issue.[44] Even though the magazine tried to ban the topic numerous times over the decades since,[45] readers kept sending in curious examples. These included the US navy spokesman put up to answer journalists’ questions about the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, one Lieutenant Mike Kafka;[46] authors of the book The Imperial Animal Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox;[47] and the UK Association of Chief Police Officers’ spokesman on knife crime, Alfred Hitchcock.[48]

Sue Yoo, a lawyer, said that when she was younger people urged her to become a lawyer because of her name, which she thinks may have helped her decision.

Weather reporter Storm Field was not sure about the influence of his name; his father, also a weather reporter, was his driving force.

Psychology professor Lewis Lipsitt, a lifelong collector of aptronyms,[83] was lecturing about nominative determinism in class when a student pointed out that Lipsitt himself was subject to the effect since he studied babies’ sucking behaviour. Lipsitt said “that had never occurred to me.”

In 2015 researchers Limb, Limb, Limb and Limb published a paper on their study into the effect of surnames on medical specialisation.

New Scientist coined the term nominative contradeterminism for people who move away from their name, creating a contradiction between name and occupation. Examples include Andrew Waterhouse, a professor of wine,[63] would-be doctor Thomas Edward Kill, who subsequently changed his name to Jirgensohn,[64] and the Archbishop of Manila,Cardinal Sin.[65][E]

I googled “Somni kink” and got my own posts as the first results. [ And several other people with the username “somni” on other sites after that. I’m … not actually in the Supernatural fandom(yet?). In case anyone was wondering. ] So I suspect this is not the name of a specific kink but a general allusion to hypnosis.

In this case, it might be of note that my girlfriend ( Sofi ) (( @sigmaleph )) is rather fond of hypnosis things. And I am interested in her as well.

I’m kind of shy about these things, so I don’t like listing things that I like directly. If you or anyone else is interested, I created an editable document of my kinks and people (including those I’ve done things with) have been filling it in.

It is located here.

#I asked her consent before posting this

#the actual motivation behind my name is more cluster-y
#and has to do with a specific notion of dream logic as it manifests as a technique to reliably solve problems  #or at least get somewhere interesting

#This post feels weird #but everything is accurate  #so off it goes
#I hope I’m being kind  #I can’t see a specific rule of kindness that I broke  #but I worry that I broke a rule undiscovered by me or a rule that I’m not thinking about right now  #But I often worry about this #The heuristic for this is if people are not complaining they are being hurt afterwards  #and other people doing the thing you are worried about with modding out by the confounders are not hurting people  #then it is probably okay as far as you know   #and if you cannot think of a way in which what you are saying is unkind  #after thinking a lot  #there is nothing more to do  the vault of heaven will not crack open and deliver a infinitely trustworthy certificate of ultimate kindness  #to vet your planned actions  #Thinking about it  #looking at what other people have done  #reading  #and consulting others  #is enough  #it might not get the answer right  #but for these small social interactions  #it is enough

—

Re: nominative determinism, those are some delightful quotes.

—

There is a fetish called “somnophilia”, which is a term that sounds like it ought to apply to me but actually refers to having intercourse with unconscious people (occasionally to other people having intercourse with you while you’re unconscious, but mostly you hear from tops). Sometimes I look through somnophilia stuff in case somebody like me wandered in because they got confused by the name, or is deliberately trying to expand the definition. (I could see an alternate, more genitally-inclined version of me being into semi-conscious intercourse, which is why I got excited when I saw somebody in the Tumblr somnophilia tag talking about how they were into that…and then they turned out to be fictional.)

I went back and checked, and it looks like you haven’t actually pressed the “like” button on any of my posts regarding my adventures in the Tumblr somnophilia tag, although the also-very-aptly-named @spiralingintocontrol did once. (And you did like the pun about fucking the natural order.)

—

I don’t see anything unkind, given that you did ask Sofi’s permission.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #so apparently it’s one of those days when I spend a lot of time writing blog posts and don’t get as much video gaming in as I’d wanted #*shrug* #(expect a Flight Rising post in the near future though) #(hopefully before bedtime)

~ Brin ~ 4 Comments

(Mentally composed this post last night, but didn’t post it because my computer was already turned off, and turning it back on would admit defeat.)

Procrastinating on falling asleep again because I’m afraid of hypnagogic amnesia. Brain is currently trying to come up with convoluted puns regarding “fuck the natural order”.

Tags:

#I would like to *cease* fucking the natural order #there is *way* too much nonconsensual memory play involved #sexuality and lack thereof #people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me #oh look an original post #amnesia cw #not sure if this should have any other warnings

brin-bellway asked: Huh, you found out hypnosis was real *before* finding out it was a fetish? I did it the other way ’round. I wonder what differences that causes. (Like how, while *intellectually* I believe there are people whose kinks actually can’t be satisfied in real life, my experiences have left me with a visceral skepticism towards the idea. My first thought when someone says their fetish can’t be acted upon is always “When *I* said that, I was wrong: maybe you’re wrong too.”)

~ Brin ~ 3 Comments

tennfan2:

My answer to this is a qualified “kind of.”

When I was a kid, hypnosis was totally compelling to me – any time I saw it, heard about it, anything, I could not at all pull myself away from it.

I was also obsessed with the Atlanta Braves, but the mere mention of Paul Assenmacher did not leave me hanging on every word, you know? (Dale Murphy is another question.)

So on some level, I knew my interest in hypnosis was something other than a hobby. It was literally always in the back of my mind. It still is, actually.

I was a young, young child when this started. I had no idea that I was a fetishist. At the same time, though, it always did feel “dirty” to me for reasons that I get now, but had no way of knowing at the time.

Anyway: hobby before I *knew* it was a fetish, but not by much.

Here’s a question for the crowd: is your hypnosis fetish something you were born with?

 

gigglisgallery:

Hypnosis in movies and stories was always compelling to me. But I “knew” that was just fantasy.

I saw hypnosis as a real thing, but something used for therapy, and stage magic, and stuff like that, and that was intriguing, but not in any kind of fetish sense.

When I found the mcstories site, I saw it had lots of hypnosis stories, but I after trying a few, I found them boring and tended to skip them. Stories involving fantasy elements and scifi gizmos were more interesting, and hot, because they were more believable (giggle).

(Though to be fair, hypnosis stories often have things like, “And now your boobs grow three cup sizes” and they do, instantly, due to the power of hypnosis. Things like that just destroyed my ability to take the stories seriously. )

Then – much later – I stumbled across hypnofetish sites, and had that lightbulb moment: “Whaaaaat? Hypnosis really can be used in this way? OMG give me it NOW!”

And the hypnosis subgenre of mind control simultaneously got a lot hotter for me (but there’s still so much terrible stuff in there, sigh).

 

scifiscribbler:

Yeah, I think there’s a much broader gulf between the MC fetish and the direct hypno, and that expanding from MC to hypno (as GG and I both have) leads to a very different approach to hypnotic suggestion.

 

tennfan2:

I’m the polar opposite. Hypnosis as a subgenre of mind control? Obviously the other way around! (Kidding, kidding)

Mind control was pretty much never that appealing to me except when it looked and behaved like “classical” hypnosis.

That said, I also have rarely if ever gotten off on anything that feels “fictional.” Even when I got off on hypnosis in fiction, it was hypnosis that felt in some way accurate.

 

scifiscribbler:

See, this is the thing. I don’t think MC and Hypno are kink and subkink.

I think fantasy MC and real hypno are whole kink categories in and of themselves, with sufficient thematic overlap that a lot of people miss this.

And I think there’s a specific point where that needs watching, and it’s where inexperienced hypnotists and naive subjects cross from MC to real hypno without really grokking issues like consent, post-scene sub- and dom- drop, and the potential repercussions of deep conditioning work, because the MC fantasy stuff doesn’t have the ties to established kinks that teach this.

Mostly, though, I think that realising they’re disparate kinks can go a long way to helping people sort out what appeals and what doesn’t and feeling more able to specify the stuff they like.

Elsewhere on here the discussion that @ellaenchanting has been part of with retro/pop culture hypno is right there on stuff that walks the line.

I like both. But my life in kink got a lot easier when I realised there was this bg divide along the lines of which people liked or didn’t like aspects.

(yes, there are also subkinks for both that not everyone digs, but not usually in so polarising or definitive a fashion.)

Okay, going to try to respond to multiple things here.

tennfan2: I was a young, young child when this started. I had no idea that I was a fetishist. At the same time, though, it always did feel “dirty” to me for reasons that I get now, but had no way of knowing at the time.

Same, and if I implied otherwise, I didn’t mean to.

It feels weird to come up with a completely new phrasing for this when I can just quote my past self, so I suppose I’ll do that. Take it away, me of one year ago. (Note: the question I was answering was “If you had kinks, sexual fantasies, or sexual interests before puberty, how did you interpret them?“)

I thought it was just a fascinating topic, like the things I later learned to call perseverations* but much more stable. Sure, I had a sense of privacy about it, but I also (though to a lesser extent) tended to keep perseverations private. And sure, perseverations didn’t cause that twinging feeling in my chest and abdomen, but I figured that was probably some minor quirk that I would never have an explanation for. (I now think the twinging is my brain misinterpreting the “heat” of sexual arousal.)

For the record, the thing that made me re-evaluate this was not puberty, but rather learning from TV Tropes (at about age sixteen) that hypno-fetishism was a thing. (And dear *god* did my life make so much more sense after that. I wish somebody had thought to tell me sooner.) I didn’t really “bloom”: I mean, obviously my libido didn’t vary with menstrual phase back when I didn’t *have* a menstrual cycle, and for some reason I didn’t start having erotic dreams until I was fifteen, but in essence my sexuality is pretty much unchanged since the time of my earliest memories.

*Note from the present day: these days (and even at the time, really), “special interest” seems to be a more common term for this autistic trait than “perseveration”, and you might be more familiar with it.

scifiscribbler: Mostly, though, I think that realising they’re disparate kinks can go a long way to helping people sort out what appeals and what doesn’t and feeling more able to specify the stuff they like.

The definition of “mind-control fetishist” in my internal dictionary is something like “person who genuinely prefers the stuff I subsisted off of as a child because I didn’t even have the concept of anything better”. Like, I do know there are honest-to-god MC fetishists out there, and I want to emphasise again the unendorsedness of this reaction, but when I encounter MC fetishists talking shop I am frequently struck with the urge to tell them “You don’t have to settle for this! There’s other stuff out there, and a lot of it is so much better!” *I* was settling, and I find it hard to tolerate erotic horror these days knowing there’s fluffier stuff I could be reading instead.

tennfan2: Here’s a question for the crowd: is your hypnosis fetish something you were born with?

Depends on your definition. It doesn’t really make sense to me to claim anyone was born with a hypnosis fetish per se, because you’re not born knowing what hypnosis is.

You are, on the other hand, born knowing what sleep is. While a version of me raised in the late 1700′s would probably not have had a hypno-fetish (the conception of hypnosis at the time was not restful at all), I think any version of me would enjoy dozing…I was going to say “a little too much”, but that makes it sound like it’s wrong. Enjoy dozing to an extent that normal people would not. The ways in which this desire manifests depend on what’s available in the surrounding culture, but the core remains the same.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #nsfw #sexuality and lack thereof #people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me #I feel like this post is not as coherent as I would like it to be #if you need something clarified let me know

{{next post in sequence, branch 1}}

{{next post in sequence, branch 2}}

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

staxilicious:

artkat:

despairnaegami:

personasanta:

does anybody else think tired and sleepy mean two totally different things

sleepy is cute and dozing off and happy but tired is 10 cups of coffee and murder

Sleepy vs Tired

reblogging because the last graphic comment is FLAWLESS

@sinesalvatorem pinged me on this, but Tumblr refused to display the parts of the thread above hers (not only on the dash, but on her blog and on the reblogging screen as well).

I debated for a bit whether to reblog directly from her or go back one link in the reblog chain and use that. On the one hand, I think the humour was enhanced by not knowing what the post was right away (so that I wondered “what did she ping me on?” and going back a link and seeing the original thread acted as a punchline). On the other hand, a deactivation here and a name-change there and people who come across this later on might not be able to find that punchline. In the end, preservation concerns won out.

Anyway, thank you, Alison! I’m glad you thought of me.

(Also, they do seem to be grasping at the same distinction we were, don’t they.)

Tags:

#real life continuity nods #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #language #reply via reblog #(and I’ll add this one in since it’s why the topic came up in the first place:) #sexuality and lack thereof

100th Follower Request Post (part 2) or The Million Dollar Question

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

ellaenchanting:

brin-bellway:

ellaenchanting:

First part posted here. I’m kind of proud of it myself. :)

Request:the best posts are always about girls called nicole
getting turned into bimbos called nikki :P if thats not the sort of
thing you mean, a post about why hypnosis turns you on and why you think
it turns others on also great :)- from @bimbonicolette

What about hypnosis turns me on?

Short answer: I’m not entirely sure!

Shorter answer: Everything!

Respectably long answer:

Truthfully, I’m still trying to figure out all of the ins and outs of my hypnofetish. It’s been buzzing around in the back of my brain for years, but I’ve only entirely consciously acknowledged and come to terms with hypnosis as a fetish for the last few months. (Origin story here.) Seriously- if you had asked me about hypnofetishism in May, I would have blushed and quickly changed the topic. This is after years of reading mcstories, obsessively watching fetishy TV show clips over and over, and hypnotizing people/being hypnotized by people. This is also despite the fact that I’ve always fantasized way more about hypnosis than about actual sex*. So, I may not be the most insightful person (on this or in general). Ask me next week and my answers may change.

Reasons I Like Hypnosis (in a sexy way):

1. Fear: Oddly.

     So, one of my formative experiences with hypnotism was seeing a stage hypnotist on Nickelodeon as a kid and FREAKING OUT about it. I took the show way too literally. That hypnotist was so obviously dangerous! Why was someone so powerful allowed to run around in public playing with people’s minds? I didn’t understand why everyone else was so calm about this being on TV. In fact, there’s a little part of me that still wonders why people who know nothing about hypnotism ever volunteer to be hypnotized. From the outside, it looks exactly like mind control and for a control freak like me that’s deeply scary (see below). Even today, knowing everything that I know about the safety of hypnosis, it still feels a little scary and dangerous. There’s a psychological theory called misattribution of arousal– the idea that fear and sexual arousal look very physiologically similar so people tend to mix them up in their heads. It’s why you should always take your date to a roller coaster or a horror movie. :) I remember being abnormally scared by hypnosis stuff when I was a kid, so there’s likely some misattribution of arousal that created an obsession and eventually a fetish. (Now, of course, I experience accurate attribution of arousal.)

2. Trust: I don’t normally play around with things I fear during sex- I’m not a traditional BDSMer and I don’t have the seemingly-ubiquitous lady rape fantasy. What makes the hypnosis fear sexy is the greater or equal amount of trust that balances out that fear. I know normal BDSM play has trust as an implicit component, but the trust in hypnosis is so much more explicit and stated. When I’m being hypnotized, I love that I’m doing something a little scary and that there’s someone there to protect and guide me and keep me safe. It’s a bit regressive, but in a very nice way. I have a hypnotist friend who will hold my hand and tell me he’s right there with me when I’m tranced and that is AMAZING. It feels incredibly right. When I’m the hypnotist, I really really enjoy the trust that is placed in me and become very protective. I love it when my subjects get that happy trancey glow and when they’re obviously having a good time. I love how much they’ve allowed themselves to trust me and themselves to let the good time happen. It’s a beautiful thing.

3. Intimacy/ Vulnerability: Following along with the trust, there is so much intimacy and vulnerability in hypnosis. Being hypnotized is in many ways the act of letting down your guard so much with another person that they may see sides of you that even you aren’t aware of. That’s the most intimate thing I can think of. It’s way more intimate than a naked body. The fact that you allow someone to play around with you on that level is letting yourself be very vulnerable. Sharing that vulnerability is profoundly bonding. Seeing someone else willing to give you that gift is also humbling and bonding. As a hypnotist, I love to use that intimacy to find strength and creativity in a subject that they weren’t aware of and bring it to their attention. It’s the process of letting a subject show him- or herself something personal and neat.

4. Control/ Power: This was the hardest part of my hypnofetish to accept. I really like the idea of having a lot of power over someone else (or them having power over me). Like many women, I was often discouraged from seeking power for myself as a child and was told that being anything but a doormat was morally wrong. Wanting power was always a negative thing.  In my real life, I still tend to be passive and quiet and sometimes feel guilty for asserting myself in even the most basic ways. It can make me miserable. I find that when I’m doing more hypnosis (especially as a hypnotist), it often helps me regain a sense of power in other areas of my life. It’s like nothing bad happens when I exercise power in these large theatrical ways so it’s safer for me to exercise it in smaller, day-to-day circumstances. I’m also practicing being powerful in hypnosis in fun, silly, and helpful ways so I’m breaking the idea in my brain that power=bad. Exercising power has not turned me into a bad person. When I allow some of that power to leak into my life I tend to get more done, get along better with people, and generally be happier. Even when I’m a subject, the ability and encouragement to assert what I want is a way of showing power- one that I can transfer to my real life. I also am a bit of a control freak in my passive aggressive way (I blame being raised Baptist) so hypnosis is a way to relax that control- or increase it!

5. Fun/Creativity/Intelligence: Hypnosis can be such a fun, creative thing to do. There are very few limits outside of your and your partner’s imaginations. As a hypnotist, it’s also a thrilling challenge to figure out what’s going to work for each particular subject. (This can also be part of the fun of being a subject- working out a partnership with your hypnotist to collectively work towards your responding more fully.) At it’s best, hypnosis can create a fun synchronicity that feels like magic for both parties involved. I’m a bit sapiosexual, so intelligence is always sexy in a hypnotist or subject (or both!)

6. Relaxation/Focus/Being Cared For/Gentleness: If it’s not obvious from my tumblr, my mind tends to run a million miles a minute in all different directions. I can also be sharply critical, which is a skill (when directed towards new ideas) and a detriment (when it’s directed towards myself). I have a history of both anxiety and depressive disorders and (while I’m doing a lot better now) my brain still has those tendencies. Being hypnotized allows me to relax and focus and enjoy the moment instead of frantically dissecting everything in my surroundings**. It’s like I’m frantically rubbing my hands together and someone holds them apart and loosens them and just lets me rest.  It’s a relief to know it’s OK to let go of that hyperawareness for a little while- that I’m safe and can just relax for a bit. I love being treated gently and being taken care of in general and especially when I’m being hypnotized. I’m historically not good at being gentle to myself (although I’m getting better) so it feels good to be guided to a gentler mindset. As a hypnotist, I really enjoy the hypnotist’s trance that makes me feel calm and focused and settled.

Most of all, I like how different combinations and gradients of these ideas can come together in a trance. In my head, hypnosis is very symbolic of a lot of big themes and experiences. It’s a way for me to play with some of these big themes and come out well and happy on the other side with a partner who is also well and happy. I don’t quite know how it came to have all this symbolic significance for me, but I’m very glad it does. I can’t think of any other single activity that leaves me so deeply satisfied on so many levels.

What about hypnosis turns you on? Can you relate to these ideas, or is it an entirely different set of factors for you?

*I like actual sex and have been proudly slutty at points in my life, but hypnosis is a true, classically Freudian fetish for me- it lives in that part of my brain where sex would normally reside for most people. I didn’t become interested in actual sex until well into my college years.

**I get similar benefits with meditation, but it’s nice to let myself be guided there.

“What about hypnosis turns you on? Can you relate to these ideas, or is it an entirely different set of factors for you?“

Well, while reading this post and trying to compare it to my own experience I kept thinking “Sort of…maybe…slightly…but…no?”. So that’s fun to sort out. Like, yes I was pretty scared of it as a kid, and I don’t even know how I feel about the intimacy aspect, and the control aspect has some appeal but not nearly as much as it did when I was younger because, in hindsight, I think it was always more of an instrumental means-to-an-end thing rather than a goal in itself…

…but those all seem like minor issues to me, to my own sexuality and my own understanding of it. The important thing, the core of it, is restfulness. There a reason one of my tags is “people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me”: to me, the two are all tangled up and blended together. Tiredness and sexual frustration are generally the same feeling, distinguished only by cause and whether spending a while unconscious will fix it.

I’ve never knowingly met anyone else like me. For me, the process of getting into the hypno-blogosphere hasn’t been about finding a community of like-minded people, people who truly get me, but rather finding successive groups of people with increasingly close resemblances to what my hypothetical community would look like, little glimpses here and there of “yes, I actually grok what you’re talking about”. Lately I’ve managed to even find people who are into consensual stuff*, but even with them…like, take all the hype about the “Hypnotic Amnesia” book. I don’t grok memory play at all: it feels like it’s completely missing the point. If I wanted to forget the good bits, I would go take a nap. To me, the point of hypnosis is that we don’t have to settle for that. We can take the enjoyable parts of sleep, the calm and the peacefulness and the wonderful feeling of dozing, the feelings I long for the same way that other people long for sex, without having to deal with the unconsciousness or the hypnagogic amnesia. Sometimes, if we play our cards right, we really can eat our cake and have it too.

*By “into consensual stuff”, I don’t just mean “finding ways of healthily acting out their non-con fantasies”, but “genuinely deep-down prefer consensual situations, even in fantasy”. Let me be clear, there’s nothing wrong with having non-con fantasies, but over the past couple years I’ve been increasingly realising that they’re just not really for me.

If it helps, I can totally dig your somnophilia. Sometimes I get annoyed at quickie inductions because I want the long, slow slide into a nice, gentle, relaxed place*. The drifting feels very nice all on its own. If I know someone else enjoys that feeling specifically, I’ll try and expand their sense of time while they’re in trance to give them more time with those good feelings. I like the idea of giving someone a seemingly endless, floating peace- like warmly floating on your back in the ocean and staring at all the stars in an expansive sky.

I’m sure there are other people who are more on the pure relaxation side out there. Anyone want to self-identify?

*Sometimes quickie inductions are great- depends on my mood.

I wish that were what somnophilia meant. Then I would have a keyword to use for finding like-minded people. I can see how it could have ended up meaning that if things had gone a little differently, but as it is “somnophilia” seems to be pretty settled on referring specifically to being into having sexual intercourse with unconscious people (or, occasionally, other people having sexual intercourse with you while you’re unconscious). Even if you ignore the intercourse aspect (which I am not into), it seems to be specifically about unconsciousness to them rather than dozing.

As for “if it helps”, it helps a little bit. It’s one of those glimpses of visceral understanding.

Thanks for the signal boost.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof

100th Follower Request Post (part 2) or The Million Dollar Question

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

ellaenchanting:

First part posted here. I’m kind of proud of it myself. :)

Request:the best posts are always about girls called nicole getting turned into bimbos called nikki :P if thats not the sort of thing you mean, a post about why hypnosis turns you on and why you think it turns others on also great :)- from @bimbonicolette

What about hypnosis turns me on?

Short answer: I’m not entirely sure!

Shorter answer: Everything!

Respectably long answer:

Truthfully, I’m still trying to figure out all of the ins and outs of my hypnofetish. It’s been buzzing around in the back of my brain for years, but I’ve only entirely consciously acknowledged and come to terms with hypnosis as a fetish for the last few months. (Origin story here.) Seriously- if you had asked me about hypnofetishism in May, I would have blushed and quickly changed the topic. This is after years of reading mcstories, obsessively watching fetishy TV show clips over and over, and hypnotizing people/being hypnotized by people. This is also despite the fact that I’ve always fantasized way more about hypnosis than about actual sex*. So, I may not be the most insightful person (on this or in general). Ask me next week and my answers may change.

Reasons I Like Hypnosis (in a sexy way):

1. Fear: Oddly.

     So, one of my formative experiences with hypnotism was seeing a stage hypnotist on Nickelodeon as a kid and FREAKING OUT about it. I took the show way too literally. That hypnotist was so obviously dangerous! Why was someone so powerful allowed to run around in public playing with people’s minds? I didn’t understand why everyone else was so calm about this being on TV. In fact, there’s a little part of me that still wonders why people who know nothing about hypnotism ever volunteer to be hypnotized. From the outside, it looks exactly like mind control and for a control freak like me that’s deeply scary (see below). Even today, knowing everything that I know about the safety of hypnosis, it still feels a little scary and dangerous. There’s a psychological theory called misattribution of arousal– the idea that fear and sexual arousal look very physiologically similar so people tend to mix them up in their heads. It’s why you should always take your date to a roller coaster or a horror movie. :) I remember being abnormally scared by hypnosis stuff when I was a kid, so there’s likely some misattribution of arousal that created an obsession and eventually a fetish. (Now, of course, I experience accurate attribution of arousal.)

2. Trust: I don’t normally play around with things I fear during sex- I’m not a traditional BDSMer and I don’t have the seemingly-ubiquitous lady rape fantasy. What makes the hypnosis fear sexy is the greater or equal amount of trust that balances out that fear. I know normal BDSM play has trust as an implicit component, but the trust in hypnosis is so much more explicit and stated. When I’m being hypnotized, I love that I’m doing something a little scary and that there’s someone there to protect and guide me and keep me safe. It’s a bit regressive, but in a very nice way. I have a hypnotist friend who will hold my hand and tell me he’s right there with me when I’m tranced and that is AMAZING. It feels incredibly right. When I’m the hypnotist, I really really enjoy the trust that is placed in me and become very protective. I love it when my subjects get that happy trancey glow and when they’re obviously having a good time. I love how much they’ve allowed themselves to trust me and themselves to let the good time happen. It’s a beautiful thing.

3. Intimacy/ Vulnerability: Following along with the trust, there is so much intimacy and vulnerability in hypnosis. Being hypnotized is in many ways the act of letting down your guard so much with another person that they may see sides of you that even you aren’t aware of. That’s the most intimate thing I can think of. It’s way more intimate than a naked body. The fact that you allow someone to play around with you on that level is letting yourself be very vulnerable. Sharing that vulnerability is profoundly bonding. Seeing someone else willing to give you that gift is also humbling and bonding. As a hypnotist, I love to use that intimacy to find strength and creativity in a subject that they weren’t aware of and bring it to their attention. It’s the process of letting a subject show him- or herself something personal and neat.

4. Control/ Power: This was the hardest part of my hypnofetish to accept. I really like the idea of having a lot of power over someone else (or them having power over me). Like many women, I was often discouraged from seeking power for myself as a child and was told that being anything but a doormat was morally wrong. Wanting power was always a negative thing.  In my real life, I still tend to be passive and quiet and sometimes feel guilty for asserting myself in even the most basic ways. It can make me miserable. I find that when I’m doing more hypnosis (especially as a hypnotist), it often helps me regain a sense of power in other areas of my life. It’s like nothing bad happens when I exercise power in these large theatrical ways so it’s safer for me to exercise it in smaller, day-to-day circumstances. I’m also practicing being powerful in hypnosis in fun, silly, and helpful ways so I’m breaking the idea in my brain that power=bad. Exercising power has not turned me into a bad person. When I allow some of that power to leak into my life I tend to get more done, get along better with people, and generally be happier. Even when I’m a subject, the ability and encouragement to assert what I want is a way of showing power- one that I can transfer to my real life. I also am a bit of a control freak in my passive aggressive way (I blame being raised Baptist) so hypnosis is a way to relax that control- or increase it!

5. Fun/Creativity/Intelligence: Hypnosis can be such a fun, creative thing to do. There are very few limits outside of your and your partner’s imaginations. As a hypnotist, it’s also a thrilling challenge to figure out what’s going to work for each particular subject. (This can also be part of the fun of being a subject- working out a partnership with your hypnotist to collectively work towards your responding more fully.) At it’s best, hypnosis can create a fun synchronicity that feels like magic for both parties involved. I’m a bit sapiosexual, so intelligence is always sexy in a hypnotist or subject (or both!)

6. Relaxation/Focus/Being Cared For/Gentleness: If it’s not obvious from my tumblr, my mind tends to run a million miles a minute in all different directions. I can also be sharply critical, which is a skill (when directed towards new ideas) and a detriment (when it’s directed towards myself). I have a history of both anxiety and depressive disorders and (while I’m doing a lot better now) my brain still has those tendencies. Being hypnotized allows me to relax and focus and enjoy the moment instead of frantically dissecting everything in my surroundings**. It’s like I’m frantically rubbing my hands together and someone holds them apart and loosens them and just lets me rest.  It’s a relief to know it’s OK to let go of that hyperawareness for a little while- that I’m safe and can just relax for a bit. I love being treated gently and being taken care of in general and especially when I’m being hypnotized. I’m historically not good at being gentle to myself (although I’m getting better) so it feels good to be guided to a gentler mindset. As a hypnotist, I really enjoy the hypnotist’s trance that makes me feel calm and focused and settled.

Most of all, I like how different combinations and gradients of these ideas can come together in a trance. In my head, hypnosis is very symbolic of a lot of big themes and experiences. It’s a way for me to play with some of these big themes and come out well and happy on the other side with a partner who is also well and happy. I don’t quite know how it came to have all this symbolic significance for me, but I’m very glad it does. I can’t think of any other single activity that leaves me so deeply satisfied on so many levels.

What about hypnosis turns you on? Can you relate to these ideas, or is it an entirely different set of factors for you?

*I like actual sex and have been proudly slutty at points in my life, but hypnosis is a true, classically Freudian fetish for me- it lives in that part of my brain where sex would normally reside for most people. I didn’t become interested in actual sex until well into my college years.

**I get similar benefits with meditation, but it’s nice to let myself be guided there.

“What about hypnosis turns you on? Can you relate to these ideas, or is it an entirely different set of factors for you?“

Well, while reading this post and trying to compare it to my own experience I kept thinking “Sort of…maybe…slightly…but…no?”. So that’s fun to sort out. Like, yes I was pretty scared of it as a kid, and I don’t even know how I feel about the intimacy aspect, and the control aspect has some appeal but not nearly as much as it did when I was younger because, in hindsight, I think it was always more of an instrumental means-to-an-end thing rather than a goal in itself…

…but those all seem like minor issues to me, to my own sexuality and my own understanding of it. The important thing, the core of it, is restfulness. There a reason one of my tags is “people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me”: to me, the two are all tangled up and blended together. Tiredness and sexual frustration are generally the same feeling, distinguished only by cause and whether spending a while unconscious will fix it.

I’ve never knowingly met anyone else like me. For me, the process of getting into the hypno-blogosphere hasn’t been about finding a community of like-minded people, people who truly get me, but rather finding successive groups of people with increasingly close resemblances to what my hypothetical community would look like, little glimpses here and there of “yes, I actually grok what you’re talking about”. Lately I’ve managed to even find people who are into consensual stuff*, but even with them…like, take all the hype about the “Hypnotic Amnesia” book. I don’t grok memory play at all: it feels like it’s completely missing the point. If I wanted to forget the good bits, I would go take a nap. To me, the point of hypnosis is that we don’t have to settle for that. We can take the enjoyable parts of sleep, the calm and the peacefulness and the wonderful feeling of dozing, the feelings I long for the same way that other people long for sex, without having to deal with the unconsciousness or the hypnagogic amnesia. Sometimes, if we play our cards right, we really can eat our cake and have it too.

*By “into consensual stuff”, I don’t just mean “finding ways of healthily acting out their non-con fantasies”, but “genuinely deep-down prefer consensual situations, even in fantasy”. Let me be clear, there’s nothing wrong with having non-con fantasies, but over the past couple years I’ve been increasingly realising that they’re just not really for me.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me

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~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

It is categorically impossible to enjoy being unconscious. Why is this so hard to understand?

(Okay, I know, I’m being uncharitable. I suppose it’s possible for people to enjoy having been unconscious or knowing that you will be unconscious. Just, why everyone?)

Tags:

#and by ‘everyone’ I mean the few bottoms #seems like they’re nearly all tops #also thank god for Image Block #sexuality and lack thereof #adventures in ‘close but not quite’ #somnophiles frustrate me #oh look an original post

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

God, I miss Ace Fet.

Tags:

#Ace Fet #the one place where I felt #if not *normal* sexuality-wise #at least not any weirder than anyone else #but that was somewhere around a year ago #and ever since it’s been gone #without even an archive to remember it by #I’ve tried lurking in hypnofetish circles #they’re way better than nothing but they don’t *really* *get* it #or rather they get something *different* #people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me #but they’re the only people I’ve ever met and I’m *lonely* #there’s no way I’m the only one #seven thousand million human brains out there #(at least a few hundred million of which hang out in English-language Internet communities) #no way am I the only one to have ended up with this particular quirk of brain development #somewhere out there are people who understand #I just don’t know how to find them #sexuality and lack thereof #tag rambles #oh look an original post

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

lb-lee:

albinwonderland:

erikamoen:

Do you get head tinglies during haircuts? Do pages turning or paper crinkling give you an unexplainable buzz? Friend, you may be experiencing ASMR. Read all about it in Grace Allison’s guest comic on Oh Joy Sex Toy!

This comic brought to you by the support of my patrons on Patreon, thanks guys!

A great and informative comic about ASMR! 

Huh.  So, I went to Good Ol’ Youtube to learn more about this, wondering if ASMR was related to the weird (mostly unpleasant) sensations I get when I watch injections or piercing. (You never want me to come with you to a piercing or tattoo appointment, because I will twitch my head and shoulders uncontrollably to block out the sensations.) Turns out no, ASMR is similar, but not nearly so intense or unpleasant. (Though it can veer into it if I pay too close attention.)

And that’s how I ended up accidentally feeling much better and more relaxed after an emotional day.  Thanks, random ASMR people on Youtube!  I learned something new today!

I actually have heard of this before, but I thought my readers might not have.

(Be careful of those “roleplaying close personal attention” ones. The first explanation of ASMR I came across included a link to one of those, and my reaction to it was not so much “ooh nice” as “oh god she’s coming through the fourth wall to get me *tries to back away through the couch*”.)

Tags:

#ASMR #the more you know #people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me #(I find it kind of amusing that *every* ASMR explanation I’ve read explicitly says it’s completely non-sexual) #(then immediately proceeds to describe it as sedating) #(or sometimes they do it in reverse order like here) #(people are *weird*) #the wondrous variety of sapient life