sexuality and lack thereof

Hey, nerds and perverts!

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

funereal-disease:

brazenautomaton:

Or pervert nerds, like @fierceawakening, @funereal-disease, @cyborgbutterflies, @multiheaded1793, @academicianzex, @mitoticcephalopod, or @windofperversion!

And @gattsuru, who may or may not be one of those things but who I threatened with this earlier today!

You liked that post about de-superlativity in smut despite the stupid name? Would you like to read more essays and ramblings and musings about Matters Lewd? Well TOO BAD, because I’m giving you some more anyway!

@smut-theory is a new collab blog, with six collaborators so far, where people can post thoughtful musings and worldbuilding and treatises and whatever about their pornographic interests and theories. Other than the first post, which is obviously mine since I am sending it out, and the cleaned up and re-named “de-superlativity” post I am working on, which is obviously mine since it is a reworked version of my own post, nobody will be signing their names to anything – so people can go into detail about why they love ‘evil, wrong’ kinks so much, without fear of it being used to start a ginned-up social media lynch mob. 

To quote that first post I made:

We don’t want to be “kink-critical”, we want to take a critical eye at kink – the same way Roger Ebert took a critical eye to film. What works, what doesn’t, why? What is the essence of what we love, how can we best capture it, how do we avoid screwing it up?

If that sounds interesting to you, check it out! We will have several more essays posted in the coming days, as well as accepting submissions, or applications for people to join on a long-term basis. You’ll laugh, you’ll fap, and hopefully, you’ll learn along the way.

@smut-theory! Give it an ogle!

This is so so so cool! I would love to participate. 

Tags:

#neat #have I mentioned I love kink meta? #because I love kink meta #sexuality and lack thereof

Experiment- Please Help!

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

ellaenchanting:

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is tumblr_n31ndga8yz1t3453ho1_400.gif

@banana-pie-gaige reminded me of an experiment I’ve been wanting to run.

Loose conjecture: I have a book of sleeping tips that suggests that people close their eyes and slowly trace the outside ridges of the United States to trick the brain into starting REM. REM, or dreaming sleep, is often a period where people can be lightly suggestible- for example, you can talk to dreaming people and sometimes influence what happens in their dreams. There’s also the eye flutter that some subjects have when they go under and the eye movements people tend to have when you ask them to imagine a visual image when hypnotized- these may or may not be REM related (or require hypnosis at all).

Hypothesis: You can trigger tranceyness by having someone close their eyes and move them around in a circular way because this mirrors REM. Mirroring REM triggers a person’s mind to start dreaming which increases suggestibility.

Why this is probably bullshit: REM eye movements often look different  than someone tracing the borders of the Unites States. People usually go through other sleep stages before getting into REM- you usually only jump in to REM when you’re sleep deprived. (My one time dreaming while hypnotized- which was awesome- was when I was up late and likely sleep deprived.) Moving eyes in a REM-ish way wouldn’t necessarily trigger REM or sleep or tranceyness or anything in particular. If this did put people to sleep or even made them dream,. this wouldn’t necessarily equal a useful hypnotic state.
But what if it did?

That would be cool, huh?

Tumblr peeps- this is what I’d you to do:

Would you kindly:

1. Set an alarm for 6 minutes.

2. Close your eyes.

3. Relax. If you know how, let yourself sink into a light trancey/meditative state.

4. Imagine you can see the USA land formation. Gently and comfortable trace around the edges, starting at the top right hand side with Maine. Don’t try and think or stop thinking- thoughts can just happen all by themselves. You can just lazily notice anything that happens.If nothing much happens, just let yourself enjoy the break.

5. Write me feedback about what, if anything, happened. It’s OK to tell me nothing really happened- that’s useful information!

I’ll tell you guys if we collectively discover something cool. :)

Also- please let me know if you have ideas or if this is a thing you solved in 3rd grade.

Tagging people who may be interested: @soundshypnotic, @brentrx, @mistermindwiper, @tennfan2, @banana-pie-gaige, @zanythoughts, @bannableoffense, @i-dontshaveforsherlock-holmes, @brin-bellway, @mr-prism, @mrs-prism, @hypnoticharlequin

Feel free to repost, anyone- I’d like to get a lot of minds on this if possible.

Not sure how you knew, but empirical kink is absolutely my thing.

“Would you kindly:”

I see what you did there.

Anyway, my results:

My mind did not wander very much: trying to remember exactly how the outline of the United States goes is a fairly occupying task. I noticed a couple minutes in that the movement of my arm was a bit jerky, as it tends to be in trance. Following up on this, somewhere around Arizona or southern California I tried ceasing to consciously move my arm to see what would happen. Sure enough, my arm continued moving up and to the left, in small jerking movements.

I continued on through the flat stretch of Canadian border, around the Great Lakes, and back to Maine. During my second lap of the East Coast, it felt at times like I was more guiding my arm than actually moving it.

At the tip of Florida, I tried ceasing my conscious movements again. Again, my arm continued up and to the left.

Before I had a chance to try pausing at a point where the next section wasn’t up and to the left, the alarm went off.

So, neat and pretty fast-onset ideomotor effect, but I didn’t get any imagery, nor did the picture of the U.S. in my mind’s eye seem any more vivid than my mind’s eye normally does (which is not that much; I’m towards the low-detail end of the spectrum).

Notes regarding confounds: I got about 8.25 – 8.5 hours of sleep last night (low end of normal for me), I was neither on any stimulants nor in withdrawal from them (I’m not caffeine-dependent; I customarily have some chocolate at this time of day, but I waited until after the experiment), I looked at the linked picture right before the experiment to refresh my memory of the outline, my brother walked in during the experiment (I tried to ignore him, but I was a little distracted worrying he would ask what I was doing and I wouldn’t have a non-embarrassing answer). (He didn’t ask, though I don’t know whether he noticed or what he thought about it if so.) I have avoided looking to see if there are other responses to this post because I didn’t want to contaminate my answers. (I’ll read them afterward, assuming there are any.)

P.S. Okay, so the consensus of the other respondants seems to be that the verb “trace” does not indicate moving one’s hand? Am I the only one who interpreted it that way? Well, this is awkward.

(I hope I’ve given you some interesting data, even if I may have misunderstood the provided protocol.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #for science! #TMI #now it’s time for that chocolate #(perhaps it will soothe the awkward)

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~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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diaryofasnowflake:

blnkstr:

hypno-sandwich:

tennfan2:

diaryofasnowflake:

I posted a photo of myself on Facebook wearing headphones with my eyes closed (for purely innocent reasons).  My grandmother commented:

Call Your Grandmother

MY OWN GRANDMOTHER.  WHY IS THE UNIVERSE CONSPIRING TO SKEEVE ME OUT IN THIS MANNER?

This. Is. Amazing.

Oh god.
I am so sorry.

(But also- this is really really funny.)

@diaryofasnowflake

this apparently answers the question of whether your kink genes are inheritable. congratulations for Science!!

I assumed that this was proof my grandmother DOESN’T have a hypnosis kink (not that I had given it much thought).

Because if she did, why the fuck would she drop that on my Facebook?

My reasoning for asking went like this:

“I’ve heard quite a few stories of children who don’t know yet that they’re kinky* playing (or trying to convince people to play with them) unknowingly-erotic games. Therefore, it is possible for some people to have the fascination aspect of a kink without the accompanying sense of propriety, at least as long as they are not made aware of the sexual nature of their fascination. (Just because *I* was always very uncomfortable when my parents sang me lullabyes doesn’t mean that *everyone’s* anti-incest instincts adapt to their sexualities without prompting.)

There is insufficient data to even hazard a guess at how likely someone is to make that joke assuming the absence of a hypnosis kink, but–ignoring propriety, for the reasons given above–it can safely be assumed to be less likely than someone who does have such a kink making that joke.

(Yes, there are so many non-hypno-kinky people out there that a random person (maybe even a blood relative) telling that joke is probably still more likely than not to lack the kink, but I didn’t say it was a strong suspicion.)”

tl;dr The story sounded like stories kinksters tell about their childhoods as evidence they were, in hindsight, kinky, but with your grandmother in the place of the child (and age alone isn’t always enough to make you aware of your kinks).

*These stories are usually told by the children’s present selves, now adults and more self-aware.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #I may not have shifted the writing part of my brain entirely out of lab-report mode yet #sorry if it’s too formal

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

tennfan2:

diaryofasnowflake:

I posted a photo of myself on Facebook wearing headphones with my eyes closed (for purely innocent reasons).  My grandmother commented:

Call Your Grandmother

MY OWN GRANDMOTHER.  WHY IS THE UNIVERSE CONSPIRING TO SKEEVE ME OUT IN THIS MANNER?

This. Is. Amazing.

Ack, sorry to hear that. I hate when that happens.

Also, would the grandmother in question happen to be a blood relative of this kid?

Tags:

#reply via reblog #sexuality and lack thereof #something something genetics

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

lucassfilm:

 

sdhs-rationalist:

scientiststhesis:

4lung:

brotoro:

niamhrhymeswithleave:

Help me what is an apple Luke trousers

honey

FUC

someone explain this to the non-native-English-speaker?

native english speaker, just as lost as you are

I tried using the XKit TagViewer on this post and got several people saying the punchline was “Apple Bottom Jeans”.

I still don’t get it. I mean, I’m guessing it’s some kind of joke about Luke Skywalker’s sexual inclinations, but what the hell are “apple bottom jeans”? Is that like a bell bottom?

Apparently it’s a brand. *shrug*

Tags:

#reply via reblog #explaining the joke #in which the joke turns out to have multiple layers of incomprehensibility

nevermindbinarity asked: 24 and 33

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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24. Baths or showers?

These days, showers. Baths were nice as a kid, but they lose a lot of their appeal when you grow too tall to float in the bathtub.

33. What do you typically have for breakfast?

I’m actually in the middle of eating my typical breakfast right now. It’s a single-serving peach yogurt cup. I eat a fruit yogurt cup for every non-Passover breakfast I spend at home (which is nearly all of them; about the only occasions I leave home before noon are exams, travelling, and the occasional unusually-early field trip). (Breakfasts away from home are a (carefully checked for freshness) peanut butter granola bar, or a cup of orange juice if I’m in a hotel that serves breakfast. Passover breakfasts early on are leftover charoset. Later in the week it’s often a piece of fruit, but a large part of what I get out of keeping Passover is taking a break from culinary routines, so anything goes, really.)

I like all of the Beatrice fruit yogurt flavours to one extent or another, but there’s a definite hierarchy of “buy this type only if the store is out of the higher-ranked types”. (The hierarchy changes every so often: currently it’s peach–>strawberry–>raspberry–>blueberry, but I’m thinking of switching strawberry and peach.)

(I can’t do big, rich breakfasts. My stomach wakes up very slowly: it takes 2 – 3 hours after I wake up before I can even eat the yogurt. If I’m in a situation where I have to conform to someone else’s schedule, I can get it down to 1 – 1.5 hours in a pinch, but it’s not fun.)

Tags:

#growing too tall to float in the bathtub was the beginning of the Dark Times #it was hard to find anything else that soothing and that readily available #tales from the askbox #ask meme #food #nevermindbinarity

Orgasmic design: how vibrators have become ambitious tech products

Link ~ ~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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{{Title link: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/09/vibrator-design-tech-product-orgasm }}

ellaenchanting:

brin-bellway:

ellaenchanting:

sadydoyle:

This was a fun one! The concise history of vibrators; how they started as scary medical devices and shameful secrets, became a feminist statement, and are now a massively profitable industry that employs the same guys who used to design iPhones. 

I, for one, welcome our new tech overlords. Thank you, tech overlords, for helping me maintain my long distance relationship!

From a 1908 vibrator ad: “Bebout is ‘gentle, soothing, invigorating and refreshing. Invented by a woman who knows a woman’s needs. All nature pulsates and vibrates with life.’” It does indeed.

My reactions are torn between “ooh, knowledge! neat!” and “*fumes at normativity*”.

So, followers, here is some neat knowledge. Try to look past the bits like “women who used vibrators were actually more likely to take care of their sexual health by going to the gynecologist for regular exams”, as if there were no reasons other than “failure to take care of one’s sexual health” why one might avoid both vibrators and gynecologists.

(Hint: my GP told me that, as someone too young for disorders of age and too virginal for disorders of the sexually active (emphasis added), I should not have gynecological checkups because I wouldn’t get anything out of them.)

(Hint 2: some people just aren’t into genitals, sometimes including their own.)

You know, that part flew right by me without my even thinking twice about it. This is why privilege checks are important- when you are normative it’s hard to notice when you are being exclusionary or offensive, Thanks @brin-bellway!

You’re welcome!

Like I said in the tags, though, it’s impossible not to be exclusionary when talking about sexuality: people are just too diverse to be able to account for everyone. While I would definitely like people writing for small audiences that they know I’m in to be inclusive of me, I don’t seriously expect inclusivity of general-audience material (even if part of me is always disappointed when they fail to measure up). I do respect people who have considered these things, thrown up their hands at the impossibility of going much beyond the top few most common options, and knowingly sacrifice the visibility of people with very unusual sexualities to the altar of the greatest good for the greatest number: it’s not like I can come up with a better plan.

(Stuff that’s specifically about sex ed does need to be careful to acknowledge when it’s throwing up its hands, though. Some of the ““inclusive”” sex ed I got was worse-than-useless misinformation when applied to myself, and maybe if it had stated up front that it couldn’t cover everyone and “none of the above” was an option, I wouldn’t have had to learn that the hard way.)

(Whether “women* who are ineligible for gynecological checkups” is a common enough group to be worth accounting for is another matter. I reacted to this particular issue as an instance of the general case.)

*I’m not even getting into gender issues here, as I’m focusing on my own personal area of relevance.

Tags:

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

Orgasmic design: how vibrators have become ambitious tech products

Link ~ ~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{Title link: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/09/vibrator-design-tech-product-orgasm }}

ellaenchanting:

sadydoyle:

This was a fun one! The concise history of vibrators; how they started as scary medical devices and shameful secrets, became a feminist statement, and are now a massively profitable industry that employs the same guys who used to design iPhones. 

I, for one, welcome our new tech overlords. Thank you, tech overlords, for helping me maintain my long distance relationship!

From a 1908 vibrator ad: “Bebout is ‘gentle, soothing, invigorating and refreshing. Invented by a woman who knows a woman’s needs. All nature pulsates and vibrates with life.’” It does indeed.

My reactions are torn between “ooh, knowledge! neat!” and “*fumes at normativity*”.

So, followers, here is some neat knowledge. Try to look past the bits like “women who used vibrators were actually more likely to take care of their sexual health by going to the gynecologist for regular exams”, as if there were no reasons other than “failure to take care of one’s sexual health” why one might avoid both vibrators and gynecologists.

(Hint: my GP told me that, as someone too young for disorders of age and too virginal for disorders of the sexually active (emphasis added), I should not have gynecological checkups because I wouldn’t get anything out of them.)

(Hint 2: some people just aren’t into genitals, sometimes including their own.)

Tags:

#I am not *failing* to take care of my sexual health #I am *recognising* that my sexual health doesn’t look like that #sexuality and lack thereof #the more you know #don’t mind me #it’s pretty much impossible for me to read educational things about sexuality *without* fuming at normativity #one time I was listening to a podcast about How Sexuality Works #and the interviewee denied my existence three times in the first five minutes #I gave up in disgust #(I don’t remember now specifically which denials they used) #(just that I kept a running tally in my head and incremented it #each time they said something the implication of which was that my existence was impossible) #anyway neat knowledge #…it occurs to me that this post has a single-digit number of notes #and the OP is the person who wrote the article #which means she’s almost certainly going to see this #okay look true inclusivity is impossible #and even acknowledgement of one’s inevitable exclusivity is pretty difficult #I have very high standards and I don’t want you to feel too bad about failing to meet them #I just get bitter sometimes about navigating life with an extremely unusual sexuality

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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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