Just because it’s not 100% “real” it doesn’t mean it’s actually fake.
“You can’t con an honest man.” – Con Artist’s Proverb
“You want them to go: I know the rest of it’s fake but that part, THAT was real”
– Pro Wrestler’s Proverb
“All hypnosis is self-hypnosis” – Hypnotist’s Proverb
There is no business more similar to that of being an Erotic Hypnotist than that of being a Professional Wrestler.
Your job in both is to create a simulated experience where the audience forgets themselves and falls into a world beyond the scope of every day life.
You might think doing this is the same as being an actor, and in many ways and for both professions it is (because they both involve acting), but actors take a bow after the show and we see their names in the credits.
For actors, the character ends with the show.
For the Erotic Hypnotist and the Pro Wrestler (less so today than historically), they have to keep in character whenever they interact with their fans to continue to sell the fantasy their entertainment provides.
In the business of Pro Wrestling they call it kayfabe (maybe a derivative of Pig Latin for keep fake), and for ease of use we will extend it to Erotic Hypnotists as well.
Kayfabe was created and practiced not to maliciously fool or grift the audience, but to provide an experience that was more emotionally satisfying and compelling. It was the same reason pro wrestling became scripted in the early 1900s, not to con anyone (well sort of, but that’s a whole other story) but because both changes lead to the business of Professional Wrestling doing better business.
Pro Wrestling insiders refer to their occupation as The Business, because everything about it, everything that is done is done for the express purpose of selling tickets and making more money.
The same can be said about Commercial Erotic Hypnosis as well.
(This is not to say that the people practicing both are not passionate about what they do, nor is it to say they do not love it and that the experiences and moments shared in and from the work are not of a genuine value. Speaking as a fan and student of both I can say first hand that they are. )
When you buy a file, as when you buy tickets to an event or a pay per view, you are buying the experience of willing suspension of disbelief. This suspension of disbelief is reinforced on a subliminal level (or super-liminal if you will) by the consistent presentation of the content as real, and for all intents and purposes, it is.
It is real in the sense that you know what you are buying.
If you want to be hypnotized, you accept automatically that hypnosis is exactly what is it. This is the same as watching wrestling, you know what it is.
However, and to belabor the point intentionally, what makes it work is the willingness to forget, to accept, and to play along during the experience in part because you have been promised and shown incessantly that the experience is real.
In Professional Wrestling, fans of the business are called Marks. A Mark is a carnie term for a person that can be taken in easily. Pro Wrestling stared by and large as a carnival attraction and has carnie language in its DNA to this day. Now days Mark has two connotations, both of which are applicable to the Erotic Hypnosis fan, so too for that matter is the original carnie term.
A Mark now is either a fan, as in we are all Marks for Erotic Hypnosis, or a fan that believes it is all real (IE, Krystal Mesmer’s name is Krystal Mesmer and she has an army of leather masked slaves at her command in her basement).
This kind of Mark thinks/wants to be owned and doesn’t recognize that for most Erotic Hypnotists this is a career and whatever lifestyle they have is their off-line real life and real time life-style. They have lost sight of the fact this is a business on top of whatever else it is for them.
In this regard there’s a famous quote that’s widely attributed to Chief Jay Strongbow of the WWF that applies to Erotic Hypnosis as well:
“In this business you can either make friends or you can make money.”
Every Erotic Hypnotist I have spoken to, worked for, or gotten to know had plenty of friends before they started working in this scene. It is a sentiment echoed by another Professional Wrestler Scott “Razor Ramon” Hall who said in regards to the above quote:
“I already got some friends, I want to get some money.”
(Yes, people have met and fallen in love thanks to this scene. Yes real life couples have formed from this scene. Yes, people have gotten married, dated, become friends, become enemies, and every other range of human experiences in this scene, but that is because that’s what always happens with people. Don’t think I’m saying it’s only money. I was in a long-term real life relationship with a woman I met on Inraptured, I know its not just about the money. What I am saying is that it is a business first and everything else second.)
Additionally in that regard a Mark can, in Erotic Hypnosis, also be the traditional definition of the term. They can be someone you can get on the hook. A super fan, a devotee, someone that will keep coming back for more, or someone that is an easy touch, all of these fit the definition of a Mark.
This kind of Mark is a value added customer as they will do things like write reviews, and other ways of banging the drum, or they will tribute, or buy wish list gifts, etc.
Of course, as I said above, we’re all Marks to a certain degree. We’re all willing participants in this scene no matter how Smart we may be.
In wrestling, as in the carnie business, the term Smart is used either as an antithesis to or an adjective to describe someone. You are either Smart to the business (you know it’s scripted, or you’re an insider aka not a Mark) or you’re a Smart-Mark (you “know” its scripted but you’re still a fan and you still go along for the ride).
For most of us, I would hope, we are Erotic Hypnosis Smart Marks. We know in an inherent sort of way that we are playing along, that even though hypnosis is real and what we experience while in trance is a real experience, the context of the trance exists in a limited space and is provided by people who are using stage names.
In short, we understand that we are being worked.
Being worked is another term by carnie folk and con artists that means to be carried along by or manipulated. You can’t get worked unless you want to believe in what is being promised. In the context of Erotic Hypnosis, since we all inherently want to be worked (as in we want to be carried away by and manipulated by the Hypnotist) as part of our fetish, it stands to reason that being worked plays a huge part in our scene.
We want to be worked, which is good, because being worked happens all the time. The Hypnotists work the fans, the fans work the Hypnotists, the Hypnotists work each other and the fans work the other fans. The following are examples of being worked:
I’ve never gone that deep before.
This is the most powerful file I have ever written.
I only listen to –blank-.
(If you say that one and you do, you’re rare. Also, the women in these scene talk to each other, they know you don’t just listen to them and they don’t care because it’s all part of the show)
I make this much.
I have this much unique traffic.
I’ve always been a natural hypnotist (not a real thing by the way, but hot damn does that sound sexy right? See, it’s part of the work and we love it. LOVE IT!).
I never remember anything that happens when I go under.
And the list goes on, and it’s a beautiful thing because what is all comes down to is exaggeration. And this is important, exaggeration generally comes from good places. Someone wants to sell you something you want, or they want to share something with you that they think you want, and since you’re a Mark for Erotic Hypnosis you want to have that thing too.
Of course, you may not want what they’re selling, and they may not be able to back it up, but that’s just something else that Erotic Hypnosis has in common with Pro Wrestling. If you promise something, you need to deliver, otherwise you’ll lose customers.
It isn’t just that though, it’s the same principle as installing a trigger or giving a suggestion. For it to work the person does have to want it to work, but you have to create the environment for it to work.
Everyone knows there’s a degree of “buyer’s beware” and personal responsibility and applicability with Erotic Hypnosis. We all have different degrees of suggestibility, we all respond to different things different way, but what we all have in common is a shared expectation that the product will honor the premise it was sold to us under.
Past the hyperbolae and the worked components of the sales pitch, we still expect the essence of what is offered.
Just as disappointed as we would be if we are told “tonight’s match will be the greatest world title match in the history of world title matches” only to be delivered a match that was not neither good nor for the title, we would feel the same about a file that promised mind numbing hands free orgasms and deep trance but failed to include content that was either capable of inducing trance or causing an erection.
You cannot promise a gimmick and fail to deliver it.
Gimmick, in Pro Wrestling, means about a hundred different things (so too does Business for that matter: We did business tonight, I gave him the business, that guy can’t do business in the ring etc), but for our purposes it will…still mean about a hundred things.
But, in the above context it means that you are selling a session with distinct set of properties that are designed to draw the customer in (in Wrestling this would be something like a Cage Match) to spend money on something they will find more exciting and than the average file.
This could be the Hands Free Orgasm, or Amnesia, or forced Bi/Gay experiences, or Financial Domination. In Erotic Hypnosis all of those are gimmicks.
Gimmicks can also define a Hypnotist’s character, and just like in Pro Wrestling, the best gimmick is just an exaggerated part of that person’s personality, or in the words of perhaps the most successful wrestler of all time, Stone Cold Steve Austin:
“The best character’s just you turned up to 11.”
This hold true in Erotic Hypnosis as well.
The best Hypnotists, which in turn are the most believable Hypnotists, are just letting a part of themselves come out and shine. This is not so much in that you believe their character, but that they believe their character, and that means they believe they can hypnotize you. For you to be hypnotized both parties have to believe that it will happen, you that you can, them that they will.
For some Hypnotists they know they can because they are trained and have studied hypnosis. They’ve learned the craft and the theories and they’re technically sound. If you believe you can be hypnotized, they will hypnotize you because that is what they do.
In wrestling these are the technicians, the guys who are good in the ring but sometimes lack that “it” quality that would make them a star.
For other Hypnotists, they understand their charisma and their ability to draw you in. Yes, they may not have ever taken a class or practiced on a person in the same room, and yes, they may be reading a script someone else wrote, but they believe they can hypnotize you and they make you believe it to by force of personality.
(Of course it’s a lot harder for them if the script doesn’t have isn’t based in any real technique.)
In wrestling they’re the talkers, the ones you remember more for what they say and how they make you care about what they do than the (usually less impressive than the technicians) physical spectacle of what they do.
Then, there are some that are both. Charismatic performers who understand and have mastered their craft, total package Erotic Hypnotists that are widely considered “the best”.
In wrestling these are the guys that can do it all in and out of the ring, the all-time-greats.
Of course, on the other end of the spectrum there are people that are just looking the part (or sounding the part) and lack any and all substance or believability. They swing crystals in front of their boobs and say you’re getting sleepy and that’s their induction, you know the type.
But, even they aren’t completely terrible because more often than not they look or sound hot and you can get something out of that one way or another. And honestly, that’s probably why you bought their product anyway.
In wrestling these are the guys that look like or sound like wrestlers but have nothing else going for them save a growl and a steroid enhanced body, but sometimes that’s enough for them to get over with the crowd.
And that, at the end of the day is what it’s all about.
Getting over.
That why you work people, that’s why you get worked, so you or someone else can get over.
In wrestling and in Erotic Hypnosis it means getting people to like you enough to spend money on you. It means getting people to cheer for you, to champion your cause when they talk about the business, and to come back to you to spend their time and their money enjoying your work. If you aren’t over with the fans, you won’t get paid, and if you’re not getting paid…
Remember, this is a Business and you can either make friends or you can make money. Friends don’t put a roof over your head; friends don’t put food on the table. Friends don’t secure you and your family’s future.
Now, what’s the point of all this?
The point is you.
These are the things you need to know if you’re serious about this fetish.
These are the things you need to understand about your relationships. I’ve written all of this for you, and I’ve learned all of this first hand.
, and as I hadn’t gone public with my personal romantic relationship with a pro-domme a lot of the feedback I got was “It seems like you’re frustrated about…”
I understood why I got that response, after all the internet has made writing about yourself the dominant subject of written communication, but it was in fact for every person who’d ever unwittingly gotten Worked because they weren’t Smart to the business, and it was for every pro that had to deal with Marks not respecting their boundaries or the boundaries of their work.
Erotic hypnosis, for most of us (myself included and I dated a hypnodomme for god’s sake and I write scripts to pay my bills) is a fantasy and fetish. Yes, it is also a lifestyle and yes there are lifestyle dommes out there for you. Regardless of what you want and what you are doing, you still need to understand what you are doing.
Asking a Domme to command you when you’re not in a designated and agreed upon lifestyle/real-time D/S relationship is you trying to work her for more of your fantasies. This is different than you buying a wishlist gift or sending a tribute because that’s just a tip.
You’re a fan, you’re a consumer, they’re entertainers and performers. We’re blessed, all of us on both sides, to be able to reach out to each other to share out experiences and joys within this scene. Where else, and in what other medium can you easily drop a line to your favorite performer and have them write you back?
Just remember, in the words if the words of one wrestling pundit, “You’re getting worked bro.”
Hope you enjoyed,
-J.T. Meyer
But seriously people, don’t come at me with that whole ‘You’re really pessimistic” thing because this is a behind the scenes, no role-play, real life look.
I live this life, I see this life, I know this life, this isn’t all there is but this is a big part of how it is.
And honestly, it’s still great and it doesn’t take anything away from your fantasies as long as you let them be what they are.
Or as Nikki Fatale always used to say, “Play safe.”
Anyway, if you have questions or ideas for future articles, of if you just want to reach out and say hello, feel free to drop me a line.
Also, if you appreciated this article, I’ve created a $1.00 tip goody. I was thinking about selling the articles themselves like I do free stories, but this seems easier for everyone in the long and short run.
