No, there IS something wrong with you:
What we hate to ask and admit about erotic hypnosis
To start, the title of this blog is intentionally incendiary, not just to shock you into reading it, but to warn you out of the gate that things are going to get a little dark and a little controversial here.
Having a fetish, having this fetish in particular, you’ve probably asked yourself more than once if these desires come from a social or emotional defect within your psyche, or your self, if your proclivities come from a deep-seated insecurity in your character, or maybe some kind of self-effacing narcissism that tells you over and over again that for you to be a viable romantic partner it requires your mind to be under the externalized and overt influence of a woman who is preying on you.
Here’s the answer each and every one of us needs to hear when we are experiencing the long dark night of the masturbator’s soul:
No.
Having submissive desires, and having them manifest in the intellectual realm of hypnosis as opposed to the physical realm of whips and chains, does not belay a core emotional damage stemming from a tragedy in your socialization and emotional upbringing.
People develop fetishes, generally speaking, from an early exposure to the focus of their fetish in an intimate (not sexual, but simply close) and vulnerable setting at a young age and in a fashion that it leaves an impression, and then as puberty sets in, a continued exposure either externally or internally (as in the thought’s in your head) in a fashion that is either overtly or tangentially sexual.
Interest in bondage of any kind is often a form of self-balance in one’s own life, and is married to the intimacy and genetic success coding of sexual interactions, as in sex is both catharsis and accomplishment so the act of engaging in bondage for and with emotional/sexual release rewards the psyche for the action.
That’s the fancy version of masturbating after work and taking a nap.
All of the above is cobbled together by some research, some observation, some conversation, and a lot of pattern recognition. So, take it with a grain of salt.
Here’s my theory about bondage and fetishes and sex, I’ll make it quick:
Sex feels good, sexual reproduction is the genetic mark of success for humanity in the broadest possible way. I’m not saying not having kids, and/or not fucking makes you a loser, I’m saying that from the Darwinian perspective we live to reproduce, and if we don’t do that we’re coming up short.
With that in mind, the psycho-sexual components of how we cope with outside stressors and learned/imprinted sexual behaviors (I’m referring to bondage and fetishes here) is motivated by a simple genetic need to reproduce and prove ourselves successful in the Darwinian sense. So, every time we climax, we are proving to our bodies/fooling our bodies into being successful. That’s also why cumming can be an appetite suppressant, and a stress reliever.
Even simpler, everything is about sex and mortality, and that means our fetishes too are as a result of coping with external factors.
That’s a lot of blah blah blah to get to this:
All that said, you might be fucked up, and your degree of being fucked up can be reinforce and become symbiotic with your fetish. Further, your specific fetish may have resulted from some emotionally questionable experiences.
Essentially, having low self-esteem, or other deeper emotional issues is not a prerequisite for an interest in bondage, erotic hypnosis, or even humiliation, BUT, chances are you have some fucked up stuff in your life that your erotic hypnosis fetish IS affected by, if not an answer to.
Let’s get into it!
Yes, You Have Low Self Esteem:
I’ve written in the past about who has a hypnosis fetish, who has an interest in what hypnosis can be used for, and now I’m going to talk about a shared social quality that is likely found in both types of people:
Feeling bad about yourself… well, feeling bad about yourself to an above average degree.
First of all, having a fetish makes you a little out of the range of normal right? Yes, every one has their kinks, but as I’ve said in my FAQ what makes a fetish a fetish is how compulsive it is, and how it is not inherently sexual in its own context.
I mean, we’re into hypnosis and…
(And you’re reading this and depending on how powerful your fetish is you’re thinking ‘bullshit, hypnosis is at very least intimate and sensual because of this this and that’ and okay yes, I almost went off on a side tangent about that but let’s stay on theme here.)
…Hypnosis is not a sex act to most people. It’s an entertainment tool, it’s a therapeutic tool, and it’s a tool for self-exploration and personal growth, as well as a means of experiencing the natural phenomena of trance.
But how the fuck do you tell someone that’s what your kink is?
I don’t mean, I don’t know how my mouth works, how do I say those words, I mean, how the fuck do you communicate that on a conceptual level, and that being as weird as it is, how the fuck will anyone who doesn’t share it understand it.
That’s self-esteem strike one right there.
Strike two comes from demographics, as in the well trod by me ground of who is prone to having a hypnosis fetish in the first place.
Do you know how many of you guys I’ve talked to about LEGOS, wrestling, DnD, and all sorts of awesome nerd stuff?
The answer is lots.
And while there’s some self-selection going on here for the polling data (it’s word of mouth, there is no real data), the connection is that most of us are nerds. I mean I know I am, and I grew up with the anxieties of being a nerd and the low self-esteem our people are known for having.
(Alternate strike two: you’re a closeted LGBTQ person, or a person who is beginning to explore who and what you are in a hetero-normative world that is generally not kind to you, and your interest in hypnosis stems from how it can enable and/or excuse your predilections depending on your degree of self-hate.)
The third strike for Low Self-Esteem is the result of a forced baseball analogy so stick with me here.
Someone wants to hypnotize you for sex.
Some lady wants to put you in trance for the purpose of sexing you.
Why?
Well that’s story specific, but the idea of it gets you revved up.
The idea it tantalizing and you want to experience what someone else is and does, what someone else can do to you.
Or, you want the more potent result of using hypnosis to enhance another fetish, basically hypnosis as a condiment.
Regardless, you end up with the need for someone else to give you the thing you need/want to be happy and successful.
It’s the same feeling and result as being unlucky in love, but it isn’t predicated on dating, it’s grounded on this thing inside of you that makes you different than most everyone else.
So, you churn this over and mix in the other two, and now we’re taking about baking instead of baseball, and all three feed off and inform each other.
That’s pretty much just what happens in our brains, so instead of the kind of low self esteem people generally have, you have a second layer to yours, one that orbits around your kink.
Then, instead of wondering how to own and communicate this part of yourself and take its power away, you start asking yourself ‘why’.
As in ‘why me’.
And here’s why you!
At this moment, when you’re in the ‘why me (why you)’ phase of thought everything’s all tangled up, and chances are you’re seeing yourself as someone who feels weak and feels flawed, so your mind starts to process the darker side of our fantasy world.
This isn’t you moving to more extremes as compensation (see next section), it’s you changing the narrative to match your feelings.
After all, you can only accept a suggestion you agree with, so being told you’re just a slave etc. speaks directly to those personal doubts by dehumanizing you, and even though hypnosis doesn’t necessarily work in such a way that your poor self image in moments of darkness will enable the suggestion to land more fully in your subconscious that is always working to protect your psyche, you are consciously validating your self-destructive view of your self by embracing this sort of theme to the power exchange and BDSM side of the fetish.
So there you are, yes there is something wrong with you, it just isn’t because you like this stuff.
Except, it totally is because…
Yes, You Live in a Fantasy World:
You’re expecting me to say something like, ‘but not one with elves and wizards’, but I do mean you’re living in a fantasy world of both magical thinking (wizards), and impossible beings (elves).
This one is maybe more conceptually complicated than Low Self-Esteem, but also faster to explain.
Remember earlier when I said that fetishes are compulsive and progressive? Well you don’t have to because I said it again.
And, well, they are.
That’s because sex is compulsive and sex is motivating.
I’ve got a buddy I message with fairly regularly about the meatier parts of erotic hypnosis, and I am going to use an exaggerated version of him/inspiration (he’s going to read this and know who he is, so hey, I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU I’M USING YOU AS A HYPOTHETICAL BASE… like I used myself for low self-esteem) to illuminate what I mean when I say fantasy world and compulsive behavior.
He started off liking the idea of hypnosis, and now he’s super into it as a tool, as an active means of others imposing their will and using suggestion to enhance his compliance.
He, (again, not really you buddy) is living in a compulsive fantasy world where his magical thinking about the power of trance, his willing participation is creating false parameters for what causes his D/s relationships to function. Basically hypnosis is as excuse for him to do things he needs permission to do.
That, in and of itself is actually why hypnosis is a powerful therapeutic tool for exploration and discovery, it alleviates some of the patient’s burden both in a perceived and in a meaningful and tangible way, because hypnosis is real.
But not like this.
Being in a trance state makes things sound like a good idea, and things that sound like your own good ideas sound even better coming from the mouth of a sexy lady already, so throw in a suggestible state and it’s almost magical isn’t it?
Well, here’s the thing.
By itself that’s what we like, it’s hot it’s fun, but it’s a thought process that you can feed in cycles, like shitty self-esteem, in that you start pushing for more. You want it to become and feel more real, more impactful, and as such, more meaningful via those other experiences.
You want it, because it gives you joy. You want more of it because it is filling a want/need inside of you, and you are fooling yourself by making it more real than it is, and you’re fooling yourself by assuming that just a little more, or just a little different, will be the magic bullet to make you all the way happy.
Because really, that all you’re actually after.
Being happy.
But your interactions with your own life and world, which can be a cruel fuck awful place, are such that a more extreme and imaginative view of how you can become happy is in your mind the most effective means of reaching that happiness.
Magical thinking about how we can be happy is no different than magical thinking about the upper limits of trance, of the realities of gnomes and dwarves dancing in dells.
Our upper limits of suggestibility do change from person to person, and when we play, when we commit and are truly in the moment, there is a kind of magic there, like the magic of a sunset or of genuine human connection, and the more desperate you are for good things in your life, the more powerful these moments and connections become.
But.
BUT.
If you don’t have perspective on where you are emotionally, and what you’re looking for, the compulsion to push, to try and get more of the same, to hope that more of the same will become something else, or that by pushing into different versions of the same thing, it will only perpetuate the fantasy you’re already too invested in.
So lets go back to the hyper-exaggerated example of my internet acquaintance. Being hypnotized wasn’t enough, it was good, but it wasn’t the magic bullet.
So, what could hypnosis do?
What else could hypnosis add? What fantasies could be made real?
What possible realities could be enhances and augmented by fantasy? To be made magical? And, how could he will these things together into a collage of unrealistic expectations that his magical thinking enables?
This kind of magical thinking, this penitent for uncontrolled escapism run amuck across the spectrum of your own inner life, usually comes from an absence of something else, of something meaningful, which is why the quest for meaning in life (the great question of existence really) is sublimated into the sex drive and as such, one’s corresponding fetishes.
(All of that last paragraph is broad supposition, moderate research, and observation based opinion.)
So, here we are, two examples of ways our deep emotional damage can creep into our fetishes, both informing their influence on us and bolstering the kinds of negative relationships with them we often have.
There’s more that can be said about shame, self-control, the role of hypnosis in both and how we think about/process both, as well as conversations about our other manifest damages and how they are all tied together.
But, we’re 2300 words in, so we’ll call it a blog…
…after this.
Seriously, of course there’s some weird shit that goes on when you’re sexually aroused by the idea of being put into trance by a dominant woman.
Of fucking course there’s some weird shit going on when a lady saying ‘loooooook into my eyes’ gives you a chub.
That’s obvious.
That’s why it’s harder to explain than, “I want a sexy lady to tie me up.”
But that’s the thing, there’s weird, then there’s self destructive and dangerous.
Everyone is weird.
I mean, Scarlett Johansson voicing a hypno-snake was kind of a giddy thrill (in concept) for all of us right?
That’s kinda weird.
Everyone has kinks and weird shit.
Just look at Sonic the Hedgehog fan art.
Also, everyone has emotional damage.
That’s just life.
I’m not a mental health professional, obviously, and this op-ed. should not be viewed as anything other than a think piece.
Maybe you’ve been tired of people telling you that the thing that I started this article with.
Maybe you’ve doubted the veracity of those statements based on the people saying it making their living off of your fetish.
Seems obvious right? Why would they tell you your desires are bad if that would hurt their ability to make rent?
The degree of seriousness you’ve taken that statement is also an indication of how far into your own magical thinking you are.
Conspiracy theories like that an no different than any other over indulgence in fantasy…
Anyhow, because that started to go off into a whole other tangent let’s wrap this up…
If you have questions about your mental health and happiness, if you’re struggling with your relationship to your fetish, yes talking to like minded people can and does help, but nothing replaces actual assistance from mental health professionals.
If this was food for thought and you think it may have helped you at all, why not contribute a dollar to my coffee and comics fund… the things that keep me sane as I work.
And yes, today’s blog was brought to you by The Off-Spring, because in my heart it’s still the mid 90s.