Hypnokinked

Intimacy, it turns out. Selena cared about intimacy, and kink was a way for her to be intimate with others. Intimacy and sex are not the same. Intimacy can be in service of sex or sex can be in service of intimacy, or they can be completely separate..."

Oh my god-

On the one hand, it's taken from 'subject agency', which is a meaningfully useful framework not just because it promotes safer hypnosis but further because it promotes better hypnosis. You should recognize your agency as a subject, study it, improve it, and use it to become a better subject. If nothing else, it'll make hypnotists line up to want to trance you.

On the other hand, like. I can make you do things you don't want to do rather trivially. I don't even need the threat of pain. I can trick you into touching something you don't want to touch. I can talk you into signing something you shouldn't sign. I can push you into sitting down where you shouldn't sit. The idea that there exists a coherent "things you don't want to do" is like.

It's a useful idea for subject agency. Having a mental model of the self, an identity that you prevent yourself from contradicting, a core place you hold onto that stops you from violating yourself. That's deeply important. That's good. Not just for hypnosis, but for life. It will feel wrong at first to draw lines in the sand. They'll feel artificial, they'll feel like lies, they'll feel arbitrary. But in the end it'll make you a better subject and make you safer to be around.

... but this is because it's not natural. Imean, some people do it naturally. These people are usually the least traumatized amongst us, and thus the least marginalized. In queer spaces, we can expect subjects to struggle with these internal boundaries. To desire most of all to fit into the mold that others give them. Fawn responses and other self sabotage. How desperate are you to be told what you are? How much do you yearn to give in and just be a perfect reflection of my words? Do you trust me more than you trust yourself? I'd love to have a conversation but sometimes it feels like I'm just talking to myself.

You have the order of causation backwards here. "You can't be hypnotized to do anything you don't want to do" has nothing to do with subject agency, is in fact an agency-eroding truism, and is MUCH older than the concept of subject agency. The phrase originates outside of kink as essentially a way for hypnotherapists and stage hypnotists to reassure their clients/participants that they have nothing to be afraid of. Typically this was accompanied by something like "Your Subconscious Mind will automatically protect you from doing things you don't want to do" because a lot of these old school safety techniques rely on fabricating this "hidden observer" inside of you that is always watching and keeping you safe.

In my opinion, the "hidden observer" idea is incredibly dangerous as it simply does not work. It lulls subjects into a false sense of security and makes them believe they can passively accept any suggestions they are given and if they followed the suggestion, then it must have been safe to do so because otherwise the hidden observer would have intervened and protected them. When combined with "you can't be hypnotized to do anything you don't want to do" it can result in "well, I followed the suggestion, therefore I must have wanted it :)"

Within the kink community, promoting subject agency is a response to this older practice which creates a false sense of security. Subject agency isn't something that Happens. Subject agency is something you actively do. This is something I emphasize in all of my classes. Your ability to say no to your hypnotist while in trance is not any better than your ability to say no to your hypnotist while out of trance. Your ability to reject suggestions is no better than your ability to refuse to do something your hypnotist asks you to do outside of a scene.

Everything I teach about subject agency focuses on practicing actively intervening in the scene, actively using safe words, and not relying on a passive automatic other entity to protect you. There should be nothing passive about hypnosis. Subject agency is shorthand for the academic concept of Perceived Sense of Agency. When we are building subject agency, we are building how well subjects perceive themselves as able to exert agency over the scene. Exert is active. They must DO it. In my classes I often ask "Who here has ever done something they didn't want to do? Did you mom tell you to call her on Saturday and you didn't want to but you id anyway?" Hypnosis isn't going to be weaker at influencing you than your mom asking for a phone call. Especially if you desperately want to please your play partner.

This is why at the center-point moment of my subject agency class I emphasize that biggest things you can do to protect yourself are to work on becoming a less insecure person who is better at saying no to people and setting/enforcing personal boundaries. Think outside of hypnosis-land.

*SNAP*

Who said you need to think?

Who said you're allowed to think?

Who said you want to think?

I know for a fact that you don't.

Whether that's your own thought or I planted in your head, that's irrelevant

What matters is...

Your mind is off now

How hypnotized are you on a scale of one to ten?

One? Why one?

But you didn't say zero, so you're at least a little hypnotized. Why did you say one and not zero?

And then it's all just using clean language, repeating back what they say to you, asking them why they said that or to tell you more about it,

And periodically asking "on a scale of one to ten, how hypnotized are you?"

And the number goes up

And you say "oh so you're more hypnotized now than you were before? Why is that?"

And just keep repeating that cycle.

You ask the person

"Do you think you're hypnotized right now?"

And in response to the inevitable "No" you ask "Why not?"

Get their explanation and then dig at it. In the above example

"Because you haven't started yet" you could just ask "How do you know I haven't started yet?" (Bonus points for a smirk and a head tilt)

Get their answer to that, rinse and repeat, and when they seem unsure, or at a loss for words, or say something untrue which you then call out (i.e. "I don't feel absorbed" "Really? Name one other thing that happened in the room while we were doing this") Ask again:

"Do you think you're hypnotized right now?"

You should get a "Maybe" (if not go back to the questioning about why they think they're not)

Once you get that maybe, break it down into

"You seem a lot less sure. What makes you think you still might not he hypnotized?"

[Answer] you can either challenge the answer given directly or continue with

"And what are the things that make you thing that you ARE hypnotized?"

[Answer]

Repeat answer back to them. Etc.

Aforementioned other post:

I receive: You on your knees before me, desperately kissing the inside of my wrist as you pledge your fealty because you feel unworthy to touch my hand.