how may I serve you today Daddy?

Setting up that conversation to discuss this is a great idea. As difficult as it can be sometimes, sharing our concerns, worries and feelings with our dominants is an important part of the relationship. You should calmly explain your concerns and mention what he had told you about the status of both you and his play partner and how he had said he would present it. It’s possible it was just a misstep on his part and that the clarification is clear in his mind. If that’s the case, he should be able to alleviate your concerns and be willing to make a change in wording, as well as asking her to change hers as well. If he isn’t willing to make the change or criticizes you how you feel about it, then you may need to decide if this is a trust issue and where you want to go from there. Remember that, even as a submissive, your feelings are valid so if this is a concern for you, it is worthy of being addressed. Wishing you the best, anon.

(A while back I was getting a lot of questions about how I do brainwashing, so I wrote this! Please enjoy it!)

So, you want to brainwash your partner, eh? Like, really, really brainwash them? Maybe you’re curious what that entails from the other side!

Well, maybe I can help you out.

This series is intended to be a helpful guide of sorts on how to condition your partner into being the best brainwashed toy / slave / drone / what have you. This series is NOT about brainwashing role play scenes and instead will focus on practical applications and long term change.

In this post, we’ll be discussing the basics of what forms brainwashing can actually take as well as the main tools of the trade: conditioning.

First off, let’s talk about intent. What does brainwashing mean to you? What does the epitome of a brainwashed partner even mean in reality? Sure, it’s hot in fiction, but what are the real qualities of being brainwashed that you want to achieve with your partner? This is one of those infinite sneaky areas of erotic hypnosis where one word can mean many different things to different people.

Like many things in this community, I recommend having a conversation with your partner about what brainwashing might be. Maybe it means that they will always be weak to your touch. Maybe it means that they will be inclined to agree with you. Maybe it means that they always like the same shows you like. Maybe all of these things and much, much more, and maybe they have some preconceived notion of what being brainwashed is, too.

For me and cc, it means that I can influence her thoughts and emotions at will. It means that she is inclined to like what I like. It means that she is dependent on me to some degree and desires and craves my company. It means that she obeys what I tell her, often without the feeling of being able to choose not to. It means that while she retains some of her identity, where she ends and I begin becomes a blurred line. And of course, it means she adores sexually serving me.

It’s your job to get yourselves on the same page about all of it and find mutual goals. I recommend making a concrete list of these goals by yourself and encouraging this from your partner.

After all, your partner must provide informed consent to the level that both of you are comfortable with.

Now, when I talk about brainwashing, I’m already going to start assuming a 24/7 relationship of some sort, because brainwashing is an all day, every day business. You really cannot do part time or “casual” brainwashing. You will be affecting your partner in ways that you may not be able to foresee. I am coming at this from the angle of not just being in a relationship, but also having a 24/7 consensual nonconsent D/s and Owner/property relationship. This gives me a lot of leway with how I approach things and I recommend negotiating for some amount of “dubious consent” since you don’t know how your influence will affect their decision making about play, etc. In this scenario with me and cc, it is acceptable for me to change my goals along the way and not necessarily tell cc what they are. This is not OK in every, or most, relationships. YMMV. (I do, however, find it useful to clue her in on changes I am making; she is predisposed to want to make them as well. Consider the fact that you are enlisting the help of your partner’s brain in making changes to them.)

THE RISKS: There are many, and they somewhat depend on what you decide brainwashing to be. Some issues would be: dependency; how your partner fares with being away from you for various periods of time. Falling in love; these are serious feelings we are playing with here that invite intimacy, even if it is not the goal. Things getting more intense than you expect them to get. Not being able to trust that your partner’s opinion is not influenced by you. These too and more are all things that you and your partner should be aware of and take steps to mitigate if need be.

Now, let’s talk how-tos.

Operant conditioning and classical conditioning will be a large swath of your toolsets for this. Do yourself a favor and do some research beyond what I describe here. This is a layman’s understanding.

Both operant and classical conditioning involve controlling behavior. The main difference between the two is that in operant conditioning, the behavior is controlled by the reward or punishment, whereas in classical conditioning the association with a stimulus creates reflexive behavior.

Let’s talk about operant conditioning and define rewards and punishments.

Positive reinforcement: behavior is rewarded. (Sub brings you a glass of water when asked. You give them a pat on the head.)

Negative reinforcement: in behavior that has a negative stimulus attached, that stimulus is removed. (Sub has heard you speak disapprovingly about the cleanliness of their room. Sub cleans knowing that it will stop you from saying those things.)

Positive punishment: behavior is followed by a stimulus that is found aversive. (Sub ignores an order. You give them a stern talking-to about how disappointed that made you.)

Negative punishment: behavior that has a positive stimulus attached is followed by removing that stimulus. (Sub ignores an order because they are having fun playing Skyrim. You hide the XBOX in response.)

This is the bread and butter of training your partner to learn new, good behaviors, and stop unwanted ones.

So then, moving on to classical conditioning, you can begin to associate certain behaviors with certain responses. Pavlov’s dogs, where the dogs associated a bell being rung with food, is an example of classical conditioning. In the kinky world, you can link all sorts of things together, like having a certain collar that is worn only during play time (the collar then elicits feelings of excitement, expectation, and submission).

There is one final item I’d like to address before we move on, and it is what I call CONSTANT VIGILANCE.

(In psychology terms, I learned that this is basically a concept called extinction. I like mine better.)

Extinction occurs when a response that had previously been conditioned is no longer effective, after a period of time of not reinforcing it anymore.

This basically means that you have a lot of work to do to keep these behaviors going. The more behaviors and and rules and changes you add, the more YOU also are accountable for. No one said brainwashing would be easy! You must constantly be paying attention and prepared to reinforce behavior, continue to condition stimulus, punish if necessary!

Most of us are familiar with the oft-repeated myth that it takes 21 days or something to form a new habit. While I think there is some truth to the idea of a behavior getting easier to manage as it becomes habitual, reinforcement cannot end when you feel you have hit that point. There IS no magic place where something is suddenly a habit.

Side note: punishment, not funishment. If your sub is getting some sort of pleasure from something intended as a punishment, chances are that your signals are getting mixed somewhere. This may be fun, but it’s no good for actual training! You also may want to examine it if YOU are getting pleasure out of the punishment… That’s not a deal breaker, but something to keep and eye on to ensure that you’re not training YOURSELF poorly!

This is why I see “brainwashed” as more of a constant process rather than a state. It is also a mindset that you as the dominant partner will need to get used to. There are some cheats you can use to make some of the conditioning more hands-off, but I’ll talk about those in a little bit.

“But sleepingirl!” you say. “All we’ve talked about so far is just good old fashioned training! Where does hypnosis fit in to all of this?”

Well, I’m thrilled you asked.

It’s easy to see where hypnosis comes in handy here. That simple pat on the head that you give to your partner can have some other effects behind it that your sub was hypnotized to feel. Maybe it’s just a snap and they get a powerful good feeling all through their body. Maybe they’ve always wanted to swallow your cum, but there’s fear attached to it, so you work to remove the fear to encourage that behavior.

And when we go back to classical conditioning, hypnosis really shines. It removes all of the effort of taking the time to associate a behavior and stimulus. You can do it in minutes, even seconds with hypnosis. I have found that trance is this amazing place where those associations happen quickly and naturally. You want a the sound of a bell to be associated with sex? Put someone in trance and have them go through having sex in their mind while that bell rings. With hypnosis, you can have them experience that hundreds of times in only a few moments.

(Side note, many traditional hypnotic triggers work on the basis of classical conditioning, so applying this knowledge to your usual hypnosis play will improve your suggestions!)

With cc and I, we are at a point where I can just tell her “you will associate these two things” and her brain will just do it.

Condition your partner to get better at being conditioned, and condition them to condition themselves! Give your partner the ability to reward themselves: maybe there is a spot on their arm that they can press when they feel like they have done a good service to you. Associate them hearing the words “thank you” from you with positive feelings of satisfaction and duty. Have them masturbate nightly while thinking about some task that you really want them to enjoy… So much of this goes back to really digging in to find what “brainwashing” means for the both of you.

As a side note, I do NOT use hypnosis for punishment. I suspect it would create a negative association with hypnosis itself and that is the opposite of what I want. In general, I use a light touch with correction and punishment; the worst thing for many subs is to know that their dominant is disappointed in their behavior. And yes, I reinforce that by reinforcing our roles as owner and property and the fact that cc wants my approval beyond all else.

“But sleepingirl!” you say. “I get that you can use hypnosis to enhance conditioning, but how do you get from just having a well trained partner to someone who is really brainwashed?”

Great question, and this kind of loops back to “what is brainwashing?” So I’ll just talk about my relationship here and hopefully this is inspiring to you.

For me, I want cc to unequivocally believe that she is brainwashed and must follow my orders at any time because it is the right thing to do. If I break this down, it means that she must feel like I own her and that my orders are right and good and satisfying to follow. So I spend a lot of time hypnotizing her and having her associate my voice with pleasure and satisfaction, as well as making sure she is compelled by something deep inside of her to obey. We also do a lot of play where I reinforce that I own her body and mind.

I also want cc to be more inclined to enjoy the things that I enjoy as far as vanilla hobbies. So when we are out shopping for me, I’m sure to give her little “treats” of attention or pleasure so that she begins to associate doing things with me as being fun. This also applies to watching TV and movies; cc loves to tell the story of the time that I made her watch Kill Bill (she doesn’t like Tarantino films, or violence) and enjoy it by talking about how stylistically sexual the film was. In general, I found that just conditioning her to be more submissive to me and conditioned to enjoy my happiness made her more inclined this way.

And very importantly, I want to be able to control her thoughts and emotions and to feel the way I want her to feel. Sometimes this just means exerting control randomly to remind her that I CAN do that. Many times too I want her to feel as though she can’t help but obey me, like there is no other choice. So I often am playing with very internal, subjective feelings for her and trying to create the feeling of compulsion.

Giving that attention to things that she’s feeling internally that are not necessarily as flashy and visible from the outside is really my personal turning point between someone who is well trained versus brainwashed. It’s also something I really happen to enjoy doing.

Honestly, I happen to enjoy the entire process of conditioning cc, and she enjoys it too, so this makes us really suited for this style of relationship. Not everyone likes the level of micromanagement I describe here, and that’s totally OK. You can tweak all of this to suit your desires and the desires of your partner.