#S2E35 | Erotic Hypnosis and more

Wild & Sublime Podcast Transcript

#S2E35 | Erotic Hypnosis and more

[Wild & Sublime theme music]

Lois Lane: You can do any kind of thing with hypnosis. We like to call it sort of "the hot sauce of kink."

Karen Yates: Welcome to Wild & Sublime, a sexy spin on infotainment®, no matter your preferences, orientation, or relationship style, based on the popular live Chicago show. Each week, I'll chat about sex and relationships with citizens from the world of sex positivity. You'll hear meaningful conversation, dialogues that go deeper, and information that can help you become more free in your sexual expression. I'm sex educator Karen Yates.

Today, one person shares her experience with erotic hypnosis. Plus, we'll hear a sexy song in celebration of our birthday. Keep listening.

If you did not hear last week's episode — yes, this is our podcast birthday month, and we will be giving away gifts on Instagram. So follow us there, if you don't already. Plus for the entire month of August, we will be giving our Afterglow members on Patreon access to "Butt Basics," the webinar we did with sex educator Ren Grabert about posterior play. Do you have questions about how to put things in your butt and make it a pleasurable experience, like everyone claims it can be? We will answer those questions, and have you or a partner sticking things up your butt in no time. Wheee! Support our work— [laughing] Support our work and get this webinar by joining The Afterglow, starting at just $5 a month. Plus, bonus content, like Q&A sessions with sexperts, my audio creator notes, special announcements, and more. You'll be helping us meet our monthly expenses and feel good at the same time, hopefully in your hiney. If a monthly membership is not your thing, consider throwing some bucks in the tip jar in appreciation for our work. More info is in the show notes.

Hey folks. Today we'll be looking at erotic hypnosis, a subject that's come into its own in the past few years, with a lot of articles being written about it. Hypnosis has a few different uses in the sexual arena. It can help people with pain during penetrative sex, premature ejaculation, and other physical issues when done with a certified hypnotherapist, one that specializes in sexual wellness. But we'll be talking more about the erotic and kinky uses of hypnosis on this episode, and how it can boost sensation, or not. Last year, I interviewed one person about how she found hypnosis as a cool new kink. Lois — not her real name — now runs the Mesmer Hypnosis group in Chicago. This interview was done at The Boxcar in January 2020. As Lois herself is quick to say, she is not a certified hypnotherapist, but you'll get good information from her story. Enjoy.

[to Lois] First off, what is erotic hypnosis?

Lois Lane: Okay, so this sounds like a very, like, fundamental question, right? Most people have this idea of hypnosis as being like, "You're just gonna make me cluck like a chicken and then you somehow find that hot?" Which, I mean, sure, there could be those people. I'm not that person, so—

Karen Yates: I think most people are just thinking "blowjobs." [laughs]

Lois Lane: Right? Yeah. There could be any number of things, right? So erotic hypnosis is basically you're gonna be like, "alright, duh, Lois." It's hypnosis used in any kind of context. And what hypnosis is is also super confusing to people. So, it is focused concentration. And most people are gonna be like, alright, yeah, what? Well, here's the deal. Almost everybody, multiple times a day, is probably hypnotized at some point. So, like—

Karen Yates: Like Instagram?

Lois Lane: Well, yeah, sure, exactly. Literally, if you're doing something mindlessly — anyone here who's in endurance sports, if you're, like, in the zone, that's sort of a feeling of that. If you're into BDSM — subspace, pretty similar. If you're into, like, yoga, meditation, that kind of stuff. All of this is just different flavors. And so, you can do any kind of thing with hypnosis, which is, I think, what makes it really fun, but also really hard to talk about and explain to people. We like to call it sort of "the hot sauce of kink." I have other food analogies that tend to get longer and weirder. But with the idea that there are some people who literally just kink on the act of hypnosis, who find the idea of hypnotizing somebody, of being hypnotized, that sort of thing. They just find it so hot.

Karen Yates: Because it's sort of like — it's like a Dom/sub thing.

Lois Lane: Yeah, there's a ton of power dynamics that go into it. But if that's not your thing, it can just be fun and relaxing and cool and chill, and a fun way to de-stress. But you can do all kinds of stuff. And it can be woven into all kinds of play. If you're into D/s stuff, I mean, is there anything that's really hotter than being like, "Are you doing this thing because you want to do this thing, or are you doing this thing because I'm so in your head, and you're doing it because, like, I really want you to do it, and you can't really tell the difference?" Like you can, you know, play with that. If you're into rope, you can play around with sensation on stuff. You can — I don't know, like, stick somebody to a wall and just make them stick there, and not be able to move, and, like, watch whatever happens. There's all kinds of different fun stuff that you can do with it that really runs the gamut from, like, very pretty vanilla. You'll hear a lot about hypnosis, more in a clinical, in a therapeutic context, for stuff like weight loss or smoking cessation, or things like that. Up to, like, crazy impact things. I was at a hypnosis convention this past weekend, and I was watching a demo with a single tail, and changing how—

Karen Yates: Okay, single tail. What's that?

Lois Lane: A single tail whip, if anyone is familiar with this. So this is usually not a thing that feels gentle. Not so much. And, like, changing the feeling of that.

Karen Yates: So the person under hypnosis is experiencing the whip as a different sensation.

Lois Lane: Totally different sensation.

Karen Yates: Like a spaghetti noodle...?

Lois Lane: Yeah, you could do that. There's a lot of different tricks you can do with hypnosis. So you could — and this particular person, who has demo-bottoming, which is what we call somebody who's there for all of this — was really—

Karen Yates: Wait, wait. Okay, go back. Demo bottom — oh, you mean, like, within a workshop?

Lois Lane: Yeah. In a workshop. Somebody who really likes pain. And so, we're playing with this idea of turning the pain off, turning the pain up, changing arousal. Does something like turning your arousal, almost like a dial — can you turn it up? Could you turn it down?

Karen Yates: Okay, so getting to arousal and hypnosis, and looking at the non-kinky applications. Let's talk about people who experience pelvic pain, like vaginismus — like, they have trouble having sex, because there's so much pain in their pelvic area. Could erotic hypnosis help with something like that?

Lois Lane: So the first caveat that I give on all of this is that I just screw around with this stuff. I am by no means a clinician. I am by no means sort of like an officially trained certified practitioner. There are people that are great at that. But that said, if you are of sort of the sciency nerd persuasion — hi, right here — you know, there's some really interesting medical literature that's out there that's an academic journals, that's in scientific journals, that looks at hypnosis as a form of, almost an anesthetic, as a pain relief for anxiety. And there's a lot of studies and kind of clinical research about the different applications of it.

Karen Yates: Were we talking about firewalking? Kind of the hypnotic state you have to be in to walk on fire?

Lois Lane: We were not. But that sounds interesting.

Karen Yates: Okay. It was this idea of being in a situation where you're taking in pain, but then if you break the spell, if you will, people can be hurt. Talk to me a little bit about the trust implications of erotic hypnosis.

Lois Lane: So one of the things that just has to be completely said from the outset with hypnosis is that we take consent so seriously. It is an area in which there is a lot of thorny, complicated consent issues that you might not see in another context. And to me, consent and trust are, like, hand in glove. I really have to trust the person that I'm going to play with. If I am on the top side, if I am working as a hypnotist, or if I'm on the bottom side, I think that there's a lot of vulnerability that you have to kind of let somebody, like, play around in your head a little bit. And you really need to trust the person that you're working with. You really need to walk through what's in, what's out, consent. We have a local hypnosis group in town. It's called Mesmer. And we're on Fet. We will share links, and all that good stuff. And every meeting we have, we probably spend the first 15 minutes walking through our consent policy, and what that means and what that looks like. Because you really are accessing an altered state, and all of the stuff that comes up about negotiation. Do you negotiate mid-scene? All that sort of stuff really has to be thoughtfully worked through.

Karen Yates: Do you think folks come to erotic hypnosis thinking they're going to, quote-unquote, get something?

Lois Lane: Oh, yeah. I think that there's—

Karen Yates: [laughs] You know what I mean.

Lois Lane: Yeah! I think that there's a lot of different things that draw people to it. I think some people like just the novelty — like, the sheer novelty of like, what the absolute hell is this? I think we got a lot of people who are interested in more sort of D/s stuff, who really want to be controlled, or want to — people that are maybe very much dominant, who want to weave something into their play. You know, I think that there's other people that are like... I do a lot of demos. When you're hypnotized, it's called a trance. And I do a lot of first-time trances for people. To give them a sense of kind of what it feels like. And for a lot of people, they're like, "Huh! That was not at all what I was expecting."

Karen Yates: Do people remember what they've gone through?

Lois Lane: Yeah, I think so. Myself — and again, just speaking as me — I can pretty much remember everything. I'm a little fuzzy. Like, I sometimes feel... You know that moment when you've gotten home from the end of a long day, and maybe you haven't had time for a lot of food, and like, you pour a very large glass of wine. And that sort of moment when it kicks in, and you're like, "Yeah, that's good." Like, that is sort of what that feels like to me. You know, a little fuzzy, a little soft, but I'm able to remember stuff. That said, there is definitely a whole field of hypnosis, especially erotic hypnosis, that's called memory play specifically, that deals with amnesia, having people forget things, having people mis-remember things. And that goes back to the idea of consent and trust. That if you're really going to play in that space, you really need to trust that somebody is not going to manipulate you in a way that could be dangerous.

Karen Yates: I would love to ask you about some of your early personal experiences.

Lois Lane: Sure. Okay. So, I have been in and around the hypnosis scene on and off for about 15 years, but in a very different context. I had an ex-boyfriend, he is a fantastic hypnotist. And he is one of these people who just kinks on the act of hypnosis. We were probably, like, early 20s — and we're all dumb in our early 20s. Like, we just are. And so you know, you're kind of working through stuff, and you're trying to talk through relationships, and the night that he came out to me, to be like, "So... I like hypnosis." And it was like, I mean, cool. Magic shows are fun. And he's like, "No, no — like, hypnosis." And I was like, okay, I feel like there's more here. Can we unpack that a little more? And he's like, "Okay, fine. Like, it's really fucking hot." And I was like, all right, sure. So he's like, "Can I hypnotize you?" And I was like, I mean, you can try. Which turns out to be pretty much the biggest impediment for someone who wants to be hypnotized, is if you can believe that you're going to be hypnotized or not. And I was like, this sounds like nonsense, but I'm a mediocre girlfriend, so I'll play along. And it didn't work, not well at all.

And so we kept trying. And like, it's really sort of awkward. And he was still figuring it out. Because he really hadn't had a chance to do this with somebody like in real life. There were some moments where it was like, "Is this a thing? Like, it's kind of working..." But it was fun. It was really, like, academically interesting. And he got better, and I got better. And it's just like any skill: you have to sort of work at it, you have to kind of train your mind, train your muscles. So we'd broken up, like four times. And I went to visit him for what was basically a weekend booty call. And I had been like, "Hey, let's just do this." And, oh my gosh, it was just like hitting a home run out of the ballpark. There are so many things that we did that I — true story — have no memory of, because it was like, we just really gelled. And we were doing all of this sort of like, hypnosis play. And it was something — we have each written about this, so I try and be really respectful of privacy, that I'm not, like, oversharing. But he was doing something where he was like, "Every time I say your name, your arousal will build, and I'm just gonna basically pin you to the wall and say your name again and again and again, until you're, like, ready to just explode." And he did another thing where — there's something in hypnosis that's called a posthypnotic suggestion. So—

Karen Yates: "Manchurian Candidate," anyone?

Lois Lane: Right? Super fun. But it's this idea that you can give somebody a suggestion while they're hypnotized, that they're going to come back to later. You know, I've seen a couple of demos where it's like, when it's safe and appropriate, these are important safety words, right? Because every time you see the color red, you'll start to get turned on. Safe and appropriate is key, because, like, stop signs, right? Like, if you're in a car that's maybe not how you want to drive. Some people do —  don't yuck your yum. So he gave me some suggestion that the next day at breakfast, he would say something, and all of a sudden, I would just have this wave of pleasure that floats through my body, but I would not know that this had been happening. Like, I wouldn't remember the suggestion, I wouldn't remember anything, we would just be sitting there, like, having breakfast, and he would say this word, and all of a sudden... So, that happened. And I was like, "Whaaat has just happened?" Like, lightning bolt through your body, out of nowhere. And it was really kind of this weekend that it clicked for us, and how this could work. For each of us — I think it was like a hugely confidence-building experience for him. For me, I was hooked on the, like, "This is incredibly interesting. What more can we do with this?" And so, he got very involved in the community nationwide — erotic hypnosis community. And I was always like, "So, tell me more. What are you up to?" He's like, "Well, St Andrew's cross this..." And I was like, what? And he'd tell me different things, and I'm like, tell me more, tell me more! Enough of this living vicariously through you, and hearing all the stories and kind of saying this stuff. I want to learn how to do this. And I want to learn how to do it well, and I want to understand it. I don't want to just do the parlor trick, I really want to understand it. And then it felt a little bit like stuff exploded for me. And it's been really, like, a fun journey.

Karen Yates: Now you run a group.

Lois Lane: Yeah! I run a group with a couple other great people. We meet monthly. And we have this interesting format. So, we tend to meet at LRA, which is a local dungeon in town, for those who don't know. And we usually have some demos. We obviously walk through consent. We teach people some of the basic things that you can do, so you can — kind of give you the building blocks. I always try to set the expectations low, that even though we're in a dungeon, most of the activities that you're going to see are pretty G-rated. But we talk about how you can turn up that dial. If you want to play around with having somebody fixated on your necklace, right? Like your super-cool necklace. Like if you want to have somebody fixated on that, cool. Now, what's a way that you could change that recipe a little bit? What if you really wanted to get somebody dialed in on something else? Like, I don't know, like, a body part. That sounds fun. Like, you can't look at anything else, you can't think about anything else other than this one thing. So we try to talk about how you can weave things into play, and give people some building blocks, and then a space to practice. The other format we do is every so often, we also just get together for dinner and talk about all of our weird shenanigans.

Karen Yates: And we will be putting your group information up on the site.

Lois Lane: Please! We're desperately trying to grow the group, trying to get new faces. And we've been really lucky. There's been a lot of interest.

Karen Yates: I know — it seems like it's in the air right now. Like, a lot of people are tuning into this.

Lois Lane: Yeah. I'm excited.

Karen Yates: Awesome. Thank you so much, Lois. [applause]

For more information on Mesmer Hypnosis Group Chicago, go to our show notes or our website, at wildandsublime.com, and look under "Sexual Resources." Remember, when you engage in erotic hypnosis, it's important to have a partner that you trust. If you'd like to read more about erotic hypnosis, purchase "Mind Play: A Guide to Erotic Hypnosis," by Mark Wiseman, and also the study guide. "Mind Play" is recommended by the Mesmer Hypnosis Group, and when you purchase it through our Bookshop affiliate link, you help independent booksellers and Wild & Sublime. Do you know someone who might be interested in erotic hypnosis? Send them this episode.

Wild & Sublime is also sponsored in part by our Sublime Supporter, Chicago-based Full Color Life Therapy. Therapy for all of you at fullcolorlifetherapy.com. If you would like to be a Sublime Supporter, showcasing you and your business and supporting us at the same time, contact us at . So as I said in the beginning, this is our birthday month, and we'll be giving the Butt Basics webinar to our Patreon subscribers. In honor of that, and it being Anal August as well, lt's hear a tune from musician-comedian Matt Griffo.

Matt Griffo: [singing] We did all the things that you wanted to do

You did each thing I asked of you

And you say there's a thing you like to try

A curiosity you can't deny...

Just a little bit of butt stuff

We'll go slow, what's the harm?

If it's going good, we'll use your whole arm

With just a little bit of butt stuff

You say maybe been a favorite thing

Well, I'll try anything once

Just watch your arm swings

With a little bit of butt stuff

[scatting]

Whoa, whoa, whoa—WHOA!

[speaking] Just hold up, let me stop for a second

It got way too fast, and I tensed up

But I'm easing into it

[sung] Please go slow

Because I don't know

What my hole knows

To a little bit of butt stuff

Just a little bit of ha ha ha

A little bit of wah wah wahh,

Just a little bit of butt stuff...

[scatting]

Karen Yates: For more information on Matt Griffo, go to our show notes. [music]

In addition to being a somatic sex educator, I also do healing work with sound, both remotely on Zoom groups, and in person. Biofield Tuning uses frequency to help repattern your bioelectric field, and can support you in getting out of stuck behaviors and feel better. One client said, "After two sessions, I felt noticeably freer and lighter." For more information, go to karen-yates.com. That link is in the show notes. Well, that's it folks have a very pleasurable week.

Thank you for listening. If you know someone who might be interested in this episode, send it to them. Do you like what you heard? Then give us a nice review on your podcast app. You can follow us on social media @wildandsublime and sign up for newsletters at wildandsublime.com. I'd like to thank associate producer Julia Williams and design guru Jean-Francois Gervais. Theme Music by David Ben-Porat. This episode was edited by The Creative Imposter studios. Our media sponsor is Rebellious Magazine, feminist media, at rebelliousmagazine.com.