Mind Control

[NoJo]

Going back to the original q of this thread:

Yep, I think it's more a male thing.

I have been hypnotized by professional women hypnotists and "hypno-dommes" and I find it very erotic. Much more erotic than being whipped, or tortured. Quite honestly, I think you have to be pretty disfunctional somewhere inside to wish to be REALLY tortured. Frankly, my "Sub" side is entirely based around mind control.
Wanting your mind controlled is really a bit like wanting to be held, or tied up -- basically you want to be swaddled like a baby. I think a lot of women have seen that in men, and probably have a similar desire themselves at times.

I know this is a common male fantasy, and I also think I know why: (And this may sound sexist, but it's really just about how men and women have different roles in society and relationships -- not a statement that they MUST have different roles) -- it's because men often feel a lot of pressure of reponsibility to be in control. "Repsonsible" men, often middle-aged "successful",breadwinners in a happy nuclear family, will typically go through a period where they wish they could forego their resposibilities, and litererally, lose their will.

With women, I think, I'm afraid the nearest equivalent is a rape fantasy -- to be forced to have sex against their will. Now I find rape a real turn-off. I don't like the violence that rape implies. Quite honestly, I think you have to be pretty disfunctional somewhere inside to wish to be REALLY raped. Of course, women's "rape" fantasies usually ften muchmore benign, "bodice-ripping" fantasies, i.e. the getting "done to" by a very active and controlling man. Not necessarily hurt or tortured. That's what I mean when I say it's the female counterpart of male Mind Control fantasies.

All of us want to abandon our will sometimes, and become passive. Sometimes we even want to become "objectified", where we have no will. After all, if we becaome objects, the sex won't be our "doing" -- we won't take the blame -- we're not responsible.

I explored Mind Control in a very dark trilogy, Annihilation (the last part of which I finished, but never posted).

If you don't feel you understand Mind Control and its attraction, and want to, then I think you should read Annihialtion. And I'm not trying to advertise here -- I think the story isn't particularly sexy, and I'm not that proud of it , it's more what I said above: An exploration. But I DID write it after a lot of thinking about the subject.

I've met a lot of women who want to control men's minds. Usually they want to because somewhere inside them they are using it as a defense against some kind of abuse they may have suffered at men's hands.

 

[DanielOrme]

I wrote a series involving mind control, or at least mental telepathy. Although in real life I find non-consentual sex to be abhorrent, the stories were couched in the vain that you couldn't arouse someone not already thinking about sex.

JJ1

That's my attitude, too. I enjoy reading Mind Control stories as fantasy, whether as a power fantasy, or of being completely abandoned to someone else's power. In fact, I find them far more arousing than BDSM. The fantasy seems purer somehow, where in BDSM stories you're always aware that the characters are enacting roles, which (for me, at least. I'm not a BDSM practitioner, so I confess I probably don't really get it) puts the fantasy at a bit of a remove.

But in writing my own stories (one posted, one pending) I couldn't do it that way. Both contain mind control elements, the first male-controlling-female, the second female-controlling-male, but in both I had to make it clear that the object was sexually attracted to the controller already. Otherwise, it would feel like rape to me, which I admit I can enjoy reading, but just can't write.

 

[Whispersecret]

Sub Joe, very good point about relinquishing control. I hadn't looked at it that way as applying to men and women. Thanks for such a thoughtful post.

And thanks everyone for such an interesting conversation!

 

[green_rook]

That's not enforcement. Not like complete mind control is. That's enticement. The man can choose not to act. In a mind control story, aren't the victims deprived of free will?

Again, difficult and not very useful to generalize. There is a significant sub-genre within MC fiction that's told from the point of view of the victim and in which s/he struggles with the decsion of whether or not to act (not entirely until a 1rst person story in which a man or woman is enticed by another and is struggling with whether or not to act). And, insterestingly enough, it seems that a majority of the stories written in this sub-genre are by female authors.

 

[Weird Harold]

The females seem to lean more to the kind of of "wrap him around my finger" kind of control they see other women have just because of their looks and sex appeal.

What Weird Harold said above is what I was trying to get across, but failed to. LOL. You're so succinct, WH. I love that about you.

One additonal "characteristic" of mind control stories in general, but especially Female mind controller stories, is that the first thing a victim is usually required to perform is oral sex.

I wonder if that isn't part of the appeal of mind-control stories -- how many of us haven't wished we could make our partners the "perfect lover" who will do whatever it takes to satisfy us?

Mind control stories are also "BDSM for the squeamish" -- They serve the same sort of fantasies of dominance and submission, but without the whips, chains and other paraphernalia.

 

[Whispersecret]

Well, color me chastised, green rook. I can see now that I've obviously been shooting my mouth off without much justification. I really haven't read all that many MC stories. And now I feel silly for having brought up the subject at all.

Well, at least I learned something, eh?

 

[NoJo]

I have to say I don't really agree with any of WH's three paragraphs at all. Which makes me realize that the subject is actually a lot more complex than I thought.

"BDSM for squeamish", though, is completely wrong. They are different sexual mores, (but are related). SM is more Guilt and Revenge , BD and MC=(s)mothering and infantilism. Of course, people are complicated. That's why we have so many stories here on lit.

 

[Couture]

Mind Control is not BDSM for the squeamish. I find much of what passes for mind control stories these days to be more related to scat. It's gotten so bad, I generally refuse to read any of them.

My idea of an innocent mind control story would be for the victim to be hypnotized to get incredibly turned on when seeing someone or hears a certain word. These semi-reluctant stories are a turn on for me.

Lately, by the end of the story, the victim has had their mind totally destroyed and and their only thought is the hypnotizer is their god or goddess. Even though their body is alive, the mind is destroyed. The victim has no choice.

It's about as close to scat as you can get. And it squicks me out.

 

[Whispersecret]

Well, Couture, that's what I thought. MIND CONTROL, not "Okay, you turn me on, so you can fuck with my mind" control.

But then again, I haven't read any MC for probably two years. Now I'm all confused.

 

[Quasimodem]

... I find much of what passes for mind control stories these days to be more related to scat.
My idea of an innocent mind control story would be for the victim to be hypnotized to get incredibly turned on when seeing someone or hears a certain word. These semi-reluctant stories are a turn on for me.
Lately, by the end of the story, the victim has had their mind totally destroyed and and their only thought is the hypnotizer is their god or goddess. Even though their body is alive, the mind is destroyed. The victim has no choice.
It's about as close to scat as you can get. And it squicks me out.

Sounds a bit like my latest piece, if one doesn't get the humourous intent behind the story. Of course, I was writing about alien domination, in return for a great sex surrogate. While it does contain an element of mind control, it is not the traditional variety.

Mind Control, to me, has always been something that Svengali had over Trilby. That, is a mind control story, whether the means to achieve it is hypnotism, drugs, brain implants, or even Skinneresque social conditioning.

On a seamier level, you will find the pimp. If he manages to convince his women to hook to earn money for him, for any reason, that is a form of mind control. If he must get the girl addicted to drugs, before she will hook for him, in order to maintain a flow of the drug, that is not mind control. Rather, that is a form of pharmaceutical blackmail.

That is why I put the story (finally) into Sci-Fi, because mind control was merely a peripheral issue.

If it was my story you are objecting to, Couture, I apologise. Sorry if I squicked you!

That was not my intent.

 

[Couture]

I actually rather liked the story Quasimodem. There, the main character makes a voluntary choice.

Now, if the alien had given her a lobotomy so, then I would have been squicked.