What Excites Us!

Episode 45: Hypno Kink with HypnoStory part 2

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to What Excites Us, the podcast that discusses sex and sexuality from a variety of perspectives. My name is Gwyn Isaacs. I am a certified sex coach who has been professionally helping folks feel good about their sexuality and how to approach it with glee since 2017. Today's episode is part two of two with HypnoStory, who uses they them pronouns, and loves to share the joy and power of hypnosis with most anyone who will listen.

[00:00:40] They have been doing various forms of hypnosis for over 25 years. They have taught for Charmed, Entranced, KinkyCon, and the Fetish Fair Flea market to name a few. In addition to erotic and recreational hypnosis, they also occasionally perform as a stage hypnotist, and they work with clients using hypnosis for personal growth. Together with their partner Panda, they offer kink and hypno kink education through their company, PandaStory. They also run CONsolation, which is a Discord server that presents kink education.

[00:01:18] We start this episode with my cynicism regarding hypnosis and how it can be misused. We talk about some of the misinformation out there and how to navigate unsavory players. We dive a bit deeper into that piece regarding kink in general and how to be safer when vetting playmates. We talk about how to engage in different play qualities and ways to approach hypnosis scenes even when you don't know specifically what you are aiming for. This is a really great conversation and HypnoStory is such a great teacher that you would be remiss to miss it.

[00:01:57] One quick note that HypnoStory refers to his partner as It and that is because it is one of the pronouns they use comfortably.

[00:02:08] I wanna go back a little bit to my cynical side, [00:02:12] HypnoStory: Sure,

[00:02:14] Gwyn: So I know that both with you and, I listen to sleep hypnosis stuff and, and just in general, one hears, you know, you're not gonna do anything that you don't wanna do.

[00:02:25] HypnoStory: Okay, so let me stop you right there, because that statement drives me crazy.

[00:02:33] Gwyn: Oh, good.

[00:02:34] HypnoStory: Because it is literally, it may be literally true, but there's a huge sin of omission, right? Let me start by saying, hypnosis does not remove agency. Okay? Because the person being hypnotized, it's happening in their brain. And therefore, at any time they can choose to reject a suggestion to modify a suggestion to bring themself out of trance. So long as they believe they can do it. Because if they don't believe that they can do it, they're not gonna try or they're gonna try in a way that they expect themselves to fail and essentially, they're doing a better job of hypnotizing themselves than anyone outside of them could ever possibly do. Now, I imagine that there are at least a few, particularly people who like to feel submissive and like to be controlled, who are like, but I wanna feel controlled. And so here's the other side of that coin, right? Being able to reject suggestions means that you can choose to accept suggestions as deeply as you choose.

[00:03:46] And that, the way I like to say it is you can give a hypnotist as much power as you choose up to the point of not being able to take it back. That's the one thing that is so inherent that you will always have it. But I really encourage people to practice. So the typical thing I do and different of us do this in different ways, but, when I'm working with somebody new or even somebody new to me, so like let's say I'm gonna do a scene, I meet somebody that, let's say is another presenter that's been around a long time that we've known each other and are like, oh, we've never done a scene. We should do a scene.

[00:04:30] I will typically want to do something with them where we set up a game, where the game is, I'm going to use hypnosis to build them towards something. And depending on what we're doing, that could be deep trance. It could be an orgasm, it could be almost anything. But usually I go for something they like. And their job is to cancel the suggestion and bring themselves out before I can get them there.

[00:04:56] Gwyn: Interesting.

[00:04:57] HypnoStory: Because I want them to practice using their agency. Partially because it makes me feel way more comfortable as a top knowing that I've seen them do it, and I've seen what it looks like in them. But also particularly for people who are new, it helps them to build that muscle, right? This is a skill and I wanna make sure they build that skill so that if they're ever in a situation where they're deep in a scene and deep in a state and something goes sideways, and you know, and I hope that that's never, that somebody's intentionally trying to violate somebody's limits, but that is a thing that happens.

[00:05:37] I think the more common thing is that either somebody misunderstands something in a way that violates a limit or just something comes up that was unexpected. I mean, I was teaching a class with Panda and my partner Barra, both deep in trance on stage at an event, and the fire alarm went off. Now I knew I didn't have to do anything.

[00:06:00] They would just bring themselves outta trance and be fine. 'cause I know they have the experience now because it's a class and I wanted to model, I did what I would do, which is say, okay, we're gonna pause all of this, the play suggestions. You're gonna be aware that fire alarm's gone off, you're gonna come outta trance. We're gonna calmly exit the building.

[00:06:18] And we waited for the fire department to come put out the small grease fire that had started on the grill in the kitchen at the hotel, and they let us back into the building. We finished the class. But that's how I want that to always go. Right? And so whatever the unexpected thing is, whether it's somebody being malicious, which is I say I hope will never happen. Uh, but it can.

[00:06:41] You know, this stuff is so flexible if you need to pee. Why not just tell me you need to pee. We'll turn off the hypnotic bondage for a minute. You go do it, you come back, we'll put you right back into the state. And if the person's brain does hypnotic amnesia, and that's the way they like to play, they can even forget that there was ever an interruption until after the scene when they get the memory back and laugh about it.

[00:07:02] I want to know that anybody I'm playing with has that kind of agency. Now, having said that, let me go back to the, you won't do anything in trance that you won't do normally. That's kind of true. I mean, taking into account that if you're feeling like you're in an intense power dynamic, lots of people will do lots of things that they wouldn't do when they're not in an intense power dynamic, even though they're not hypnotized, right?

[00:07:28] So all of that's still possible. And hypnosis is really good at making people wanna do things right. That's why it's so helpful for weight loss, for stopping smoking for other kinds of habit change work, right? That if the hypnotist is skilled at that kind of thing, they may be able to convince you that you want to do something that you didn't want to do.

[00:07:54] And that's part of why, like I would say with any kind of kink scene, you wanna negotiate it first, and then once you start playing, you don't negotiate up, right? It's always fine to say, oh, this place I thought that I wanted to go is not quite working for me. Can we just either take that off the table or keep it below this level of intensity?

[00:08:18] Totally fine. But the example I give 'cause it's sort of the most egregious one, is if you haven't negotiated penetrative sex, no matter how turned on you both are during the scene, don't add it right. It's okay to express, oh, I wish we had negotiated for this thing. I really want it.

[00:08:39] And then you can talk about later when everybody's clearheaded the next day, if that's something you want to put on the table next time. So, it's one of those things that's kind of true, but not true. And that I really do think if you practice using agency, then the risk is relatively low, so long as you're willing to use it. Right?

[00:09:02] And that's a problem I have sometimes seen too, where people feel like, oh, if I have the safe word, then that means something's wrong. And as a dominant particularly, I like to try to normalize using particularly yellow a lot. Which I tend to set up that it's gonna pause whatever the play is, and it's a check-in.

[00:09:23] Please negotiate with people what yellow means, because it means different things to different people. Most people agree that green means I'm really happy and I want more and red in almost all situations, although I've run into some where it isn't. Red means we're gonna stop the scene, right? We need to end the scene.

[00:09:43] But yellow, what I've found is it depends on sort of where you started. If you're mostly an impact bottom yellow usually means either I can't take more intensity than that, or we need to switch areas or switch implements. In rope it often means I can sustain this position for a limited amount of time, but then I'm gonna need to either change positions or come out.

[00:10:08] I recommend negotiating with everybody you play with that yellow means stop and check in. And then if the answer is, I can't take more of that, implement, okay, no problem. If it means, I think I've got five more minutes in this position, fine. But if means that, if it's something that isn't one of those things, that there's an easy way to pause the scene to communicate that.

[00:10:35] Now, if you're somebody when you go into space, tends to get non-verbal, it gets more complicated. But one of the things we can do with hypnosis is often even somebody who tends to get pretty nonverbal in trance, if they yellow, we give them a suggestion that they'll find that it's easy to speak and communicate what it is that they want to share. And often that's all it takes. Some people you need to bring them out of trance, but it's no big deal. You can always drop 'em again. It's very, very flexible.

[00:11:08] Gwyn: Yeah, and I'm really getting the sense that there's a lot of different things that you can do, but also it'll change a lot the more that you know your partners. Both from the top and the bottom perspective. That you can go to vastly different places that you can start at one place and go somewhere completely different, with more practice and more working together, and figuring out what you both like, which is something that I encourage anyone to do in any sort of sensual, sexual, kinky situation. But the awareness of it is something that a lot of people aren't really there for. Whereas it seems like it's kind of front and center here.

[00:11:47] HypnoStory: It really is. And your skill at negotiating becomes important the further you want to go into it. Because when you're dealing with an infinite range of possibilities. if you're negotiating a rope scene, it's pretty easy to say oh, I really like being suspended from a fotomomo. And it doesn't matter if you know what that is. I know a tiny bit about rope, but I know enough to know that's a particular kind of leg tie, and that if you say that to a lot of rope tops, that's gonna give them a good place to start having a conversation.

[00:12:22] I like to do a demo actually, in one of the classes, where it starts with the prompt is Turn me into a cat. That's what they ask for. And so we play this vignette a few different ways where that's the only information we have. And so I turned the person into a playful kitten, and that wasn't what they had in mind. And they asked for, no, I want to be an adult cat. So I turned them into a lap cat. And then they say, but I wanna be more aggressive. And so I turn them into a feral cat and I actually set that up as a thing that they're going to do something, which in this demo story world, would be against my limits. And so I stop them mid thing and say, oh, by the way, tops get to safe word too. 'cause that's important, but it doesn't always look like using a traffic light color because if you're in control of the scene, you may just change the direction.

[00:13:22] And then we say, okay, so what did they really have in mind? And what they really had in mind was being turned into a sexy cat girl. But when the possibilities are infinite, we have to draw out, well, what does it mean that I want to be a puppy? What does it mean that I want to be a doll? Right? Do you want to be like a mannequin that's being posed and dressed, or do you want to be like a ragdoll that's getting thrown around? Or do you want to be a sex doll?

[00:13:51] Like, those are just some easy examples, all of which are very possible. And the way I tend to encourage, and, and in Panda and I teaching we've started talking about a lot, is this idea of thinking about it in terms of qualities. Because often you'll ask somebody what they want and they don't know. So then I'll say, okay, well what do you know about it? Let's talk around it a little bit. What do you wanna feel? What do you wanna experience? And if the answer is, I wanna feel controlled, okay, that's a quality, right? I wanna feel controlled. Okay, great. Can you tell me more about that control? And maybe the answer is, I want to feel like my body is on autopilot and I can't control my movements.

[00:14:44] Or maybe it's, I want to feel like you've changed what I want in this moment, and it's a more mental control kind of thing. Or it may be any number of other things, but we can talk about that, that kind of control. And then you say, okay, what do we know about the control? And somebody might use a word, like, I want it to feel gentle and enveloping. That's very different than, I want it to feel harsh and unyielding. Right. And so now we haven't talked at all about what we're gonna do. But we have a lot of information that often for me as a top would give me an idea of where I might go with that. And that that tool of thinking, okay, we don't need to know everything about what this is at first, what we need to know is some things. 'Cause usually if we look, we do know some things about what we want. Even if we're not sure exactly what that looks like.

[00:15:54] Gwyn: Yeah, I frequently have talked to clients about figuring out mood. even for a very basic, they just wanna have penetrative sex. A lot of times if they're coming at it with two different moods, it's unsatisfying for both of them. Whereas, you know, if someone's had a rough day at work and they wanna blow off some steam, and so they want something intense, whereas the other person is feeling playful, how to negotiate to figure that out

[00:16:19] HypnoStory: Absolutely.

[00:16:20] Gwyn: is so important. So it makes sense that it's even more so with this type of play.

[00:16:28] HypnoStory: Yeah, and I'll add one more tool to that, right, because when you're talking about mood, Often people feel like they can only have one.

[00:16:38] Gwyn: Right.

[00:16:39] HypnoStory: Whereas when we're talking about what are the qualities that we know we want about something, we're open to having as many as show up. And I really like that openness to say okay, so you're looking for control. What other qualities? Oh, playful. I'd like this to have a playful, relaxed kind of feel. Okay, great. So we're gonna do something that maybe is gonna go in a little bit of a playfully bratty direction. You know, Panda and I are both huge brats and like bratting although I'm really funny, I'm in a pretty even switch.

[00:17:20] Both top bottom and dom sub. And when I am topping. Particularly when I'm dominant, I'm very, very bratty, and when I am bottoming, and particularly if I'm submissive, I am not bratty at all. I'm just super squishy and just want to be good. Which is fascinating to me that it's so different.

[00:17:44] Gwyn: Yeah, Yeah. I'm gonna incorporate that into my work with clients. I really like that. Thank you.

[00:17:49] HypnoStory: Yeah. You're welcome.

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[00:19:40] So back when we were talking about you're not gonna do things that you're not comfortable doing or whatever the language was, I was gearing towards, I've run into some less than ethical folks who practice hypnotism. To the point that it made me go, I don't think I wanna play with this 'cause I don't trust what's happening here.

[00:20:05] And then I have a friend who as a very young, very eager submissive, got really messed up by somebody who messed with their mind, in ways that they're still unpacking like 10 years later. How can people be on the lookout for that?

[00:20:27] HypnoStory: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the first thing I'll say is hypnosis is a tool. And in the same way that you can use a wrench to tighten the wheels on your car so that they don't fall off, or you can use it to clobber somebody over the head, right? That doesn't make the wrench good or bad.

[00:20:51] And shitty manipulative people use hypnosis to be shitty and manipulative. Absolutely. Is the hypnosis the problem? No. And most people who are shitty and manipulative are gonna find a way to be shitty and manipulative with whatever happens to be available. And so I actually don't think people necessarily need to be more afraid of hypnosis than any other kink that can go into edge play.

[00:21:24] However, I don't think they need to be less concerned about it either. Right? So like, in some ways I think hypnosis is much safer than a lot of other kinks, right? Because the chances of somebody, having permanent nerve damage from hypnosis is very small. The chances of them having permanent nerve damage from rope, depending on what they're doing and how much skill they have, is notably higher than that.

[00:21:51] However, that's just not where the risks are. So it's kind of the same advice I would always give. Vet people you're gonna play with, it's not a guarantee, but finding a community that values safety, values bottom agency.

[00:22:10] Things I consider huge red flags are somebody saying, oh, I'm a dominant, I'm always dominant. So even in negotiation, you're submissive to me. You know, and what I want matters and what you want doesn't matter, right? I'm now, I'm exaggerating that to an extreme extent. I think most people would see that red flag. But even if it sort of feels like that's the attitude. You know, are they really taking into account what you want and what you need to be okay.

[00:22:43] Not just what you want because it's hot, but what you need to feel supported to feel like you have space to be who you are. How do they respond to a no? Right? If you set a limit and they're constantly looking for ways to work around that limit or challenging it. That to me is a red flag.

[00:23:05] Unless you are in a long-term dynamic and you've specifically asked for that, in which case that's a different thing. You know, that Panda and I actually do some of that because it loves pushing its boundaries but there's years of relationship behind that and deep trust.

[00:23:24] Something I would say to be aware of, and this is a particular risk of hypnosis. Hypnosis requires rapport work, but it also deepens rapport. Often you do a hypno scene with somebody and maybe it's only 20 minutes or a half hour, that can feel way bigger than it is and it can sometimes amplify your feelings for the person. And not because they did anything to do that, but just because this can be a deeply connective thing that can create really intense feelings.

[00:23:58] And sometimes we can easily get confused about the feelings meaning something they don't. Right. That scene was amazing. I felt so submissive. I'm in love with this person. Are you? Or did you just have an amazing experience? I think one of the best ways to know that is to not play for a while.

[00:24:25] So if you do a scene with somebody on a weekend. And you're like totally in love with them afterwards. Maybe don't play with them again for a week or two and see how you feel. Because often what people find, and it's not true for everybody, I mean, don't get me wrong, love it for sight is a thing that can happen. If you wanna be careful, give time to really fully come back to yourself, ground yourself and think about what you want.

[00:24:59] The more intense the experience of the scene, the more likely it is to me that that's a useful thing to do. And also you get to decide what your risk profile is, right? I do relationships very intensely. I am probably not going to choose to spend a week not talking to somebody or limiting it because it just is what it is. But I've also learned that I need to hold my feelings lightly after I play with somebody the first few times. That it may be wonderful and it may be that I really want to do more with them, but I don't have any way to know if that's gonna be an ongoing thing.

[00:25:41] And by the way, this happens for me. It's both a top and a bottom. And I think people talk about it more as a thing bottoms experience. And, at least for me, that's not the case. It's very much both sides.

[00:25:55] I think community can be extremely valuable. Come to our server CONsolation, go to a place like Mindless Abyss, find people who are recognized leaders that maybe you can ask an opinion about. You know, if somebody asks, you know, most of the hypno servers require permission for direct messaging. But if somebody DMs me and says, Hey, can I ask you a question about vetting someone? My answer's always gonna be yes. Unless something really weird is happening. And I'll be really honest with people about what I do or don't know.

[00:26:32] I know what I do. I know Panda does the same thing. I don't necessarily know what other people do, but collect information. If you have the opportunity to talk to somebody that was in a relationship with them and it ended, that can give you a lot of information, but also take it with a grain of salt to an extent.

[00:26:54] If you join Mindless Abyss, their event coordinator, Hash Brown, teaches a really good class about vetting. And they do that fairly regularly. Like I would guess at least once a quarter, at least it has been typically. So I would say those are some suggestions.

[00:27:14] The other big thing I would say is educate yourself about hypnosis, right? I've had people say, oh, it's great that you're offering this 101 class, but I don't want to top. I'm just a submissive. No, please take the class or get a book or, learn, take classes, educate yourself.

[00:27:35] I think some people are afraid that it's gonna like destroy the magic if they know the mechanism. And the thing that's really cool about hypnosis is I have not found a single situation where that's the case. There's this thing called a pattern interrupt induction, which is basically that you're doing something that's generally sudden, that makes the person's brain record scratch.

[00:28:03] It's that moment of A flashbulb goes off in your face, for instance, and it's like, wait, what happened? Where am I? In that moment where your brain is trying to figure out which end is up because it got so thoroughly interrupted. If you've established rapport and created expectation that you're gonna do something that leads them to trance, the brain will take one very small, very simple suggestion like drop or sleep, and they'll go down into trance.

[00:28:35] Now there's a lot more to that, and I'm not trying to explain how to do it, that's way more time than we have here. The thing I want to say is with this type of induction, you would think it would only work on someone once, right? Because if they recognize, oh, they're, doing the Cerbone Butterfly, which is the name of one of the common ones, they know what's coming. They don't know the exact moment it's coming, and that's enough to create the effect.

[00:29:03] And expectation is extremely powerful. There is a wonderful, wonderful educator in the hypno kink world. Their scene name is Sleeping Girl. And in one of their books talk about how a lot of the hypnosis training that's outside the Hypno Kink community is talking about trying to use hypnotic language in ways that are covert.

[00:29:26] That you're doing something that somebody doesn't know you're doing something. Well, listen, we all learn to recognize patterns. Humans are creatures of pattern recognition. So most people who hang around the hypnosis community very long start to recognize some of the cadence, some of the patterns of conversational hypnosis.

[00:29:49] And what's funny is for us it almost always makes it work better. Because you know what's happening and then you feel it working a little bit and that creates expectation of it working more. And the fact that it's happening is hot or exciting. I think that in general for most people, the more you learn about both sides, we sometimes joke about saying both sides of the pocket watch. You know, or both sides of the slash. The more it's gonna help you whether you want a top or bottom. And even if you identify as a dominant top and you never bottom or submit, or even if you identify as a submissive bottom, and you just never switch. I really encourage people, at least in a class setting or a practice setting, try switching once or twice at least.

[00:30:40] If you're a hypnotist, see what it's like to go into trance. If you are mostly a hypnotee a person who likes to be hypnotized, trance someone. It will make your experience on your preferred side of the slash better and deeper because you have an idea of the other side. Join a community, get educated. And here's the other thing, if you start to get educated and somebody starts using those sneaky language patterns while they're negotiating with you, that's a big red flag. It's not something I can tell you how to identify easily. It's something that comes with experience but the more you know, and the more you practice that agency we talked about, then the more you're going to be able to figure out who to trust and keep yourself safe If you were wrong.

[00:31:35] Gwyn: Yeah. So to be clear, I am a mom. I have many small people in my life. None of them are small anymore, but younger humans. And so perhaps this is coming from that perspective, but I would say to people who are concerned about this, that if you are still. Developing your brain in particular, like don't jump into this at 17, 18, 19. That if you do wanna play with these types of tools, you really, really, really wanna know the person that you're playing with. And be very mindful because elders can be evil assholes too.

[00:32:20] HypnoStory: And let me also say, so can presenters.

[00:32:24] Gwyn: Yes.

[00:32:24] HypnoStory: Don't assume that just because somebody is on a con's presenter list that they're safe to play with. And in fact, if you are brand new and a presenter is, approaching you for play, I would be very skeptical about whether they have ulterior motives. That different people have different standards about it.

[00:32:48] But I try to be very careful because I know that if somebody's come to my class, there is some potential of implied power dynamic. And I think that that's something that it's important for everybody to be aware of.

[00:33:02] Gwyn: Yeah. And that piece is really, really, I, I, I wish I could underline it and, hyper score it. Because I know for a fact that there have been many presenters who have done extremely unethical things.

[00:33:15] HypnoStory: Absolutely. And there were a few years ago, a couple of them in the hypno community that took a lot of work for people to get them excluded, way more than it should have.

[00:33:27] Gwyn: And that's a shame.

[00:33:28] HypnoStory: It's a real shame. It's a real shame. And I will say the hypno community has gotten way better about it. That caused a wave of change that I think is really good. The other side of that though is that can lead in a cancel culture direction, which I also don't think is useful because if the standard is no one is ever allowed to make a mistake and if they make a mistake they should be banned for life, then we will never have anyone with any experience to do anything because all of us will make mistakes eventually, no matter how hard we try not to.

[00:34:04] And I think that sometimes when groups look for simple, easy ways of making those decisions, that they tend to go to one extreme or the other, either not getting rid of people that they really needed to or getting rid of people who really should have been given space in the community. And there's a lot of room for argument about what the right approach is. I don't think there's a clear answer. I think it's hard and I think it's important to recognize that it's hard.

[00:34:35] Gwyn: Yeah, we live in such a, we want it to be yes or no, or black or white. And the fact of the matter is, is our lives are full of nuance and life is full of nuance. And and restorative possibilities can happen if given the option for a lot of people. Certainly not everybody there are indeed just jerks out there and you know, they do need to go somewhere else, but for the most part, most people are not that

[00:35:03] HypnoStory: I agree

[00:35:03] Gwyn: mo, most of us want to be good

[00:35:06] HypnoStory: Right, right.

[00:35:08] Gwyn: So thank you for that, for adding that piece of nuance

[00:35:11] HypnoStory: And And I will also say, by the way, in terms of what you mentioned, this is an adult activity. And one can argue about whether the line for when it's okay to do that legally should be 18. And I, I think that could be a really interesting argument. But in America anyway, it doesn't matter. That is the line.

[00:35:33] If you are under 18, you shouldn't be listening to this. And when you do, you put at risk everybody who is trying to create these communities, if you try to sneak in and you're gonna get banned and then not let back in when you are 18 in most cases. I am not gonna make a value judgment about at what point somebody's ready because I think ready varies.

[00:35:56] I probably wasn't ready really to go into this kind of stuff until I was 30. But that was me. And I have known people who are in their early twenties that are really great members of the community who really are ready to be there. And it's sort of not my place to judge, but if you are very young, and even if that's 18, 19 where it is legal, take it slowly. Take it a little slower than you want to.

[00:36:35] Gwyn: A lot slower than you want to. Lemme just, let's just be real because, uh, yeah. Kids, right? So for my kids it was always, look, I know you're not going to wait, but if you could please try to wait until you're 25 ish when your brain has developed more, that would be fantastic. That being said, I'm here. I'm your mom.

[00:36:57] I got you. You know, like if you do things like please don't go do them out in the world. Let's, talking about sex. Um, Also, that's a whole nother story, but you know, like drugs or alcohol or that sort of thing. Like let's just be really safe about these sorts of things because that is part of being a teenager and young twenties, is you want to start experimenting with these things, but your brain's just not really fully there yet.

[00:37:24] HypnoStory: And, I will also say, that since you mentioned drugs and alcohol, sometimes people like to mix those things with sex and kink things. Please don't, at least at first. If you're in a really well-established relationship and you know how you respond to whatever substance you're using and your partner knows how you respond to whatever substance you're using, and the two of you decide together that, that's within your risk profile, I absolutely am not gonna say that that's something people shouldn't do.

[00:38:00] And it definitely is something people do do. But understand that it's increasing risk. So I really would encourage people to tread very carefully. And to not start there. And like I know that there's this tendency to mix this idea of liquid courage and dating. And I wish we could change that about our culture, not just in the kink world, but just in general.

[00:38:28] Because how many people end up consenting to things when they're really not clearheaded enough to do that? And here's the real secret to me, I get that it can be hard because there can be these anxieties that come up, but if you take the time to work through it and to express it to the potential person that you're thinking about doing things with, first of all, you're gonna learn a lot about them, right?

[00:38:56] Are they supportive of that? And being like, oh, okay. There's no hurry. We don't have to do anything if you don't want to. That's a really good sign. And if they're like pushing you, that's a really bad sign. If you negotiate and connect when you're not altered, you're probably gonna have a better time playing because you're both playing with your full faculties.

[00:39:22] Oh, by the way, when you get far enough into hypnosis, if you wanna feel drunk, hypnotic suggestions can absolutely make you feel drunk in a way that can also get turned off if you need to talk about something. And you can invent hypnotic drugs. So, a friend of ours who's a presenter in the community, Lea Lure, teaches a hypnotic drug play class where she'll take things like put some, a little bit of water in a little clear potion bottle with a couple drops of food coloring and some luster dust, which is a non-toxic ingestible glitter that they use for cake decorating.

[00:40:01] And you end up with this amazing thing that depending on the story you're telling is a magic potion or is a drug, or is a whatever. And you can make something that's like, oh, one drop of this is going to get you as drunk as X number of shots of whatever, except that there won't be any hangover. You know, like you can choose the effects you wanna have and not have the ones you don't.

[00:40:29] Gwyn: No damage to your liver

[00:40:31] HypnoStory: And no damage to your liver and Right, exactly.

[00:40:35] Gwyn: Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. I could talk with you all day. This is fantastic. But so tell folks, where they can find out more, HypnoStory.

[00:40:43] HypnoStory: Yeah. So, all of our stuff is linked somewhere on our website, which is pandastory.love. There's no.com or.net. It's just panda story, all one word.love. And you can put a www on the beginning if you want. If try to pull it up and it doesn't work, try it with the www, sometimes that fixes it.

[00:41:06] Our one-on-one class is there. There are also links there to where to find us. I'm also hypno story on FetLife. If you're on FetLife. And you're welcome to message me there. Just let me know some context that, you know, you heard the podcast or whatever, so I have some idea of who you are.

[00:41:23] And I'm also happy to give you, do you do show notes? Yeah, I can give you links to the Discord server that will actually be an invite, to our server that people can click on. I will say the server is 18 plus everybody has to age verify by sending us a picture of their, ID uh, you can redact everything except the picture and the birthdate. You know, we're trying to give as much privacy as we can and still, keep the community safe.

[00:41:53] Gwyn: That's really exciting and this is really delightful. I have truly, truly enjoyed this conversation. And

[00:42:00] HypnoStory: this a pleasure.

[00:42:03] Gwyn: If you would like to learn more about Hypnostory or Panda, please tune in next time where I will be chatting with Panda. If you would like to learn more about hypnokink or erotic hypnosis in general, please visit pandastory.love or you can join their discord server, Consolation, and you can find links for those on the show notes. You can find the show notes in the app that you are listening to me right now or by going to the website what excites us. When you are done reading those show notes, please take a moment or two to rate and review this podcast in all the places. It helps so much and visit our sponsors catch up on any episodes you might have missed.

[00:42:51] All of that is available at whatexcitesus.com. Are you enjoying the snippets of my life that I'm putting on the end? Not getting a lot of feedback on that. I would really like to know because I don't wanna be boring you. That's not fun for me. If you are interested in telling me what you think, you can also do that at whatexcitesus.com.

[00:43:12] What Excites Us? is produced, edited, and hosted by me, I'm Gwyn Isaacs. Our podcast host is Tickle. Life. All the music I use is under the Creative Commons Attribution License. The opening song is The Vendetta by Steven Kartenberg, and this is Quando by Julius H.

This week, my dear friend, Anna, and her partner, Leon, came to visit, and I got to bring them to Sex Ed a Go Go with Dirty Lola, which was so much fun.

[00:43:45] And later in the week, we went to the Museum of Sex, where they got married, via vending machine. And Anna didn't even know it. Fun in the big city. Thanks for listening. You rock.