Hypnokink Community and Legacy
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about legacy - about who influenced me, and what influence I’ve had over those who will come after me in our little community. In part, this is due to a verse from an SCA-themed song that goes:
“Now as I gather armor, bits and pieces here and there
I think about example, how you act and what you dare
‘Cause you never know who’s watching or how far the story goes
And where’re that Lady is I hope she knows”
And it’s all a song about how the singer didn’t feel there was a place for her in that particular type of SCA combat until she saw another Lady doing it.
This song resonates with me, both as a SCAdian who was inspired to pick up a rapier by other ladies who fenced, but also when I look at where the hypnokink community was when I joined, and why I stayed.
You might not know it to look now, but when I first joined the hypnokink community, especially the con-going hypnokink community, it was OVERWHELMINGLY straight male Dominants/hypnotists and female submissives/hypnotees. The first con I went to had like … 5 people at the queer roundtable. And one of them was someone I know to be a straight man who just happened to be planning to run a con (MEEHU 1) later that year. There were very few openly switchy humans in that group, as I recall, and only two gals I can remember who were openly primarily hypnotists - LeeAllure and LadyRuetha.
And, of course, much of the fiction at that time, at least that I could find, was … not very friendly to young Daja. Again, it defaulted to male-dominant, often in very mean-spirited ways that treated the lady involved as an object who had no meaningful way to consent. If that had been all I could find, I likely would never have stayed in the community - I likely would have never felt *safe* here.
But then I found stories written by Jukebox (@jukeboxemcsa) and Wiseguy (@hypnoobiwan). Jukebox, as he does now, always wrote a variety of style of stories, but he had some extremely sweet stories that made me *want* to be here, to have a partner who could do that sort of play, if … maybe in different ways. I will never forget the way I felt the first time I read “Closer to the Heart.” There’s a line from that story I’ve always tried to hold to, as a “am I doing this for the right reason?” check - “Everything we do comes from love.” No matter how contentious things got, in the future, having that mental check, the “am I doing this for pride? Or for love of my community?” moment? It helped me figure out what the right path for me was in some very difficult spaces.
And then he published “Just Can’t Get Enough,” which was the first moment I felt that someone who was more interested in the HYPNOSIS part of erotic hypnosis could belong as much as anyone. The story wasn’t about an ace character, but I resonated so much with the way Suzie loved hypnosis. There … wasn’t a lot about asexuality in the community at that time - or, really, many places. I was still just figuring out that I wasn’t *broken* for not experiencing attraction the way my friends and classmates did. And that’s where I was when I read this story for the first time. I felt *seen* in a way I couldn’t articulate then, but I can now that I understand being ace better.
And Wiseguy’s stories, such clear moments of connection between *humans* added to that. Those two made me feel like maybe I could be safe in this community. Without them, I’d have run away before being around the hypnokink community for even a year. I learned so much from him, too, on how to be a hypnotist. I don’t have words for how much he’s taught me over the years.
But I never would have made a home in the hypnokink community without LadyR (@ladyruetha) as a role model. See, as many of you might know, I’m a highly switchy human, and a particular blend of ace and pan. If I’d felt I had to deny half of who I was? No matter how safe this community felt, no matter how much I wanted this kink? I would have walked away. It mattered too much to me to be able to express all of who I was as I figured out those parts of me. But I could never pull off the … distant… persona of a lot of the online pro-dommes cultivated. LadyR though always came off as sweet and warm and caring of all the folk around her.
Even today, I think of what I’ve seen of her as a hypnotist, and how her Chosen speak of her, and have that as a goal any time I’m in Dom!Daja mode. Not necessarily the exact style of play, of course, but that level of care and ensuring my partners know how much I care for them.
She encouraged me to teach my first class, an uncon class at my first NEEHU, where I and another gal talked about switching, specifically as gals and the particular challenges that can bring sometimes. In that space of time, I actually *believed* that I had value to add to the community.
That belief, along with people pointing out that my rough and dirty “hey, can you avoid…” negotiation when demoing for classes was changing the approach to demos and consent slowly, encouraged me to teach more, and, more importantly, to ask Hypnomaestro and Isis if they needed any help at MEEHU 1.
Well, turns out that they did. And by the end of MEEHU 1, I was asked to be on the ConCom for MEEHU 2 - and had been doing a lot of ConCom type work in the process, including stepping in part way through the con for a ConCom member who had a personal crisis that pulled him away from con.. That was summer of 2014. I stayed on the Chicago Con ConCom through the end of the last Entranced in 2018.
In that time, I watched our community change DRASTICALLY. Our consent standards drastically improved (to my view, anyway), and cons started banning folk for severe enough consent violations. We started having consent teams, and consent policies and required training. Switching has become *a norm* more than something weird. Our community is SO much more queer - and trans folk are around and visible and loved here, now.
It’s a series of changes I’m happy to have seen and to help shepard in, to some extent, for all I’ve been far from perfect over the years. But any change I helped cause? Would never have happened in that way if it wasn’t for those three people who made me feel like this community could be a home for me.
I hope, in the future, there are folk who have improved our community in similar ways who can trace their welcome here back to things I’ve done, the way I can look at Jukebox, Wiseguy, and LadyR and acknowledge I wouldn’t be here without their influence.
That’s a legacy I could be proud of.
I can honestly say that without folks like @daja-the-hypnokitten , I never would have felt like I would have a place in the hypno community. It's people like her and @tennfan2 that made me feel super comfortable learning and experimenting and trying and failing. So I just want to say for the record. I'm part of her legacy.
