Most of us have probably heard about hypnosis: this curious phenomenon where people are made to follow instructions, sometimes without even being aware of doing so. But does it really exist? Since prehistoric times, there has been documentation of the (omit) theories and beliefs related to hypnotism, so WINGS went on the search for a unique expert to tell us all about it. Franz Anton Mesmer (1735-1815) and James Braid (1795-1860) couldn’t come to the phone right now. Not to worry, we’ve got you the next best (but much sexier!) thing: HairyHypnotist. He is here to tell us all about his exciting hypnotherapy and erotic hypnosis practice. When I snap my fingers, read on for more… *SNAP*
Could you start us off by explaining the idea behind hypnotherapy and how it works?
“Hypnotherapy is the use of hypnosis to make changes in your life, usually for beneficial purposes. It aids with setting or breaking habits and can help you create a change that perhaps you had trouble making by yourself. The most well-known cases are using hypnosis to quit smoking, reduce stress or lose weight. Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of work around helping people exercise more; especially with the coronavirus restrictions, building motivation to stay physically active is essential! I’ve helped people come to grips with particular issues in their personal life – such as concerns around being gay or being kinky and not knowing how to deal with that. I’ve helped people understand themselves better and assisted them in achieving a greater sense of sympathy and compassion towards themselves. You’d be surprised how many people are very willing to be sympathetic and provide excuses to other people when things go astray. Yet, as soon as they’re in that situation themselves, they get incredibly depressed and super anxious.”
The other, perhaps more prominent service you offer, is erotic hypnosis. Describe what that is and how that differs from hypnotherapy.
“By contrast, erotic hypnosis is much less serious and much more fun than hypnotherapy. The fundamental idea behind erotic hypnosis is that the largest sexual organ in your body is not your dick, but your brain! All sensations and experiences that you have in your life – all go through your brain. This means any pleasure, arousal, curiosity and so on – primarily happens in your mind. You can use hypnosis as a way to tap into those experiences and bring them into your head at a time when you want them there – perhaps to heighten the intensity of that experience. You can also use hypnosis to play around with different kinks or fetishes that would be impossible to do otherwise. I’ve actually heard hypnosis described as the chocolate sauce of the kink world – it goes well with everything, and it’s incredible just by itself too!”
Whilst ‘chocolate sauce’ is certainly some terminology we all understand, explain some of the other processes that go into hypnosis. What can people expect from a session with you?
“When you’re traveling into hypnosis that is known as a ‘trance’ state; your mind goes to a place where it’s acutely focused on a particular thought and open to new ideas. Trance is a state most people go in and out of every day, multiple times a day. When someone is in a trance, and the hypnotist tells them to do something or feel a certain way – the technical term for that is a ‘suggestion’, as opposed to a command. Hypnosis is not mind-control as many people believe. You’re only in a state of heightened suggestibility and much more likely to earnestly consider a suggestion and potentially accept it. Still, you’re continually able to brush that suggestion off. The third term is a ‘trigger’. Triggers come into play when the hypnotist has set up a certain ’cause and effect’ association in the mind of the subject (the client). The cause would be a specific stimulus, and the effect would be them responding in a certain way. The simplest and most ordinarily used trigger when talking about erotic hypnosis is the ‘pleasure trigger’. When I say or do a specific thing, the subject will feel an intense experience of pleasure, often almost like a miniature orgasm coursing through their body. It might sound like it’s magical or science fiction – but it’s real, and it absolutely works! Triggers can be anything from merely buying popcorn when you smell it at the movie theatre, to feeling compelled to take off all your clothes when you hear my fingers snap, and suddenly feeling extremely horny.”
Of the two quite different types of practice mentioned above, which is the most sought after amongst your clients?
“A lot of the people I work with (not all of them) end up wanting a combination of both: the erotic hypnosis and the hypnotherapy. Maybe they book the hypnosis, just looking for a good time. Perhaps they want to play around with being super submissive or set some triggers that their boyfriend can use at a later point. But then sometimes they’ll start talking with me and realize there’s some deeper-rooted issue that they want to address. Maybe there’s something about sex that they’ve been having problems with or want to do better. Sometimes they want to get better at being a Dom or a Sub. Other times they wish to grow more confident and feel happier with their body or feel more relaxed being naked. It could likewise be that they want to learn how to open their ass more so they can get fucked or fisted without pain. Most therapists maintain a professional boundary when it comes to sex; I believe that, as long as everyone involved provides informed consent outside of hypnosis, there’s nothing wrong with engaging with my clients sexually. And whilst it’s a massive turn-on for me to fuck someone whilst in a trance state, in a situation like this it’s not about my pleasure. I take it slowly and use it as an opportunity to teach them and guide them to be more relaxed. It can be hot and sensual, but it can also be a way of helping someone to untangle something complex about their sex life. That’s what I meant earlier: the sessions often lie in this intriguing intersection. People end up looking for something more akin to the hypnotherapy, and it just so happens that the topic is regularly of a sexual or erotic nature.”
Let’s chat about some of the portrayals of hypnotism in media and pop culture, and how you got into this fetish yourself. Where did it all originate?
“I can’t recall where my interest came from precisely. I’ve been curious about hypnosis for about as long as I can remember. The only thing that sticks out in my mind is the Disney movie: The Jungle Book. There is a very memorable moment where Kaa, the snake, uses his eyes to hypnotize Mowgli, right before he’s about to get eaten. I can recollect that scene very vividly, and I don’t know if that’s what got me into it, but it certainly piqued my curiosity. That movie is a common ‘launching off point’ for a lot of guys who are into this fetish but not the only one. Sometimes in Batman and Robin comics, a supervillain would tie them up and hypnotize them. Seeing these heroes mentally forced to do things against their will, was a real turn on for some of us. The most recent example in popular media would be The Incredibles 2 movie which came out two years ago. There’s a substantial storyline focus on hypnosis as a method of control, and I am positive that it’s creating a whole new generation of ‘Hypno-kinksters’ as we speak!”
You’ve been interested in hypnotism for as long as you can remember. When did you begin practicing it, and how did that develop?
“I’ve been fascinated by hypnosis for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t start practicing it until I went off to college. Once I had my own space and privacy, I felt a lot more freedom to start learning everything I could about it all. I read lots of books in the library, and I spoke with other hypnotists, both in-person and online. I even found this website (that unfortunately no longer exists) called hypnotising.org, which was like a social network for anyone who was either practicing or merely interested in hypnotism. That said: as soon as you logged in and saw the kinds of people that were there and the kinds of discussions they were having, it became very apparent that the primary target audience was gay men engaged in using hypnotism as a fetish. I filled a lot of hours on that website, talked to countless people, and wasn’t hesitant to ask a million and one questions! I started playing around with being hypnotized, both in the ‘subject’ role and the ‘tist’ role (as it’s called in the scene).
Which one did you most prefer?
“I sincerely enjoyed both, but I quickly found out how hard it is to find reliable and trustworthy hypnotists. There are a lot of predatory guys out there and guys who say they know what they’re doing when in fact they do not! Some others sadly don’t care about what the subject is going through at all – they’re doing it to get their rocks off, and that’s it. I’ve heard stories of hypnotists like that, who will leave when they’re satisfied without bringing the subject out of their trance, which can be disorienting at best and can cause psychological harm at worst.
Fortunately, I discovered that I have a knack for the ‘tist’ role: the very first time I attempted it with someone who had volunteered from that website, it worked quite well! And no one was more surprised than yours truly. It was exhilarating and horny, but I was continuously very aware of the fact that I was playing with someone else’s head. That demands a lot of responsibility, just like the dominant in any BDSM scene. Being one of the few respectful and dependable ‘tists’ out there meant that my subjects would keep coming back to me time and time again. They’d tell their friends, who told their friends, and very soon I had a rising demand that became increasingly difficult to handle.”
Up until then, you had been performing these sessions free-of-charge as a hobby. How did it become the profession that it is for you today?
“Well, after four years of spending so much of my time giving unpaid sessions, I had to stop. My college coursework was suffering, as were my relationships with real-life people. I didn’t have the time to focus on all the other things that I wanted in life. Cutting back on it did work, but choosing who I admitted based on whoever I found more attractive or even whoever requested first, felt arbitrary. That’s when and why I decided to get officially certified and utilize the money to filter out the people who weren’t thoroughly invested in working with me. I discovered by putting a financial ‘barrier’ in place, I could dramatically reduce the volume of requests I was getting. That meant I could work with the people who were much more engaged and motivated because they grasped the value of my time and their own. I’m proud to say I’ve got clients now who I’ve been working on-and-off with for years now. I’ve helped them, not only with the erotic stuff but with concerns in their personal life and/or their inner psyche as well.”
Finally, how much do you charge, and where can our readers find out more about the work you do and the services you offer?
“I do both online and in-person sessions. Currently, I charge €100/hour for online sessions and €130/hour for in-person sessions – a little higher, just because it’s logistically more challenging. Most of my sessions are one hour long. Working with someone in person is generally the best option; it’s more fun, more immersive, and has the most options available for what we can do together. However, hypnosis also works surprisingly well over video chat. Although there are some limitations in terms of the triggers I can set, and the things I can do, auditory and visual triggers work incredibly well, and I’ve done some excellent sessions remotely. Some people also feel more comfortable starting out with a remote session, especially if they feel uncomfortable going into the home of someone they don’t already know.
I’ve set up a new website that is part of the Mastodon network: check HypnoGuys.com and look up @HairyHypnotist there as well! You can follow me there and read about some of the things I’ve done with hypnosis. Of course, to preserve the privacy of my clients, I never include identifying details. But many of them have created their own accounts on HypnoGuys.com, and I hope to turn it into a vibrant community where people can talk about their hypnosis-related interests, ask questions, and get answers. It’s also a way to keep me honest: people heavily rely on referrals all the time in the BDSM community, and this is no different. I hope it can also serve as a valuable resource for other Hypno-kinksters who are trying to find their footing.
Lastly, while I do charge for hypnosis sessions, I do not charge for conversation and answering questions. I remember how hard it was for me to find reliable information when I first got started with hypnosis, and I want to make it easier for others. There’s no obligation to book a session with me; you’re utterly welcome just to chat and ask me about hypnosis. I always like making new friends!”
If you’d like to schedule a session with him, you can find him as “HairyHypnotist” on many social networks. Hypnotising.org no longer exists, but he’s on HypnosisForGuys.com, which is its “spiritual successor”. You can also find him on
Skype @HairyHypnotist
Discord: HairyHypnotist#8664
email: HairyHypnotist@gmail.com
Twitter: @Hairy_Hypnotist
and of course on Mastodon: @HairyHypnotist@mastodon.hypnoguys.com
Go listen to the hairy hypnotist on:
https://kinkyboyspodcast.com/podcast/episode-54-hypno-2/
