Something about hypnosis stage shows has always squicked me, and I've never been able to put my finger on it. I've never wanted to participate in one, and I tend to dislike watching them.
Part of it, I've figured, is because your average stage show does nothing sexy except the initial induction. The tricks and games all tend to have an element of public humiliation to them, and that sort of thing is neither entertaining nor amusing to me. Just my personal preference; more power to people who do like it.
But the other part of it hit me the other day, the root of why I will not, under any circumstances, participate in a traditional hypnosis stage show: there's no negotiation beforehand. When you get up and volunteer to participate, you are absolutely trusting that the hypnotist won't do anything that's a hard limit for you, without having discussed your limits (and their abilities and comfort zones) beforehand.
I was doing some negotiation with a 'tist, once, and he said "you seem to be very keen to know exactly what's going to happen when I put you under." and I kind of shrugged, at the time, like "yeah, well, I'm weird, fucking tell me what's going to happen already." But later, replaying the negotiation in my head, I could have said "yeah, because I can't consent to things I don't know about!" Because I can't. (BDSM being what it is, other people are indubitably cool with it, I am not; at all or ever. No surprises, plox!)
So that's what I don't like about your average stage show: I, a participant, don't know what's going to happen, and can't properly consent to it, so it just doesn't happen for me.
It occurs to me, though, that now that I know that, it opens up some other doors. My opposition to stage shows isn't about other people watching; it's about consent. I could probably totally do a properly-negotiated demo-type thing. Hmm!
No comments:
Post a Comment